***Disclaimer*** This post is pretty (very) personal… if you
are a dude and don’t want to read about my female hormonal fluctuations (and
then some), you should just stop reading now. Consider yourself warned.
I am not a huge fan of hormones. And I bet that if you asked Ben (or any husband of any wife, for that matter), he’d say he’s not a big fan either. They make me a little crazy at times… you know, like once a month or so. I get really emotional. Like REALLY emotional. I usually have at least 1 day where I just feel like crying for no reason at all. I don’t really do the bitchy PMS thing so much… I’m more of the sad pathetic weepy girl.
Pregnancy hormones and I get along okay though. Clear,
glowing skin? Nails that don’t break? Hair that no longer falls out and covers
my bathroom floor?? Yes please!! I’ve gotten off pretty easy with the negative side
effects of pregnancy… I’m one of those lucky women who actually enjoys being
pregnant. Even emotionally, I feel much more stable and even keeled during
pregnancy… none of these crazy month-to-month fluctuations.
All this to say… my body is very sensitive to hormones. I
learned this in my early 20’s when I tried various forms of hormonal birth
control. No bueno. Depression, weight gain, mood swings… it took years for me
to make the connection but ever since I have avoided altering my body’s natural
hormones in any way.
But what do I do when it is my own body that is creating the
hormonal chaos?
This is where I found myself this summer. Breastfeeding
causes some very strong, feel good hormones. And a lot of times these hormones
also prevent your monthly cycle from starting back up after pregnancy. This
wasn’t the case with me, however… mine started when Stellan was about 4 months
old. Very sporadic and unpredictable, but it was there. Yay hormones. (Hopefully
you sense the sarcasm.)
So when I decided to wean, and it went easier and faster
than I had planned on, I had a huge hormone drop. My body wasn’t sure what to
do. Physically I was fine; I was excited about the prospect of getting back in
shape and losing the rest of the baby weight. (Which I’m still a little upset
that I even have to do… with Read all the weight magically disappeared while I
was breastfeeding. Boo for turning 30.) But, as I said in my last post (here),
I was a disaster emotionally.
And I haven’t even told you the whole story yet.
“But wait… there’s more!!” (said in a cheesy game show
announcer voice)
A few weeks after Stellan was completely weaned, I got a
positive pregnancy test.
*GASP*
I know you all just gasped, because we didn’t tell anyone.
Well, Ben told 1 person because he is terrible at keeping secrets, but I wanted
to wait until I knew for sure. It was a faint positive, and just didn’t feel
right. So I took another test that night. Another faint positive. Then I went
to the store and bought a different brand of tests. Another faint line… but
even fainter this time.
I took a 4th test.
Then a 5th.
I took 5 tests in 4 days. And the line got fainter with each
test, until the 5th when it didn’t show up at all.
Ben and I do want to have another baby, so those 4 days were
strange for me. I was excited about the prospect of being pregnant again, but I
also just didn’t feel sure that I was for some reason so I didn’t allow myself
to think it was real quite yet. It was an odd self-protective mechanism. Which
ended up coming in handy when I finally got a negative result, since that is
what I had been expecting. Part of me kicks myself for being so anxious to
test, because if I would have waited then I would’ve just thought my period was
4 days late, rather than putting Ben and I through so many emotions over those
4 days.
But, nevertheless, I DID get a positive. Or 4 of them, I
guess. Which meant that I did have some of that lovely hCG pregnancy hormone in
me, even if it didn’t stick around very long. They call this a chemical
pregnancy, which is essentially an early miscarriage at 4 weeks. An embryo is
formed but doesn’t fully implant, so it’s not a “real” pregnancy. Apparently
this actually happens quite frequently but many women don’t even know it since
they don’t take a pregnancy test and just assume their period is a few days
late.
Honestly, I don’t think of it as a miscarriage. It wasn’t
that hard on me, emotionally, since I was waiting for a good strong positive
before I declared myself to be pregnant. I thought of the faint line as a “maybe”
that ended up turning into a no. But all along I knew something wasn’t right. I
hadn’t let myself get emotionally attached. That part of things was probably
harder on Ben than it was on me.
But the hormones… again with the hormones. It was a
rollercoaster. They dropped, then they spiked, then they dropped again… Oy. It
was a lot for my body to take in just a couple months.
I’m doing a lot better now… it’s been over a month since all
that happened, and about 2 months since Stellan has been completely weaned. I
still have “off” days, but I feel like the fog has lifted. Hopefully my body is
settling back down into a normal routine, and Ben will only have to deal with a
crazy emotionally charged wife once a month again. ;)
There’s a lot more that could be said about those couple
months, but I feel like I’ve written enough for now. And I feel like I got off
pretty easy… postpartum depression is a very serious issue that many women
experience on a much greater scale than I had to. So I am definitely not an
expert, but I’m thankful that I went through it because I now have a greater
appreciation for what they go through.
If you think you could be depressed, postpartum or not,
please talk to someone. It’s the last thing in the world that you feel like
doing at the time, but it does help. My story probably would’ve been very
different had I not turned into a hermit crab over the summer. I pretty much
didn’t leave the house unless absolutely necessary, and all of my relationships
suffered because of it.
So to my friends and family, I’m sorry if it felt like I was
ignoring you and didn’t want to see you. I didn’t, but it had nothing to do
with you. I hope you can understand.
If you want to read more about postpartum depression related
to weaning, here are some sites I found to be helpful:
Thanks for reading! I promise something more light-hearted
soon. ;)
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