I am going to have a baby. That thought is actually setting in. I am going to be a mother.
Not in 9 months, mind you. It’s going to take me longer than that. But I’m Pre-Pregnancy.
I’ve been coming down off antidepressants for 6 months now. I started at 90mg of Cymbalta, and for the past 5 months have come down 10 mg every month. On Oct 10, it’ll be the 6 month mark – and time to decide if we keep going at 10 mg drop per month or if we want to come down faster and try to “rip it off like a bandaid” or rather move down faster. I think we’re definitely opting to do that.
Coming down 10 mg at a time was helpful in that it gave me the opportunity to normalize, chemically speaking, each month. I would have a few days of being down, but then I’d pick myself right back up and be okay without the aid of extra antidepressant being in my system.
Now that I’m down so low as to be at 40mg of Cymbalta, I don’t feel like I’m getting any helpful effect from the medication, so moving the rest of the way off of it more quickly feels like something I ought to be able to do more easily. I have to drop 40mg of Cymbalta, 5 mg of Abilify, and 25mg of Nortriptyline. But considering that I’m feeling a rather significant amount of pain, am having chemically-induced suicidal thoughts, and spontaneous crying jags, I think it’s safe to come off all the rest of it, because it’s not doing a whole lot.
Tomorrow, I see my Epileptologist (seizure doctor) to get a schedule to come off of my seizure medications as well. That way, I won’t be on any medications that could potentially cause the baby any harm at all.
No MS medication. No seizure medication. No depression medication. For the entire term of the pregnancy and then as long as I’m breastfeeding.
This body is going to be clean.
And I can tell you, readers, the idea excites me as much as it scares the crap out of me.
I mean, I take 14 pills a day. Every day. I won’t be taking any that aren’t vitamins. That’s a big change.
But it’s worth it to have a healthy, happy baby.
Right now, on the reading front, I’m going back through the important lessons in Parenting From The Inside Out and am looking to pick up a copy of The Happiest Baby On The Block.
The fact that I’m already enduring pain and crabbiness for someone who is not alive lets me know that I’m tough and that I really want to be a mother — that I mean it, and that once I have the baby, I might go back to back with another kid, so I don’t have to do a second taper. And that afterward – the medicine will be there for me.
I know it probably sounds crazy, but you know how when you work out and you’re sore, you get the feeling like, “YEAH, I’m DOING IT.” Well, part of me feels proud of me for going through this, as somewhat volatile as I’ve been. I’m doing what needs to be done, and that’s not nothing.
Maybe I’m earning Mommyhood.
In It For The Parking 
You don’t have to earn mommyhood, Rae. You earned it about the time you had your first cramps–about three months before you had your first period, likely. But, you are doing the right thing for your little unborn Rae-nugget. He or She will thank you for it. Sometimes I wonder if my mothers’ use of tobacco when I was in utero caused my elevated resting respiration rate. Food for thought, anyway. Point being–I know you’ll be OK with whatever you get, male female, ADHD kid or normal or something else–because you’re you. And whatever else, Rae, you are Good. Good with the big G, like Justice with the big J, means something. It means that despite temptation, despite hardship, despite …all that other junk life and your body can throw at you, you are very selflessly doing the best you can. And that’s Good.
So, it’s tough to be Good. I believe it to be the measure of our character, though, when we’re evidently doing the best we can to be Good. So…remember that, and cut yourself some slack.
❤