Ch-ch-ch-changes! It's time to Mom Up

So. . . I'm pregnant.

I've been meaning to tell you for awhile, but I keep freaking out. I guess the miscarriage in June made me a little superstitious. I had just told a few friends and then--whammo--spotting, bleeding, sadness, etc. So every time I went to write this post I got nervous and decided to just wait. I told a few people because they asked me point blank or because I felt like I had to explain some bizarre behavior (like suddenly deciding to put my house on the market or getting too woozy and needing to hang out for an hour instead of just picking up my kid from the play date and leaving), but mostly I've just been obsessing about it when I'm on the phone with my sister. And when I can get my husband to sit still and let me whine about my morning sickness.

I'm only 9 weeks along. (Read: My chance for a miscarriage is still around 40%!) I haven't seen my doctor yet. (Read: have not actually confirmed existence of baby. Could be a blighted ovum. Or a chemical pregnancy. Or an, ahem, hysterical pregnancy--isn't that right up my alley!) I'm sick and tired. (Read: those are good signs that this is a viable pregnancy, but they don't really induce me to blog.)

I'm owning up to it now since I hear I was outted at a ward party and because well, this random telling-people-sometimes-thing isn't working for me anymore. This pregnancy has raised a lot of issues for me and I find myself wanting to blog about it but being too afraid of what that would mean. So it's time I man up, or mom up, as the case may be.

I've met with my psychiatrist and per my pregnancy plan, it was time to wean off my medicine. Since I was on the smallest dose available that meant stop taking it. As near as I can tell I haven't suffered any real physical symptoms. Everyone on the internet who takes Cymbalta and then quits complains of "brain zaps." Haven't had any of those. My sweatiness has actually decreased since I quit the medicine and I appreciate that.

As for mood symptoms, well, the jury is still out. Don't get me wrong. I've been moody. Actually, MOODY is probably more appropriate, but there's no real way of knowing if it's the pregnancy or the lack of SNRI or the horrible weather we've been having or what. I feel like my intrusive thoughts are back. . . and that's been a little bothersome. They're mostly pretty quiet, though. Surprising but quiet. Prayer--and music, any music with words--has been helping a lot with those. I've been having trouble sleeping, too. Falling asleep is the hardest thing. My brain just goes nuts when I lay down, spinning out all sorts of disaster scenarios. But I'm working on a mantra to calm it down. I'm kind of scared for what the next eight-ish months hold. Perinatal (and postpartum) depression really is a crapshoot. A lot of the time it feels like there's now way to win. Not taking my medicine is supposedly better for the tummy baby, but not if I'm crazy. But if I'm not really crazy, then being on the medicine is a pretty big gamble.

I've been taking my prenatals and some supplemental fish oil and vitamin B because those two have helped a lot of other depressed people going off their meds. But the vitamin B turns my urine electric lemon yellow (you wanted to know that, right?) and since it's water soluble the recommended dose for depressed people is really high--which doesn't seem safe since there's a bun in the oven. The fish oil is fine going down, but every now and again it gives me fish burps, which don't help with the nausea. And the recommended dose for depressed folk is again very high--which is absolutely NOT SAFE when pregnant because of fish oil's anticoagulant properties. I need to talk with my OB about it, but I don't see her until the end of the month.

So basically I'm a slightly fatter, very moody version of myself who is going sometimes-crazy trying to get her house ready to sell--while mentally crossing my fingers for good luck this time around. I hate being on the wrong end of statistics!

Anyway, I hope you all are in just as exciting places in your lives :) Let's make a deal: I'll keep my fingers crossed for you and you keep my fingers crossed for me and then we can all relax. . . After all, it's time to mom up and do this.