This week has been a bit rough, I have to admit. While I am still feeling mainly optimistic and cheerful, I’ve hit a few walls this week where I had to break down and cry from stress and frustration. I know that this is probably a normal healthy new parent thing, but. BUT. I know the spectre of postpartum depression and psychosis, and I am not going to let it shaft me if I can help it. And the best way to avoid that is to be completely honest with myself about feeling frazzled and worn and upset.

Still, that doesn’t make me any more able to handle the drain from getting that sort of upset; while an incident this week was well resolved (a communication mishap between my husband and my crap-at-listening self), it left me feeling really run down the rest of the day.

And, because lulzirony, it was the morning of my first postpartum psych appointment! I think I’m finally set up with my new main psychiatrist, which is yay. My primary fellow retired to write and do conferences and stuff back in December, and while I’ve been seeing a fairly nice lady, she seemed a bit alarmed dealing with me. Not so the new lady, Dr. K! She caught a big thing that makes some of the doctors nervous — do I always speak that fast? I chuckled, and pointed out that the boss doctor loves to use me for students, because American and Italians (there’s a high Italian population locally) speak a lot faster than the average Brit. I know the first person who diagnosed me as bipolar before all my paperwork vanished thought I was manic because of how quickly I spoke, ha ha. So that Dr. K thought to ask that question pleased me. She also made sure I took note of her name (I’m TERRIBLE at remembering doctors’ names), and that if I felt I needed to up my dose(s), to call her asap to get things adjusted.

I also told her that I was going to restart my Zoloft. She was a bit hemming and hawing because I haven’t had any particular depressive episodes yet, but she also concurred that it was prudent to not let postpartum depression or the risk of psychosis get to me first. My husband felt it was especially prudent and said so. I take him to all my appointments to give that near, but outside point of view on my behavior. He feels very strongly that while the Seroquel went a long step, the Zoloft shored me up in a very useful-functional way, and that me going back on sooner rather than later was ideal. We’ll see. Hopefully, we’ll see continued cheer and functionality rather than some of the nastiest, soul-sucking depression a person can ever see (seriously, it’s extra bad).

I also understand that yes, it’s completely normal to be super-frazzled with a new baby. I’m not diving after pills because new parenting is ‘too hard’. I figure that I have tools at hand that can lower the difficulty level and keep me on an evener keel, and I would be foolish to deny myself ‘just ’cause’. Every day, we be doin’ Baby Science™®, and are learning to better understand Littlerbit, and that’s coming along wonderfully. 😀

<3