I opted to stay home (I've never been a big holiday celebrator to start with) and send DH on his un-merry little way. The thought of the noise from all the people: nephews running around, stressed MIL yelling to get people to help her, a SIL who feels like she can be heard only by talking in shrill loud voices. Overwhelming. Add in food aversions (as in anything that is edible makes me want to vomit at the thought of it) and sitting in front of a huge table PACKED with different foods. Ugh. I literally feel the vomit crawling up my throat right now.
So I stayed home and watched tv and kept throwing my poor-kitty-who-just-wants-love-but-cant-have-it-because-he-has-softballs-of-poo-hanging-off-his-ass from the couch. And I was excruciatingly depressed. Anxiety has taken its toll on me. I spent months sitting on the couch barely able to drive to the grocery store because I was afraid of having an anxiety attack. I went to the hospital because I had an extreme panic attack that wouldn't stop. A month after that and I was able to volunteer at a cat shelter weekly and help adopt cats. I started interning at an animal hospital because I was working toward become a vet tech. I even got a job interview to work as a Vet Assistant, which would have been my dream. I was going out to happy hours with girls I had never met to make friends. My life was coming together. Fast forward to being pregnant.
I can't be at the cat shelter because they use open litter boxes everywhere for their cats. I can't intern at the hospital because of cleaning chemicals, unknowns of what animals may do and radiation from x-rays. I couldn't take the job for the same reasons. The women I were meeting were lovely, but not interested in having kids yet or ready for that stage of their life. So that puts me back at square one. On the couch and isolated. I'm too sick to want to go out and don't see a point in finishing my vet assistant certification since I can't do that job pregnant and I'd never make enough money to combat daycare costs. Which means I am looking at a life as a stay at home mom. And that would be fine if I had a life outside of the couch. If I had friends besides my husband. Where I am right now is not okay with me and where I feel like I am going to end up is also not okay with me. But it is really hard to find ways to make changes when you have anxiety, an impending kid and no money.
I asked my doctor if I can go back on anti-anxiety/depression medications until I can figure out how to be an anxious mother instead of just an anxious woman. But realistically, I am not sure it will help. I'd like to start pulling myself together soon and depression medications take 6 weeks to even start helping and by then hopefully I won't be so sad. Isolation is not easy.
What also isn't easy? Being pregnant with the invention of the internet. It is fantastic that I can talk to Mom's across the world due the same month as me, yes. In fact that is currently my only social outlet, I don't know what I would do without that. But doctors have gotten too much knowledge and all of that gets put onto the internet. And I'm pregnant for the first time with no friends who have ever been pregnant. So things are happening and you have no idea if its good pain or bad pain or good or bad anything and doctors tell you not to worry but don't inform you. So you hear about people having terrible experiences and get the worst case information. Doctors test you for a thousand different genetic possibilities of how your kid can suffer or die within the first few years of its life. There is no way a pregnancy can be enjoyable in this age; there is a problem with too much knowledge in the wrong hands. And no hands - the internet - is the wrong hands.
For now I am sleeping a lot, trying not to let my hormones make me struggle more than I should and trying to figure out a new life. Because the one I was planning can't co-exist with a child.
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