Life Update

Hello!

Long time, no update, friends.

My last real blog, at least posted on the website, was on November 7th, 2022…. So. Almost 9 months ago.

Absolutely no real life update since then, great checking in, bye!!

Just kidding, since my last update, our whole world has changed. If you don’t follow me elsewhere, here is the update short and sweet, and then we’ll get into the nitty gritty.

-          November 2022: I weaned off of my anti-psychotic medicine after 18 months. It was absolutely miserable, but we made it work. The doctor recommended I do it over 3 months and I said “hold my beer” and weaned off of Geodon in less than 6 weeks…. (do not do this, please)

-          December 2022: our 3rd cycle of clomid (fertility treatment) WORKED. Sort of. It worked in the sense that I FINALLY ovulated after 2 years of unexplained secondary infertility. However, it failed in the sense that I did not get pregnant. Also, I broke my ankle (again) (no, not the one I broke in august, the other one… WHILE in the office… HELLLOOO workman’s comp(kidding, a joke, it is not fun times, lots of paperwork) and would later find out I need surgery to repair the ligaments ruptured in the incident.

-          January 2023: Super busy month from what I remember. Our 4th round of clomid is successful, I ovulate, we do not conceive. We make the executive decision to stop fertility treatments temporarily and explore other options some time later in the spring….

Ok… here is where it gets interesting.

-          February 4th, 2023: our house catches fire and burns to the ground. No really. It is gone gone.

-          February 9th, 2023: my sweet 13 year old dog, Luke, can not overcome the stress of the fire, and has to be put down.

-          Sometime at the end of February 2023: I realize I have not had a period yet, and to my absolute SHOCK and SURPRISE, we find out we have naturally conceived after 2 years of grueling infertility.

So, nitty gritty.

I’ll just make this also short and sweet, here are the answers to our most frequently asked questions:

-          No, we didn’t recover anything in the house. We lost 99% of our belongings, including my car

-          We stayed at a friends AirBNB for a week, then a hotel for a little bit, then back the BNB until the end of March.

-          At the end of March, my parents bought a rental property for us, we moved in at the beginning of April. That is where we will stay until the house is rebuilt.

-          Fire started in the garage, spread quickly to some flammables, exploded a propane tank and some gas tanks… fueled by a south wind with the garage door open, the house didn’t really stand a chance.

-          Probably a power strip? Maybe a battery tender? Maybe just the outlet? It was unclear. Definitely electrical though.

-          Yes. We were insured.

-          Yes, we intend on rebuilding on our property, the contractor expects the process to take about a year.

-          If I could go back in time and save one thing, it would be the Christmas ornaments

-          The remnants of the house were demolished at the beginning of May. Its now just a large sandpit with a gravel driveway. Even with no house on the lot, we call it the “broken house” we visit a lot because, well, when your house is on fire and you have to run naked (no, really, I was not clothed) to your neighbors house for shelter and childcare… you get bonded in an unbreakable way, we are family now.

Okay. Lets fast forward to now, July 2023.

Currently, I am 25 weeks along, with a baby GIRL. If I am being completely honest, this season of life has been so incredibly hard.

I’m tired. I’m overwhelmed. I’m STRUGGLING.

In absolutely every aspect of my life, I am treading water.

AT HOME: we have what we need. we’ve replaced most of our *essentials* … you know, like a car, beds, couches, cookware, stuff you use everyday. EXCEPT, anything that requires much of a design choice. Reese and I are too overwhelmed to pull the trigger on those things like Plates/Bowls/Cups – nope. Silverware? Nope. Home Décor????? Absolutely not. So we *live* here, but it doesn’t feel much like ~home~ here…. As far as day to day life, we get through… I don’t cook as much as I used to. Its hard for the boys to live in town (I married a caveman and gave birth to a nudist). I finally caved and hired a housekeeper to help me keep up with maintenance.

AT WORK: after the fire my work gave me 30 days off, it was SUCH a blessing. With reese returning to work after one week, I was the one having to meet with adjusters, settle with insurance, all the chores and bs that came with it. After that month I returned to work and genuinely, the trauma had completely wiped my brain. I struggled to catch up, but did eventually, and then we got slammed with an unexpected busy season, and also pregnancy brain and being generally overwhelmed and well… lets just say my boss and I have not been seeing eye to eye. Without getting into a ton of detail, its been a rough go since I returned.

