Depression, PPD, and Decades of Living Through It: Chapter 3: Part 2

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As I was entering my mid-thirties, I had a lot of things going for me. I had my dream job, I was engaged, we were moving into a great townhouse, I had picked my dream china pattern, and my future husband loves silver. There were some not so great things intertwined in my want to be fairy tale life. For the first part, go here.


So, in the midst of all this fantastic stuff, my future husband and I were dealing with the mean girl tirade. As a result, I had not only lost 2 people that I thought were close to me, but I also lost some other friends in the process.

You see, when someone accuses your bf of sexual assault, everyone calls into question his character even yourself to be fair.  Fortunately, my parents never wavered and I had many friends that stuck by us during this tough time.  One of my bridesmaids even dropped out of our wedding.  This was devastating.  I was also terrified of telling my mom.  If you've read my other posts, my mom is super together, super type-A, and things are just supposed to be a certain way.  Having a bridesmaid back out was definitely not in the plan.  I went so far as to buying her bridesmaid dress, shipping it to her, in the hopes that she would change her mind.  She didn't.  

I continued the crying late at night, calling friends bemoaning the case, bemoaning that a friend had dropped out of my wedding, and also wondering was I making the right decision in marrying my husband.  I was so upset and this was supposed to be some of the happiest times of my life.


I finally told my mom that we were down a bridesmaid which ultimately was a huge relief.  The stress of waiting to tell her was so much worse than the actual event.  She wasn't angry with me thank goodness and we went on with it.


Our wedding was phenomenal.  I did not want to leave.  I felt like such a princess and nothing could take that away.  I was surrounded by friends and family.  


We went on our honeymoon to Curacao and started our life together as man and wife, for better or worse, and boy, it was about to get worse.

As the months progressed, we had to have ever increasing conversations with our lawyer.  We tried every which way to just make it go away but to no avail.  Mean girls would not back down and they had all of the power of family money behind them.  Now, my husband and I are certainly not in the poor house, but never-ending funds to pay lawyers is not something we have either.  Every conversation was at least $250 dollars; every email was $50-$100.  

Oh and guess what, I was trying to get pregnant.  Turns out getting pregnant is not as easy as the Lifetime movies and after-school specials in the 80s would have you believe.  So, we went to my obgyn and got referred to the infertility clinic.  All I wanted was a baby girl.  All I had was stress from a ridiculous civil case and no baby in my belly.

The documentation started pouring in from the case.  There were over 500 pages of text messages, emails, and Facebook posts in which the mean girls were bashing us both.  There were so many instances of me being called fat and then there were the comments that they didn't know how so much blood could have come out of that little midget aka my husband.  All of these messages were with other people that I thought were my friends - not just the mean girls.  

As 2015 carried on, we went to countless appointments at the infertility doctor.  I was questioning my womanhood, I was questioning my worth as a person, and there didn't seem to be any answers.  The strain put on my marriage was indescribable.  I  would lash out at my husband, blaming him for the loss of my friends which I am so ashamed of.  I would lash out because I wasn't pregnant.  I would beat myself up about lashing out.  Then, I would just cry.

I was still on meds and that helped somewhat, but there was just so much external stress that nothing could contain my moods.  Christmas of 2015 came and I still wasn't pregnant.  It's silly to think of now, but my brother in law made some comment that Christmas about pregnancy and me and I BURST out into tears in front of my hub's entire family.  Mortifying.

We continue charging through that winter, going to treatments, getting my ovaries inked out and through, we change my husband's underwear to boxers, and still no baby.  It all seems rather irrational looking back, but  I was frantic and had half convinced myself that I was somehow deserving of this because I was a bad person or I wasn't worthy.  The pain, the bad thoughts, the lack of self-love were all awful.

I started doing affirmations because something had to change my mindset.  I was so negative that there's no way a baby would've wanted to live in my belly.  I read the below affirmation board for 10 minutes every day.  You will note the positively stated "I have a healthy pregnancy" not I wish to get pregnant.
You'll also notice a big FIERCE affirmation because I wanted to beat down the mean girls.  

Then, at some point, my mindset did change and I let it go.  "Let it go" probably isn't the best describer but some of the torment had been released.  Memorial Day weekend came and we had some of our best friends down to our lake house.  We drank, played in the lake relaxed, got some sun, and just generally had a ball together.  I was relaxed; I was having fun; I was just being with my husband.

2 weeks later after going out for oysters, I threw up the next morning.  My immediate thought was crap, I got bloody food poisoning from the oysters - dammit!!!  My housekeeper, at the time, (see not so poor) said, "You are pregnant. I just know it."  I said, no, no no.  She told me to go and take a pregnancy test.  I did.  I then proceeded to take 5 more tests because they ALL said I WAS FINALLY PREGNANT.  I, then, texted a picture:

Yea, he was pretty pissed I sent a text and didn't call, but I wanted to show the physical evidence! 

Now, whether or not you believe in affirmations and positive thinking, this was the ultimate confirmation for me.  One hurdle crossed - yes!  Now, 9 months to go.  After wanting to be pregnant so desperately,  it now felt like, well now what?  We, of course, told our parents.  To which, my mom said, "You must call the doctor and get them to confirm."  So, I did.  They were like, yea, you're prego, the over the counter tests are 99.9% accurate now.  There's no need to come in for 8 plus weeks.  I was like, huh?; what?; what do you mean?

So, I continued my affirmations about having a healthy pregnancy and waited for my doctor's appointment in a few months.

Next - the Trial, Birth, and the Aftermath



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