And......We're Back!

So perspective or no, it still takes a lot more than that to combat depression, and I should have known better. Now, I must point out that this depression is much different from the major depression I suffered back in 1997/1998. In that depression I was hopeless, desperate and had skewed judgement. I was contemplating the unthinkable and it was not just me who was going to suffer. It was only love of a child that rescued me from doing the worst wrong. This current depression is more like what I had as a teenager, where I didn't know what the hell was going on most of the time - had no idea why I felt that way and how to cope with it. Which leads me to believe it is largely hormonal. At any rate, if it continues post-partum, I have an excellent support group at the ready and will take full advantage of it. When I was a teen in the 80's, depression was still looked upon with disdain, especially if your life appeared happy and had no obvious tragedies in it. I could not voice how I felt even to my parents, although years later my mother commented that she knew I was depressed then. Why didn't she get me help? Either she didn't know how, or perhaps it was something to do with the fact that she had three little boys under the age of four and my twin sister to deal with, who had raging PMS and was much more....shall we say....vocal than me?

But that is in the past. I am having happy periods during the day and I cling to those in order to deflect the miserable moments. It does not help to be continuously exhausted and somewhat frazzled from the rigors of working (mostly) full-time, parenting two children on either end of the spectrum (puberty and terrible twos), and trying to be a wife and homemaker. I am falling down miserably on the latter two. I am sure my husband doesn't even know who I am anymore.

What's more, I am coming to look upon the birth as some sort of saving grace, that it will make everything "all better", when really I know that while I no doubt will be deliriously happy, that I will now be dealing with the demands of a newborn and all the guilt and doubts that brings. And what if....the birth doesn't go the way I am hoping upon hoping it will? I shudder to think of the fallout from that. I try really hard to have perspective and to prepare myself for all of the different angles of birth and the inevitable happy outcome (a wonderful baby to hold), but my hopeful side will always prevail and pull me back to the fantasy birth.

Which brings me to the fact that I should probably leave work, soon. I have been getting way too many Braxton Hicks contractions, some of them even feeling like the real thing and this is concerning me a great deal. I still have over eight weeks to go. I cannot have this baby one nanosecond earlier than he is supposed to come because then that also most likely will ruin any hope of the birth I anticipate. Have you noticed this is all about me?

Ahhhh.....thank goodness for therapy.