MENTALLY:

Right after the fire, I was gutted. Deeply depressed. I thought we would never recover. I’d lost my first baby, my dog Luke, who had been by myside since i was 15. I cried daily. A lot of the time 3-4x daily. At one point I asked my husband, “at what point do I stop crying everyday?” and he responded, “well, I did for about 2 weeks, and based off our emotional baselines, that puts you around a month and a half or 2.” …… which really made me laugh at the time, and I sort of agreed with him, but he was wrong.

Shortly after this conversation, I realized I was a few days late… Reese was convinced I was pregnant. I was convinced I was not meant to be pregnant ever again, and that the fire was proof of that (it didn’t make sense, but move on, it was a faith crisis).

After about a week of having “symptoms” here and there, I finally bought a couple tests. I woke up one morning, took a test, placed it upside down on the counter and left to get ridge ready for school. I forgot about the stupid test. I come back to the bathroom 20 minutes later after making ridge breakfast, and as I’m brushing my teeth I remember it. I casually flipped it over, absolutely sure it was going to be another negative and clear as day it was POSITIVE. THAT was the day I stopped crying everyday (which is weird because you’d think pregnancy would make it worse, right??)

This baby saved me. She was gift from Heaven at a time I so badly needed to hear from God. My miracle baby. She pulled me right out of my sinking depression and put things into perfect perspective.

-          Thank GOD we didn’t have a baby when the house caught fire… the nursery was one of the most badly burned rooms in the house, the first room it spread to, and the fire started DURING nap time. (see picture below, but you’ve been warned, its pretty sad)

-          Thank GOD I wasn’t heavily pregnant when the house caught fire…the stress alone could have sent me into preterm labor, potentially harming me or the baby.

Not only those two timings being perfect, but everything else seemed to fall into place…

We loved our little house, but it was never intended to be our forever home. We were going to outgrow it within a few years… but we couldn’t imagine ever leaving that property. We had begun small renovations, but had explored what it would take to add on 1,500 sq ft addition, but it seemed expensive and unobtainable with young children in the house….

Now, by the grace of God, we get to build our DREAM HOME on our PERFECT property with our chosen FAMILY as neighbors. FROM SCRATCH. That’s amazing!!!! A once in a lifetime opportunity! A blessing!

It sometimes feels so far away from being reality, but in 5 years, this will feel like a distant (dark and tragic) memory. At least that’s what I tell myself when things get hard.

Had it not been for baby girl, I truly don’t believe I would have been able to see the blessing in this so soon, if ever at all.

Don’t get me wrong… this still sucks a lot, all the time. Little reminders of things we lost will set me into a downward spiral… wanting a piece of clothing, seeing pictures of ridge with a special blanket or in baby clothes we thought all of kids would wear…. Shoot the other day I cried over a tomato that triggered a memory of our garden. Grief hits in waves. Its never ending, but we are choosing to grow around it.

THE BABY: Ok, so this post is a rollercoaster of emotions so far, right? Ups, downs, deep deep lows, unimaginable highs… That’s exactly how my mental health has been, a rollercoaster. Somedays are so busy, I forget I’m pregnant. Somedays I’m so busy, all I can think about is being pregnant. I’ve been into lists and bulletpoints this post so lets just keep it going, shall we? Here are all my pregnancy/new baby/postpartum related anxieties…

-          For starters, we have no baby items, we lost all that, and we have not even began to replace anything. We don’t really even have a “nursery” for her in our new house, we plan on just keeping her in our room until the house is done…whenever that is.

-          After struggling with infertility for so long, I am so so so afraid I am going to lose her, or do something that will harm her. Way more paranoid than I was with ridge.

-          Also, she is WILD. I have been feeling her kick since TWELVE weeks… she kicks so hard that reese felt her at 16 weeks. At her ultrasound, she looked right at the monitor and smiled the biggest open mouth smile the ultrasound tech said he’d ever seen…. I think my girl is going to have quite the personality, and she has already filled us up with so much joy, it doesn’t surprise me one bit that she also radiates it.

