A Check-Up...For Me This Time...

Thanks to Obama, I can now go and get a physical, immunizations and lab work done for free. I use the term “thanks” loosely as I used to only have to pay a small copay/fee for those items, and the rest of the things I had done (i.e. sick visits for the family, etc.) didn’t cost me a ton of money as they do now. But anyhoo…I usually try to stay on top of check-ups and things like that, but since it was 100% free and it earned me points for our challenge at work to earn an extra PTO day, I made the appointment and went.

Stats at the office were good, BP was 106/64 and my weight (116 lbs.) is officially back to where it was before I had Colton (which is fabulous, although I definitely don’t feel 100% happy with how I look…I desperately need to tone up!), and I’m measuring at 5’ 3” (I believe I have shrunk as I swear I used to be 5’ 3 ½” but oh well). They took some vials of blood for blood tests and I received my flu shot and a DpT shot.

This was my first time meeting the doctor (I had read rave reviews about her Angie’s List so I decided to try her out). I loved that she came in and met me first, asked me some questions and talked to me, and then left so I could change into a gown and then came back in to do the exam. I really liked that she has two kids, and her youngest is a little newborn, so she can relate to a lot of my issues.

Which is what I decided to talk to her about…weird as it was the first time I met her, but I had to do it. Over the last few months I have found myself so short and snappy with people. I feel myself doing it, but, no matter how hard I try, I just can’t stop doing it. I also found myself so annoyed with everything and everyone. Even my good friends were annoying me, which seemed so strange to me. I also found myself not enjoying being with the kids. Of course I still loved them, and did whatever they needed me to do, but if you asked me what I would like to be doing, it would not have been playing with them…I was just doing it because that’s what I was supposed to do. And for those that know me, that is not like me at all…I LOVE kids, and I have always enjoyed being around them and playing with them. I have also found myself super tired lately. But, over the last few months, I have chalked all of these things up to being a mom of four kids, one of which still gets up multiple times during the night. I truly felt that I had just hit my max and that it was perfectly normal that any “free” time I had I would want to just sit and relax and not play with kids. Or that my tiredness was affecting my tolerance of those around me. But over the last couple of weeks, I started to think that maybe this wasn’t normal…or right.

And my doctor agreed. She thinks I have a bit of post-partum depression. Thankfully, from what I read and hear about, it’s not so bad that I don’t still love being around my kiddos…especially Colton. But she didn’t like that I no longer enjoyed doing things I used to enjoy, or that I wasn’t super happy around my kids like I used to be, or that I was so annoyed by everything around me. So she prescribed Zoloft (the safest to take while breastfeeding). She told me what to expect over the next week, couple of weeks, and so on, and told me that she wanted to see me back in 6 weeks to see if it was helping.

I went back to work and immediately started Googling Zoloft and side effects and whether it works or not, etc. There are side effects to worry about (the biggest one I’m worried about is the weight gain – I don’t want all my hard work to be thrown out the window), but based on what everyone was saying, the benefits far outweighed the side effects, so I came away from it knowing I had to do this.

I took my first dose last night and so far I don’t notice anything. My doctor said that I might feel nauseous over the next week, but thankfully I don’t feel that way…yet. I really hope this works…I hope that I can get back to loving life and everyone around me like I used to. And more importantly, I hope that this truly is just PPD and that come next spring I can stop taking the drugs (as my doctor is hoping as well).