Read our Introduction to #RoadToTubalAt30 Series First here.

October 9, 2016. The scare of my life came.

Andrew and I had already decided that we wouldn’t be having any more kids.  After the ups and downs over the last year and a half, we couldn’t go through anymore stress to our relationship. We wanted a happy home with happy kids who were raised by both parents.  We knew another child would likely ruin that from happening.

For a week prior to this date, I was cramping and nauseous. Originally, I didn’t think anything about it. I was 16 months postpartum and still hadn’t gotten my period yet, so it had to be coming back and that’s why I was experiencing these feelings. After a week though, just for giggles, I decided I’d take a pregnancy test.  I had one left in the house from the time I became pregnant with the baby. I peed on the stick and walked away.  I knew it was going to be negative.  I was breastfeeding two kids, I was taking my birth control religiously, and I hadn’t had my period yet (yes, I know periods aren’t an indication of ovulation…but still). 

I walked back in after the designated time period to a positive test. I immediately text my best friend this….

This wasn’t a “take a guess and let me know if you see a faint line” type of pregnancy test. This was a big, fat, digital YES.  Andrew had the same reaction when I told him. Holy shit, what happened. I immediately welled up with huge crocodile tears.  I remember telling him, “I can’t go through this again.” I knew we could not have another child, despite my never-ending love for my girls.

I went out and bought two more tests.  I took another one that evening and another the next morning.

Both said negative.

Now, we were really confused.  How could I start processing these emotions if I didn’t even know? After the negative test that morning, I waited until my doctor’s office opened and called for an appointment.  Luckily, they could get me in the same day. The test in the office was again, negative.  The doctor told me it was likely a false positive, even though that’s insanely rare, especially with a digital test.  She recommended that I wait a week, and test again.

While I was there, I asked if we could talk about having a tubal done. I kid you not, my doctor literally bust out laughing when I said this. She said that was definitely an option, but gave me information about various IUDs as an alternative she wanted me to consider.

On November 2, I ended up going off my birth control for the reasons I discussed in our last post.  Within a few days of going off my birth control pills, I could tell I was feeling like a better person.  I spent the next few days thoroughly researching all of my options, asking for opinions, and just doing my due diligence.  Ultimately, I decided that a getting my tubes tied was the best option for my family.  I read and heard personal stories about negative side effects of the various IUDs, including unexpected pregnancies and that wasn’t something I was willing to risk. On November 7, I called to schedule for my tubal ligation. I was thinking in my head they would schedule it for sometime in the beginning of 2017.

The nurse came back on the line, “Can you do the day after Thanksgiving? The 25th?”

Me: “Umm…(hesitation)..sure.”

Me in head: “Holy crap.  That’s in 18 days.”

We scheduled my pre-op appointment for November 14th. The next 7 days were an extreme mixed bag of emotions.

Stay tuned…..

Over the next few weeks I’m going to be writing about our decision for me to undergo a tubal ligation at 30 on Mondays and Wednesdays (2 times a week). You can follow along with #RoadtoTubalat30 

If you missed any of the previous posts, you can read the entire series:

• No More Babies – Series Introduction
• After the first baby
• Second pregnancy – What the hell was I thinking?
• All hell broke loose
• The last 18 months
• The Scare
• Worries, Doubts and Fears about a tubal ligation
• It happened – recovery and thoughts after the procedure

I hope you’ll follow along!  Feel free to tweet us at @wereparents or e-mail us at info@wereparentsblog.com if there’s any specific questions that you hope we answer over the next few posts.

Read our Introduction to #RoadToTubalAt30 Series First here.

I’m just going to get right to the point. The last 18 months have been a rocky up and down nightmare. We have had amazing moments, we have had celebrations, but we’ve had tormenting lows as well. I debated sharing this post for just as long. Ultimately, as a blogger though, my goal is to let other families, especially mothers, with this series, know they aren’t alone. While so often, we don’t talk about these feelings, it’s insanely common for them to be the reality of many moms. 

I remember driving to my 6 week postpartum appointment.  I told my practitioner how I’d been feeling, I answered the survey they give. She said it all sounded normal and to call back if anything changed. Looking back on this moment, I wish I would have spoken up. I walked to the car, buckled the girls into their seats, and just cried. I knew something was wrong, I knew that this was more than “baby blues”, but I didn’t speak up louder.

Nothing changed, but nothing got better. 

