Now you know.

This post is going to be hard to write, maybe even hard to read by some people. I just need to get it out, and clear the air about some things. I’ve wanted to write this for a while, I just haven’t been able to, that and I needed time to sort out my thoughts and what I wanted to say.

I’ll start with saying that I had a very difficult pregnancy. At 4 weeks along I started getting sick. Not just throwing up a few times in the morning, but throwing up all day every day with only a few minutes to recover in between. At my very first appointment with my ob/gyn I was sent across the street to the hospital to be re-hydrated.

My OB started me on ginger ale and vitamin B. That was a joke. Eventually it went to more serious drugs; I don’t really remember how many at this point.

I wound up quitting my job, because I couldn’t handle being there and having to run to the bathroom constantly. No one there understood that there was nothing I could do. Most of the people tried to be helpful by offering their advice for nausea relief. They just didn’t understand that I had tried everything.

In August of 2003 I went down to the bay, to the house that James and I were married at. I stayed the weekend with my parents and friends of theirs (the people that own the house). This was the weekend that it became really bad. On Sunday morning I had a cup of decaf coffee. Not 10 minutes later it was out of my system. I proceeded to be sick the rest of the day. On the way home from the bay my parents stopped at the grocery store and I waited in the car. It was so severe that I couldn’t find a plastic bag quick enough. I had to walk into the store, track down my parents and have them buy paper towels and carpet cleaner. I thought it would eventually stop and I could just sleep. Around 5:30 on Monday morning, my chest burning and my body numb, I told James we had to go to the hospital.

We got in right away, the ER was empty. They set me up on a bed and gave me a tiny little tray “just in case” I think I needed a few. I was in the hospital for 4 days. I had to have 13 bags of fluids pumped into me. When I went back to my OB a few days later, I had lost 15 pounds, in about 2 weeks. He finally diagnosed me with Hyperemesis Gravidarum. He said that there was a drug that I could take but it was 100 dollars a pill and he wasn’t sure if my insurance covered it. We obviously couldn’t afford it without the insurance, but we looked into it anyway. Luckily it was covered by my insurance, and as soon as I started taking it, it stopped my throwing up. Well, it stopped my throwing up all day every day. I still got sick about twice a day, and the nausea never went away.

Obviously this is a lot for one person to deal with. I never wanted to get out of bed. I wished I had never become pregnant. I had horrible thoughts that I don’t even want to spell out for you. I cut everyone out of my life, because no one understood. I spent 75% of my days crying. I had screaming fights with my brother and wound up kicking him out of my house and not speaking to him for months.

There was an incident with a friend (probably my best friend at the time) that annoyed me. The “depression” or whatever you want to call it caused me to just stop speaking to her too. She started calling James at work. Looking back on it, it seems normal. If your best friend was sick, in and out of the hospital and you couldn’t get a hold of them, you would probably do everything in your power to make sure everything was okay. I see this now, but at the time, I was pissed. I didn’t think it was right to be calling my husband at work. I guess she eventually caught on to the fact that I wasn’t talking to her and gave up.

I was alone. Yes, I had James, but I pushed him farther away that anyone, without actually losing him.

Fast forward to March 23^rd. My water broke, I went to the hospital and they induced me. 36 hours later I had to have an emergency c-section. It wasn’t exactly the easy labor that I had pictured. I honestly thought that labor would be a breeze. I thought I had been through so much already that there was no way there could be more.

That’s when the true depression started. Any people that I had continued to talk to were abandoned. I tried to put on a happy face, I think it fooled some, but James was my personal punching bag. I said the most horrible things to him. I told him to leave on a daily basis. When he was promoted and transferred to Jersey, I was devastated. I had to leave my parents. I literally never left the house, I was scared to go anywhere with Sydney unless James was with me. I made my way back to Dover every chance I got. I went to a food Show in Philly with my parents and cried the whole way home. I did not want to leave them, and there was no way for me to express the foggy box I was in.

The worst it ever got was right after Christmas. My brother in law was in town, and he witnessed one of my complete breakdowns. It is absolutely the most embarrassing moment of my life. He hasn’t made a big deal out of it, but our relationship changed after that.

When we found out that we could move back home I was ecstatic. That was when everything changed. I guess I made the decision to stop. I know I should have seen the doctor, but when I called to set up the appointment and the nurse told me that it was just PMS (I guess because Sydney was 11 months old already) I was too embarrassed to go. I thought I was just blowing it all out of proportion. I thought they were going to tell me to take mi*dol and get over myself. So I decided to change on my own.

We came home and I started obsessively calling my brother in law. For some reason that was the most important relationship to fix. My progress seemed to rely on whether or not Tom and I were friends again. I don’t think he’ll ever know how much he changed my life. Gradually I started calling people and going out shopping. I think things are a lot better now. I still have a ways to go. There are days that I still can’t bring myself to do anything but sit at the computer, and there are times when I just can’t walk out the front door. There are relationships that are still rocky and some that are still non-existent, but I know I’m getting there.

I’m sorry for anyone that I’ve hurt over the past two years, and I’m sorry to Sydney for not being the mother you deserved for so long. I’m sorry to James for treating you like you weren’t the most important thing in the world to me.

Also, I’m sorry Hollie. I’m sorry I never gave you an explanation. I’m sorry I made you feel like you didn’t matter. I’m sorry I treated you like you didn’t matter. I miss your friendship, and I have no ill feelings towards you. I hope you can find a way to forgive me too. Because…some day when I’ve lost my sheep I hope to find him under an overpass that deer fall from and Jesus vandalized.