This Pregnancy Roller Coaster

Being pregnant has certainly been an wild experience. It's nothing like I thought. I know of a few other women in my circle who are pregnant right now, and I find it fascinating how different our pregnancies are. They weren't kidding when they said every pregnancy is different.

The especially trying part of mine has been the emotional or depression side of it. I've heard about all the "I hate you for doing this to me!" type emotions, but that's not what I've been experiencing. For me, it has been the struggle against the "glowing pregnancy" stigma, or the idea that if you don't love being pregnant, you must not be a good mother or want your child or whatever else bad thought that comes to mind. :/

I have been taking the Vitamin B6 and Unisom combination for morning sickness. The odd thing is when I try to stop taking the Unisom, these emotions really flare up, along with a feeling that I thought was indigestion but am now wondering if it's more like a panic attack or stress. I'm back to taking the Unisom; the theory is the better sleep I get, the better I can manage my physical and emotional issues. I've always had sleep issues, so maybe it's just aggravated by the pregnancy.

I hope other women out there who have the same issues with emotions and depression make an effort to get help, or that people who know women in this situation try to help them. It is such a miserable feeling, and I know I had trouble coming to terms with it because I didn't want to admit having negative feelings about being pregnant. That was part of me reaching a solution, however. I had to admit what I was feeling and decide that I didn't want to feel that way anymore.

One of the things that helped me was what I call "giving in to my hormones" - I've realized (with help) that hormones affect us in different ways, whether it's terrible morning sickness or depression, and this just happened to be the way my hormones really affected me. Every time I felt down, the rational (and optimistic) side of me knew deep DEEP down that if I had a choice, I would NOT dislike the pregnancy, the situation, or anything else, but I kind of don't have a choice at the moment. My hormones are affecting everything from my stomach to my memory to my emotions - it's normal and OK. Just because I don't want to be pregnant every once in a while doesn't make me a jerk.

Another thing that has helped is that my husband takes it seriously. He doesn't think I'm just being emotional or whiny or silly, and he doesn't discard how I'm feeling. I hope other partners out there have the patience and understanding to deal with all the fluctuating emotions because, trust me on this, she's not enjoying it any more than you are. ;P In fact, it's likely there's a part of her inside that's whispering "I don't want to feel like this!" while the outside of her is turning into a crying or angry mess.

It's not all bad, though! We've had another appointment where we got to listen to the heartbeat again. Getting those little moments of real feedback - that there REALLY IS a baby in there - are nice and too infrequent at this point. I would probably be much happier if I could listen to the heartbeat all day. Or maybe that would annoy me after a while with these emotions. ;) But I keep being told that I may feel better once I start feeling movement. It may give me the reward I need to know that I ain't feeling like crap for nothing!