For the next four and a half months I was on, what felt like, a roller coaster. I had these amazing moments with my kids and with Andrew, but when it wasn’t amazing, it was terrible. There was no in between. I yelled constantly. Everything annoyed me. I felt let a horrible mom. The foggy feelings would leave me so helpless I didn’t want to leave the house and the mood swings left me questioning my ability to raise my girls in a stable home, as well as hurt my relationship.

I was paranoid of everything which left me terrified to do anything.

I remember standing, making sure the garage door closed all the way because I was scared if I didn’t watch it go all the way down that someone would slide under the door before it closed. These were the types of thoughts I had. Every time, I would tell myself how crazy I was being, but I couldn’t shake it. These episodes would last weeks at a time and effect so much of my personal and professional life. Around 6 months postpartum, I couldn’t take it anymore. It wasn’t normal. I had to put my personal feelings aside and seek help.

I was diagnosed that day with Postpartum Depression and Anxiety. 

That still seems so weird to say. I wasn’t supposed to have this.  I wasn’t supposed to be affected. Our life was (is) great. We have two healthy kids, a beautiful house we’re remodeling, a thriving business, etc. It just went to show me that this disease can affect anyone. I went on medication that day and within a week I was feeling like a better person. My mood swings, all but disappeared.  Don’t get me wrong, I still got upset with my kids, I still yelled occassionally, but for once I felt like a normal mom instead of a monster. Many of my fears went away that day. My feelings were validated and my children weren’t taken from me. I firmly believe I didn’t speak up sooner because I was terrified someone was going to take my kids.

Unfortunately, for the next year, I would still go on to have these foggy episodes, which I later learned were severe anxiety attacks, rendering me almost helpless for weeks at a time. Shortly after learning this, a friend told me that she was experiencing similar feelings and her midwife told to stop taking her birth control. We were on the same birth control, so when I asked her some odd weeks later how she was feeling and she told me much better, I knew it was something I at least had to try.  I had already decided by this point that we wouldn’t be having any more children because I couldn’t go through a similiar experience with now a newborn AND two other kids. I stopped by birth control, but still currently taking my medication for the PPD. It’s been a little over 2 months now and I haven’t had any anxiety attacks since then. Our lives have been even more normal now than ever before and I’ve been so grateful to feel a sense of normalcy returning.

I’ve questioned now if I wasn’t on the same birth control after having both of our girls, if our lives would have been different and I would have wanted to try one more time for another baby.

Stay tuned…..

Over the next few weeks I’m going to be writing about our decision for me to undergo a tubal ligation at 30 on Mondays and Wednesdays (2 times a week). You can follow along with #RoadtoTubalat30 

If you missed any of the previous posts, you can read the entire series:

• No More Babies – Series Introduction
• After the first baby
• Second pregnancy – What the hell was I thinking?
• All hell broke loose
• The last 18 months
• The Scare
• Worries, Doubts and Fears about a tubal ligation
• It happened – recovery and thoughts after the procedure

I hope you’ll follow along!  Feel free to tweet us at @wereparents or e-mail us at info@wereparentsblog.com if there’s any specific questions that you hope we answer over the next few posts.

Read our Introduction to #RoadToTubalAt30 Series First here.

**This post was actually the inspiration for this entire series…It was written 2 1/2 weeks after having our second child.  I have been terrified of hitting publish on this piece since then. Well, until today.**

We left the hospital about 30 hours after I gave birth. The first week home went great. Andrew had to work the weekend after the first five days off with us and I cried about being alone with our girls but all was ok. I woke up one day the following week though and told him everything just seemed off. I couldn’t explain really what was going on at the time. I was glad he was home another week because I just couldn’t wrap my head around these feelings. 

Foggyness. Almost like a déjà vu feeling. Dizziness. Confusion. Those are the three feelings I experienced most often. I was terrified to be left alone with my girls. But I only told him. He just kept telling me my feelings were normal. That I was strong and would be fine. I would get through this.

Sunday came. It was our last day home together. I woke up at 7am and decided to try to treat most of the day as if he wasn’t here so I could see how I did. The girls and I got up and I went downstairs to get breakfast for Serenity and I. I made sure to make myself a bagel and a smoothie to try to help with nutrition.

The feelings continued.

I nursed the girls. Played. And started laundry as I normally would. Around 8:30am Andrew came down and made himself breakfast. I hugged him and tears just rolled down my face. I felt like a stranger in my own home. He again just said it would all be ok.

I started to clean. Sweeping the floor, cleaning the counters. What I really wanted to do was hide in a corner with the lights off and just cry. Maybe a really good cry was what I needed. But I knew it wasn’t. I had cried so many times over the past few days I knew it wouldn’t help anything.