-          While I’ve always wanted to grow our family, I am so scared a new baby will take time away from Ridge… which I mean is inevitable, because babies also need attention I hear, but I am so afraid to miss out on Ridges milestones too… I’m afraid I won’t be able to handle splitting my attention in two.

-          POSTPARTUM. Ugh, I really try hard not to think about this because I am more afraid of it than I am willing to admit. Its no secret postpartum rocked my world. I ended up suicidal and having hallucinations, narrowly evading a stay in a psych ward and being on anti-psychotics for 18 months… I used to say I was prepared for round two because “I had all the available resources”…. But, to be honest, this time around I really don’t. I have my husband, I have my therapist… but my psychiatrist (the best, my biggest champion) had a health issue and was forced to retire shortly after the fire, and I have not sought out a replacement. Partly because I’m busy, partly because I’m in denial that I need one, and partly because I went through 3 the first time I shopped for psychs and had an absolutely horrible experience and don’t want to have to go through that again. I am terrified of postpartum. Terrified this time won’t be different.

Well, so much for keeping that short and sweet. Now were all up to speed. It felt good to get it all down, to finally write again… its been so long, I forgot how much I loved doing it and how easy it felt to write the things that were hard to say aloud. Hopefully this keeps me motivated to keep updating the blog. I’ve had so many PPD/PPP mamas who have followed my journey over the last 3.5 years reach out for guidance, or ask how its going, and I want to be open and honest with this second baby… I have no idea what the future or my mental health holds, but for the first time in a long time I feel hopeful.

Here are some pictures of things i mentioned, the images of the fire and the aftermath may be triggering so, be advised.

Picture 1 - the house shortly after we all got out

Picture 2 - The nursery

Picture 3 - Baby K’s SHOCKING pregnancy test

Picture 4 - Demo Day!

Picture 5 - Baby K at 20 week Ultrasound, looking DIRECTLY into the screen and SMILING

Picture 6 - our growing family on our 4th of july vacation, i was 20 or 21 weeks along?

No More Meds

Hi friends, long time no see. The fall is my busiest season both at work and home so I’ve been a little MIA, but I’m back with some classic TMI and internet oversharing.

Its been no secret that my husband and I have been trying for #2 for a little over a year and a half. We got cleared by doctors to start Clomid, a fertility treatment, to help us along. On its own, this has been difficult. My body doesn’t react well to hormone intervention and therefore the side effects like nausea and vomiting have taken over my life… this lasts about 3 weeks during every clomid cycle… its like morning sickness all over again. Our first round of clomid failed and we are currently on our second cycle… but, the kicker is, we can only take this medicine for 3 months… so if this cycle fails, we only have one more shot…

Which brings me to my newest update. After a lot of thought, research, and prayer, I’ve decided to start tapering off my anti-psychotics. Every doctor has said I would be safe, and I didn’t need to taper, but I feel in my gut that me not getting pregnant has SOMETHING to do with my medications… So I wanted to be off of them by the time we start our 3rd and final cycle of Clomid.

Well actually I wanted to taper off my anti-depressants too, but my psychiatrist told me not to do them at the same time, so we’re starting with the anti-psychotics.

Physically, this transition has been TOUGH… I was warned that withdrawal could come in the form of nausea and vomiting or headaches but I cockily thought, “can’t be worse than how clomid already makes me feel”…. And I was wrong… it got worse… and because I have to taper in 3 phases, I can look forward to 2 more withdrawals in the next 4 weeks.

I’ve been so stable lately, and I knew I didn’t want to be on these meds forever so I’m just going for it… but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. A million questions run through my mind everyday… will the psychosis come back? Am I stable without medication? Will I be like this forever? My anxiety about it is endless… but at the end of the day, I want to grow my family more than anything in the world, and that is what is taking priority right now.

So that’s the update, I hardly feel like a person, and I am struggling hard both mentally and physically. The prayers, vibes, baby dust, etc. would all be greatly appreciated as I navigate this journey of fertility and psychosis.

Ps - if you’ve successfully tapered off an anti-psychotic or anti-depressant, can you hit my DMs with your experience? I’d love to feel a little less alone.