Dealing with Becoming a Mother

                The third trimester has brought with it more difficulty, discomfort, and moodiness than the previous two trimesters of pregnancy combined. At this point, I am about 29 weeks and a half along, which is a little over 7 months. My birthday was two weeks ago—right around when I had just begun the third trimester. Since that day, things have gone downhill in many ways.

                My moods have been worse. My first two trimesters were rather unmarked by changes—I didn’t feel particularly depressed, I was comfortable and could move around easily, and for the entire first trimester, I didn’t even know I was pregnant! In fact, I was absolutely convinced that I was not pregnant, particularly because I’d had a pregnancy test in January and had been told it came back negative. Since my birthday and the start of the third trimester of pregnancy, however, my moods have been generally negative. I have struggled with depression for the majority of my life, and for the first two trimesters, my depression was in remission. I didn’t feel depressed anymore; things were okay, even after discovering I was pregnant. Yes, dealing with the fact of being pregnant in and of itself was difficult, stressful, and terrifying, but overall, I didn’t find myself thinking badly of myself. Since my birthday, however, that has been changing. The depression seems to want to be sneaking back into my life and a recurring thought is this: Postpartum depression is inevitable. I am going to have it. That thought alone isn’t the most disturbing, but when combined with other thoughts, which seem to be only reinforced by aches, pains, and discomfort in my body, I have become overwhelmed more than once. I never wanted this. It’s only getting worse and these are the reasons why I never wanted this. I didn’t ask for this. I did everything I could to prevent this from happening. I never wanted to be pregnant. These are the thoughts most prominent in my mind as it seems to be overcome yet again with depression.

                Everything hurts. Everything is uncomfortable. Sleeping is difficult; trying to position pillows around me in bed so that I might get comfortable is a chore, and some nights, it’s impossible to get comfortable no matter what I do with the pillows. In addition to that, I wake up three or more times every night, regardless of how comfortable I may or may not have managed to get before falling asleep. Getting out of bed every morning is a chore; it’s an uncomfortably slow process and it is painful. Standing causes pain in one or both of my feet and walking around causes pain in one or both hips and sometimes my back. Everything hurts! It’s too difficult to try going for a walk when my feet and hip are killing me, so I sit around as much as possible so that I don’t hurt at this point, but the sedentary lifestyle only increases my depressive thoughts.

                Things were only getting worse. Earlier this week, I was working on out-processing the base at which I’m stationed—a process which, by itself, is long and grueling, but for me is even more difficult because I’m not simply moving to another base, I’m separating from active duty entirely. The paper I needed to have filled out wanted me to make a 12-month budget and lay out a specific plan for how and where I would find employment outside the military. Here’s the problem: My husband is separating from the military as well and there is absolutely no way we can project a 12-month budget when we don’t know how much money we’re going to be making or when! On top of that, I’m about to have a brand-new baby—I’m not going to be trying to find full-time work outside of the home, I’m going to be taking care of the baby because I don’t trust people to take care of her and I will not take her to a daycare—they’re filthy and filled with nasty, snot-nosed creatures other people have spawned! I couldn’t see past these problems. My overwhelmed mind wanted to focus on how much none of what I was told needed to be done actually applied to me. I didn’t want to sit there and try calculating how much money we would need to bring in.

                That was one of my worse days. Then, things suddenly changed.

                I walked in to the O.B. office for an ultrasound appointment, yesterday. Somehow, I had missed an appointment I’d made for Tuesday, which was also the day I was so overwhelmed with trying to out-process for separation, so the secretary at the gynecologist’s office rescheduled me for the very next day, just an hour later than the original time had been the day before. So, Randy and I went to the hospital to see our baby.

                At our last appointment to check up on the baby and see the ultrasound, all of the images were blurry and I couldn’t make out a single bit of the baby on the screen. I’d left the hospital relatively frustrated and quite disappointed that there were no clear images. Yesterday’s appointment was different.

                The ultrasound images were extremely clear, and our baby’s face was even open for 3D pictures! I’ve never been a fan of 3D ultrasounds—they’re creepy as hell. But seeing the clarity of the ultrasound and looking at my baby suddenly made everything seem better. The voice in my head that kept screaming about how much I never wanted any of this was suddenly quiet. I didn’t mind that I’m pregnant; seeing the baby on the screen just quieted everything.

                Granted, 3D ultrasounds are creepy. But these 4 images, repeated a few times on a disc, show the creature growing inside of my body and somehow, these pictures in their clarity helped quiet the turmoil inside of me that insisted I never, ever wanted any of this.

                I still wouldn’t think less of a woman for aborting upon finding out about her pregnancy at 18 weeks. Part of my depressive thinking has been that I should have aborted when I found out, that things would be easier now if I had. I’ve wondered if I wouldn’t have been so tortured afterwards with the knowledge that in order to abort a fetus so developed, they would have had to cut her into pieces and remove the body that way. Then, I see her face on the ultrasound. I see her long legs—legs like mine—and I remember that the biggest reason I didn’t abort her was because, that day I found out, she had a gender. She wasn’t some raptor-like thing anymore—6 weeks had passed since she’d developed beyond looking dinosaur-like or less than human.

                I’m still dealing with the idea that I will be a mother. The fact remains that this is something I never wanted, that this is something I worked to prevent from happening. Time will tell, but for now, I can say this: My daughter looks just like me.