Ok, I feel like being totally and brutally honest today. None of that no-blogging-about-it-because-it's-harsh /depressing /stupid /lame.
Nope... totally honest. Like I should be.
I don't know what's wrong with me.
Now I'll tell you right up, this post may have a little TMI for some. This post is not meant for the male reader (although that probably just makes you more curious, right? Maybe not? Hopefully not, because you won't understand much of it anyway). Plus, this may raise more questions than answers.
First of all, I've been told I've been dealing with post partum depression. I don't know for sure if that is what is going on or not. It's just something I've been told. Yeah, I've been cranky, PMS-ing and such, and yes I've been having difficulty sleeping. Lots of difficulty. Maybe it is PPD. But I don't want to take pills for it.
I was recently put on Sandoz-Mirtazapine... 7.5mg dose/day. That's half a pill, folks. Half. We cut every single one of those already tiny things into half. I was to take them in the evening before bed to help me sleep as they cause drowsiness. What I wasn't told is that they also cause dizziness, increase in appetite, weight gain, and a host of other things. When I started, they were fine. I slept. Well. So well, I didn't actually wake during the night. I was grateful. I took them for 4 weeks. Then I had another doctors appointment and described some other things I was experiencing, like sudden sugar cravings, weight gain, super sensitive teeth (doctor didn't know about that one as the pill wasn't ever reported to have that effect), and this fatigue that plagued me throughout the day. It was terrible. He gave me another prescription for another pill to take in the mornings to combat the side effects of pill #1.
I stopped taking those pills.
Immediately I had trouble sleeping again. I tried taking one or two pills since then, but noticed that I was less functional during the day after my 'good night's sleep' with the pill than after no sleep without one, so I have stopped taking them altogether. It's been about 3 weeks.
Not only that, but I'm wondering if I was pregnant. Was.
Please note, I do not know for sure. I never took a test (I'm too cheap to buy one, and I only go in to get one done at the clinic when I'm two weeks over... and I started my last cycle the day before I decided I would go in). Yes, I was practically 2 weeks late. I've always been exact... I can predict my cycle to the letter. Yes, I'm still nursing, which is why I wanted to wait a while. I don't know how regular I'll be right now. The lateness is not why I thought I was pregnant.
I've only started my cycle again in June... early June. I started weaning Baby M shortly thereafter. These might be contributing to my confusion. Anyway, on to why I thought I was pregnant.
I was having all the symptoms I had in early pregnancy with Baby M (and my previous one a bit as well). I wanted to cry at everything, I was dropping things all the time (I get super klutzy), my stomach felt heavy, so did my breasts (and they were still being emptied... this was not a milk heavy, but different), I wanted to eat ALL the time (again, I thought initially this was from that pill I was taking), I was dizzy (another pill effect, right?), tired tired tired to the point where I almost fell asleep on the floor with Baby M climbing over my torso... and that's when it hit me. Climbing over my stomach, it felt fuller than normal. Like there was something there. I realized I was getting up to go to the bathroom every night for a few weeks, I was late, I was having strange dreams about buying cribs and crib sets at flea markets, birthing... (I initially thought the dreams had to do with my sister-in-law being ready to pop at any moment, and they may well have). I was scared at first. I didn't want to be pregnant yet. I tried to ignore it but it kept niggling. And at the same time I felt I couldn't be.
Last week Tuesday, I felt my stomach and that odd feeling I had way back was there. I was sure. Wednesday I started to bleed. I cried. I must have been wrong. I mourned the loss of a baby that only existed in my mind that day...
The symptoms persisted.
My bleeding has ended. I've noticed some strange things throughout (maybe some TMI?). Not clots, per say, but some grayish matter. Weird things. Things that weren't there in my last period. They couldn't be from my previous pregnancy, could they? Wouldn't they have exited by now? I've still been seeing strangeness, even afterwards. Many of my symptoms have since slowed (but they did with my pregnancies too... which is why I'm weirded out by it all). I'm still having birthing dreams, and I wake up during the night with this feeling in my stomach... like I've been having contractions as my stomach feels all tightened up. I've considered that I may have been pregnant and miscarried again, but I have no idea. I don't feel like I've miscarried... so maybe I was never pregnant... but still. What is going on?
I'd like to blame these pills for all my problems (sounds fun, right?), and truth is, they may have been partly to blame. I started my first cycle (since Baby M's birth) the day after I took the first pill... that very night. The timing is weird. They say the effects of this pill on depression start only after 2 weeks... around the time a conception
would have taken place. I didn't see a change in my mood swings really, or any positive change except sleep, and a sudden urge to want to sleep the day away... at 2 weeks. Two weeks later I quit, and expected to see some withdrawal, more mood swings, etc. Hopefully a drop in appetite (which I'm only experiencing now...), and another cycle, which waited a lot longer. Another thing I wouldn't have been surprised to see. But... add in the nighttime bathroom visits, the clumsiness, the dreams...
Am I crazy?
I've been feeling really down lately. Many of you may have noticed. It's been a combination of things... lack of sleep being major, but I've been taking everything way too personally, getting down about things that really shouldn't bother me in the first place, and then beating myself up over getting down about those things BECAUSE they shouldn't bother me, going crazy with another project to let myself unwind (yes... projects help me unwind... weird, I know), then not finishing that project because I didn't plan it properly and don't have what I need to finish, getting upset yet again... and the cycle continues.
My goodness, but I'm all over the place.
Anyway, my question is...
Is this normal? Was I pregnant or not? Did I miscarry again? Or, is this all because of some stupid anti-depressant causing so much more trouble than the $5 I paid for it? Why am I still feeling crampy, even after my period is over?
The easy answer... blame the pill. The truth.... only God knows.