What next.....

After realising that I was not coping with the day to day I started to take steps to change. Being 7 months pregnant meant a lot of the usual things were held off. Medication was mentioned but we all wanted to wait. First I wanted sleep, I wanted to lay down and switch off.
I started taking Valerian as a vitamin tablet at night to help me relax. I would stop watching TV or reading a book and just lay there....and wait.
After a few weeks not much had changed. It was then the step was taken to introduce medication. I was put on a very low dose of anti depressant and given sleeping tablets.
This made me stop.
I don't have depression why do I need these tablets?
I didn't like the label, the stigma, the embarrassment.
It was then that I spent the time researching what anti depressants were and how they worked. not what I had seen or heard of from movies and TV.
Antidepressant medication- what it is.
i didn't realise that although the name had depressant in it it was a medication to fix your mood and your serotonin levels.
I was put on a SSRI. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antidepressant. One that had been tested during pregnancy and I was on the lowest dose possible. Having a child with cerebral palsy meant everyone was tip toeing around me this pregnancy.
Nobody wants to think they will be the one to cause something to happen to this baby.
My psychiatrist said it to me plainly- either I get back to functioning physically and emotionally or I keep going the way I am and both my health and the babies would be affected. The baby would be harmed more by a sick mother who was not sleeping and not providing enough nutrients and healthy blood than by the mother taking a small amount of medication.
After deciding that and not being pushed into it by anyone a week later I started taking the medication. On the nights when hubby was home and everyone was settled I would take sleeping tablets and would actually fall asleep! I only used them 3-4 nights a week and had to make sure I was ready for sleep. As I discovered you can fight past the point of the tablet working and then spend the whole night awake.

After a few weeks I had noticed some changes. I was using the tablets less to sleep and I felt differently during the day. My memory and concentration were better, I could focus more.
Simple things like not daydreaming while in the car, remembering lists while shopping and keeping track of appointments.
I always prided myself on remembering what appointments everyone had and where we had to go and this was slipping quite a lot.
I also felt more like myself. I was worried the tablets would even me out make me feel numb. They did no such thing. I felt more even keeled but more like myself. I still had happy and sad moments and relaxed a lot quicker.
The idea of being a zombie or zoned out is so not what I experienced. So much of what I knew was TV based though...the whole Mummy on Prozac thing!

New hair-new woman. Still I notice the bags under my eyes but I was feeling better. The changes were slow but noticeable....

To anyone out there thinking they need someone to talk to or a 3rd party to listen then I strongly encourage you to listen to that voice.