RebeccaBaltimore
New Here
Hi. I'm Rebecca. I'm in my thirties, a stay at home mom to an active two year old boy, I'll call him G. Clever, I know. I used to be a social worker, providing therapy to childen and adolescents mostly. Three years ago next month, my son E was born. I was 5 months pregnant. On a Thursday they saw a problem on an ultrasound, Friday they confirmed it was fatal, Monday we checked into the hospital and induced labor, Tuesday morning, very early, he was stillborn. The autopsy confirmed the problem. Due to a medical condition I didn't know I had, E did not have kidneys.
We treated the problem and 7 months later I was pregnant again, this time with triplets. Again, two were ill. This is apparently common in triplets. Again, we terminated, to save the other baby, my son G. One of the triplets died on her own. I can still hear our doctor say "she's gone into asystole", very quietly. For more than a month, at our weekly ultrasound, we could see our now, much healthier son bouncing away, his brother and sister floating there, silent. I still worry that my son was lonely. But we focused on G. As soon as he was born, everything would be okay.
Everything was not okay. The anesthesia failed during the c-section. I felt everything. They pulled G out. He was having a seizure, not breathing. They rushed him off to the NICU. I kept bleeding in recovery, couldn't see him. I made a ruckus and got to go. There he was. With wires and tubes and machines dinging. A metabolic disorder. Maybe 6 months they said. My son does not like limits, and he loves playing tricks. He came home after 12 days a perfectly healthy kid. No one knows what happened, but I'm not going to ask too many questions.
Me? Well of course there is the preexisting bipolar type 1 and generalized anxiety disorder. So Acute Stress Disorder. Post partum depression. Then serious anxiety problems. Now a depressive episode, major, since the summer. My therapist. My shrink. A battery of meds. Med changes. Phototherapy. Stress induced hair loss. Worsening of my many health problems. Marital stress. Amenorrhea. Social anxiety. I relived the last week of E's life Every Day. I can't stop it. Over and over. I can't fall asleep. "She's gone into asystole." The sadness in my doctor's voice in the quiet room. I hear it. The guilt. It's my fault. I made them sick. I signed the papers. I let the doctors do it. I can't cry. Why can't I cry anymore?
Depression and anxiety aren't the problems. They're the symptoms.
Sorry for the wall of text. Thank you for reading it.
We treated the problem and 7 months later I was pregnant again, this time with triplets. Again, two were ill. This is apparently common in triplets. Again, we terminated, to save the other baby, my son G. One of the triplets died on her own. I can still hear our doctor say "she's gone into asystole", very quietly. For more than a month, at our weekly ultrasound, we could see our now, much healthier son bouncing away, his brother and sister floating there, silent. I still worry that my son was lonely. But we focused on G. As soon as he was born, everything would be okay.
Everything was not okay. The anesthesia failed during the c-section. I felt everything. They pulled G out. He was having a seizure, not breathing. They rushed him off to the NICU. I kept bleeding in recovery, couldn't see him. I made a ruckus and got to go. There he was. With wires and tubes and machines dinging. A metabolic disorder. Maybe 6 months they said. My son does not like limits, and he loves playing tricks. He came home after 12 days a perfectly healthy kid. No one knows what happened, but I'm not going to ask too many questions.
Me? Well of course there is the preexisting bipolar type 1 and generalized anxiety disorder. So Acute Stress Disorder. Post partum depression. Then serious anxiety problems. Now a depressive episode, major, since the summer. My therapist. My shrink. A battery of meds. Med changes. Phototherapy. Stress induced hair loss. Worsening of my many health problems. Marital stress. Amenorrhea. Social anxiety. I relived the last week of E's life Every Day. I can't stop it. Over and over. I can't fall asleep. "She's gone into asystole." The sadness in my doctor's voice in the quiet room. I hear it. The guilt. It's my fault. I made them sick. I signed the papers. I let the doctors do it. I can't cry. Why can't I cry anymore?
Depression and anxiety aren't the problems. They're the symptoms.
Sorry for the wall of text. Thank you for reading it.
