Postpartum Progress

I've been reading about post-partum depression recently. i certainly
experienced after Garcon's birth. I fought it on my own, but if it
were to happen again, I'd get help. There's a great blog called
Postpartum Progress http://postpartumprogress.typepad.com/weblog/ that
talks about this issue and offers useful resources. Recently, this
list of symptoms was posted as part of a reader's experience. I hope
it's helpful to you or someone you know.

Some of the symptoms of the postpartum experience were:

Physical

• Insomnia

• Jittery, shaky

• No appetite

• Weight loss

• Low milk supply

• Adrenalin surging constantly

• "Fight or flight" mode all the time

Mental

• Inability to turn off my mommy-brain, which was running at
1000 RPM. Like an engine revving way too high in the lowest gear

• Loud clamoring noise in my head at all times, especially at
night when everyone else was asleep

• Uncontrollable intrusive thoughts of harm coming to my baby
(from earthquakes, wild animals, disease, car accidents, intruders,
electrocution, drowning, choking, SIDS, etc, etc, etc)

• Difficulty concentrating or focusing

• mental fogginess, sluggishness

• Nightmares

Emotional

• Anxiety about everything to do with my baby

• Terrible, awful apprehension when the baby cried

• Extreme discomfort when I was separated from my baby

• Feeling certain that I was a terrible mother

• Fear of harm coming to my baby

• Fear of dying and my baby being left motherless

• Exhausting mood swings between the elation and joy of loving
my child and despair and anxiety over my perceived inability to care
properly for her

• Anger and resentment towards my husband

• Guilt, guilt, and more guilt

• Dread

• Rage

• Heartfelt desire to live in a secluded cave with only me and my baby

Behavioral

• Crying fits

• Micro-managing everything

• Not allowing anyone else to care for my baby

• Not taking any breaks

• Unable to relax

• Raging at my husband, up to and including threatening divorce

• Obsessive coping behaviors, such as counting to 500 while
soothing my crying baby

• Clinging inflexibly to routines

• Insisting that things to do with the baby be done EXACTLY SO
and freaking out when it wasn't

Please reach out for help if you think that you need it. And if you
think you MIGHT need it, too.

Heparin Recall, But No Quaid

Any parent of infants paid attention last November when Dennis Quaid's
twins were infused with a near lethal drug dose at Cedars-Sinai
Hospital in LA.
The thousand-fold dose of Heparin, a blood thinner, occurred when a
NICU worker used the wrong vial marked 10000 mL instead of 10 mL.

Adverse drug events, which can occur at any hospital, aren't supposed
to happen. To Dennis Quaid. At a hospital providing care to the stars.
(Tom Cruise / Katie Holmes, Brooke Shields, and many others have
delivered babies here, for example.)

Now, Heparin distributor Baxter is voluntarily recalling nine lots of Heparin in various dosages.

I find it very curious that the release makes no mention of the
specific "adverse event" that likely prompted the recall. The Quaids
had named deep-pocketed Baxter in a lawsuit. Surely this recall is a
direct result.

Thoughts?

Out to lunch

I'm always amazed at how out of touch my mother is with my reality.
Truly, it's staggering.

She stayed home until I was three, and then went back to work on a
part-time basis. When I was twelve, she started a full-time job. The
net result is that she never worked FT while her children were small.
She has literally no idea what it's like to put in a 9 hour day at the
office, and then come home, try to switch gears and work to get things in
order at night. Feed baby immediately, then straight into bath,
bedtime routine and then have downtime at 8pm. Then start laundry, or
worse, go back to work on unfinished office projects.

I just spoke with her, and she asked if I'd [be dropping everything
to] come over to my grandma's tonight, for dinner with a visiting
aunt. She seemed surprised when I said I didn't know; it's really
short notice. The truth is, I'd have to go home, get snacks, drinks,
pajamas, load up baby and husband, and drive over to Grandma's. She
lives 30 minutes away, and I don't get home until 6:15, so it's
unlikely that we'd get there before 6:45 at the earliest. We'd have to
eat immediately (will there be something kid-friendly?), and then
leave immediately if baby's going to get to bed by 7:30. It's
stressful, and doesn't leave a lot of time to actually visit with the
visiting aunt.

She noticed a tone in my voice (shocker), and asked how the week was going.

"It's a grind," I replied.

"Why, what's going on? Is everyone ok?" she asked.

"Mom, every week is a grind."

It never occurs to her.

Confession: i envy stay-at-home moms. It's true. I want their life. I
want to be relaxed enough to have a house in order, and start dinner
at a reasonable hour. I want to wake up thinking about what' I'll do
that day with my family, instead of panicking about the massive office
workload hanging over my head. It's my first thought, every day. I
wake up most days (even Sat/Sun sometimes) worried about work.

However, I don't know if I could do it. I deeply love my son, but
would I miss the pace of my worklife, the adult interaction? Also, I
enjoy our comfortable financial situation. We can always have a little
more at the end of the month, but now for the most part we are able to
save to 401ks, buy what we need and occasionally splurge. My missing
salary would add a considerable amount of financial stress to our
situation and the truth is, I obsess about money. And honestly,
working is easier than being at home. I realized that when I went back
to work. It was infinitely easier to be at the office in the comfy
deskchair (even tired and postpartum) than to be at home, caring for a
baby, cooking, doing laundry (and tired/postpartum).

Still, I daydream about having the time to build relationships and
take better, more thoughtful care of my family and my home. To be
there when my son's bus arrives (ok, in three years). To help take
grandparents to the doctor. I wish there was a happy medium...