Honesty time: PPD update.

Since I discovered I was pregnant with our second child, I haven’t really dipped my toe into the postpartum depression discussion that I swam so freely in after the birth of our dear Seabass.  Maybe I’ve been feeling more private about it.  Or maybe I’ve felt more hopeful, and didn’t want to jinx it.

Or maybe I’m just pregnant, exhausted, and spending all of my free time drooling on the couch.

The truth is, when I don’t share what’s going on with me, I feel like I lose touch with reality.  So here’s the update, friends.

I was pretty nervous about being on antidepressants through this pregnancy.  Of course, I did the stupid, more-harm-than-good Google search on “citalopram while pregnant” and learned all manner of horrible things that I was inflicting on my growing baby: lungs with holes in them, autism, emaciation, heart murmers, you name it.

So I took these concerns to my OB, who told me it was important that I stay with my meds until the third trimester, by which time I should have weaned off of them.  The goal is not to create a dependency in the child, and to ensure that she’s as vibrant and vigorous at birth as possible.

In the meantime, I’ve had my thyroid checked a number of times by a prescribing naturopath in whom I very much trust.  She specializes in thyroid dysfunction – which runs in my family – and is extremely conservative about treatments during pregnancy.  She put me on something called Thyrosine, which has been VERY beneficial.  In fact, the best I’ve felt since I had Seabass was while I was on both the antidepressants and Thyrosine.  I thought I had everything figured out.

But then I started to wean off the antidepressants in anticipation of my third trimester.  Last week, I took only two doses of citalopram and doubled my Thyrosine.  While it’s not nearly as gloomy around here as it was before I went on antidepressants, it’s gloomy enough to make me wonder: Am I just tired because I’m pregnant?  Do I cry every day just because I’m hormonal?  Am I depressed again because my thyroid went AWOL?  Or – my least favorite option – AM I JUST A DEPRESSED PERSON BY NATURE?

So here I am, at week 26, the official beginning of Trimester Three, just hanging in there.  My weight gain is higher this time around (22 lbs) so I have a hard time moving around without grunting.  My back hurts like the Dickens and my patience with my gorgeous two-year-old Seabass often runs quite thin.

But my baby girl is protected, and that is a weight off my shoulders.  A confidante recently told me how much she respected that I was off the antidepressants for the sake of the baby.  I told her I was sure to screw the child up over the course of her childhood, so it’s only fair that I give her some peace in utero.

And yes, the citalopram prescription is ready and waiting for the day after I give birth.