It was time to nurse the baby again. I went through the actions but never really felt present. As she unlatched I began to burp her.  The world just kept spinning and before I knew it I snapped back into reality to realize that the baby had thrown up all over me.

It was terrifying.

What if she gagged while throwing up and I wasn’t coherent enough to realize what just happened. I was terrified that my child was going to die in my hands because I couldn’t snap out of this fog. I was constantly checking on her when she made or didn’t make the tiniest noise because I was scared to miss something and cause her harm. I constantly asked Andrew if he had Serenity because I didn’t remember if she had gone upstairs with him or if I was supposed to be watching her.

It was time to go to the store.

Typically, I try to meal plan but just decided that I would figure it out as the week went along with what we had at home and just get what was on the list for now. I remember looking out the window on the way there. The world was zooming past me and I had no concentration on the world at hand. When we got there I placed the baby in the carrier and Andrew got Serenity out. She was screaming. She wanted to walk but Andrew wanted her in the cart. Her cries were muffled by my racing thoughts throughout the 40 minutes or so in the store. Occasionally, trying to console her, but knowing nothing I did would really calm her down. Just praying we would be able to get out of the store quickly before anyone I knew noticed us. Up and down each aisle looking at all the items but not really putting anything inside the cart. Grabbing a few things here and there in no particular rhyme or reason and just praying I grabbed enough for us to survive the week.

We got home and I took the girls upstairs for a nap. It was the one thing I seemed to be able to do right. Get us to sleep at the right time…together. My mind raced. I couldn’t fall asleep today myself.

I listened to the soft breaths each of my girls took separately. At least I was keeping them alive today. But, how was I going to survive alone with both girls with no help. Starting so soon. Only one more sleep tonight before I was all alone tomorrow. I couldn’t stop the tears from falling down my face. I was going to mess something up. I was going to fail at this miserably. One of them would get hurt–burned–suffer some how.

I googled my symptoms. Foggyness was the one I focused on because it seemed like if I could get out of the fog that everything else would fall into place. Article after article came back as it being a sign of PPD. Consult my doctor immediately. But I wasn’t depressed. I didn’t want to be labeled. I didn’t want medication. My mom was on medication for depression since I was a child and still on it and didn’t seem happy most days.  I didn’t want to be that mom while on medication. What was the point? It clearly didn’t help. Plus– I didn’t feel depressed. Just foggy. I knew I couldn’t bring up PPD to Andrew because I had when Serenity was about 6 months old and the conversation went south quickly. He simply didn’t understand how I could be depressed with so much positive things happening in our life. Eventually I feel like I got passed it on my own with some minor set backs here and there.

But this was different. Then, I felt truly depressed. Sad. Miserable. But not now. I was happy. Happy to have my girls and my life. It was just the motions of life not making sense.

Did I say something to someone? Now or later? Should I just keep trucking along praying that one day everything would just fall back into place? Was I risking my daughters’ lives if I did that?

So many “what ifs”. Though I feel like I’ve always loved a what if life experience. But these what ifs were different. What if one of them drowned in the tub? What if I forgot one of them somewhere? What if we went outside and I forgot one of them out there? What if I thought one of them was somewhere in the house but weren’t and got hurt doing something else because I was paying attention?

I finally understood why some of those crazy news stories happened with parents of young children. I had no thoughts of harming my girls, but what if they did get hurt…

I asked Andrew to listen for the girls while I went and grabbed a shower. I took a shower everyday but I didn’t do much else. I barely remembered to put deodorant on and I knew I hadn’t brushed my hair since the day after we got home from the hospital. But the shower had to help right. I could sit down and let the water run over me and it would wash away all the thoughts. All the craziness. And then no one would have to know.

Stay tuned…..

Over the next few weeks I’m going to be writing about our decision for me to undergo a tubal ligation at 30 on Mondays and Wednesdays (2 times a week). You can follow along with #RoadtoTubalat30 

If you missed any of the previous posts, you can read the entire series:

• No More Babies – Series Introduction
• After the first baby
• Second pregnancy – What the hell was I thinking?
• All hell broke loose
• The last 18 months
• The Scare
• Worries, Doubts and Fears about a tubal ligation
• It happened – recovery and thoughts after the procedure

I hope you’ll follow along!  Feel free to tweet us at @wereparents or e-mail us at info@wereparentsblog.com if there’s any specific questions that you hope we answer over the next few posts.