Life Update

Hello!

Long time, no update, friends.

My last real blog, at least posted on the website, was on November 7th, 2022…. So. Almost 9 months ago.

Absolutely no real life update since then, great checking in, bye!!

Just kidding, since my last update, our whole world has changed. If you don’t follow me elsewhere, here is the update short and sweet, and then we’ll get into the nitty gritty.

-          November 2022: I weaned off of my anti-psychotic medicine after 18 months. It was absolutely miserable, but we made it work. The doctor recommended I do it over 3 months and I said “hold my beer” and weaned off of Geodon in less than 6 weeks…. (do not do this, please)

-          December 2022: our 3rd cycle of clomid (fertility treatment) WORKED. Sort of. It worked in the sense that I FINALLY ovulated after 2 years of unexplained secondary infertility. However, it failed in the sense that I did not get pregnant. Also, I broke my ankle (again) (no, not the one I broke in august, the other one… WHILE in the office… HELLLOOO workman’s comp(kidding, a joke, it is not fun times, lots of paperwork) and would later find out I need surgery to repair the ligaments ruptured in the incident.

-          January 2023: Super busy month from what I remember. Our 4th round of clomid is successful, I ovulate, we do not conceive. We make the executive decision to stop fertility treatments temporarily and explore other options some time later in the spring….

Ok… here is where it gets interesting.

-          February 4th, 2023: our house catches fire and burns to the ground. No really. It is gone gone.

-          February 9th, 2023: my sweet 13 year old dog, Luke, can not overcome the stress of the fire, and has to be put down.

-          Sometime at the end of February 2023: I realize I have not had a period yet, and to my absolute SHOCK and SURPRISE, we find out we have naturally conceived after 2 years of grueling infertility.

So, nitty gritty.

I’ll just make this also short and sweet, here are the answers to our most frequently asked questions:

-          No, we didn’t recover anything in the house. We lost 99% of our belongings, including my car

-          We stayed at a friends AirBNB for a week, then a hotel for a little bit, then back the BNB until the end of March.

-          At the end of March, my parents bought a rental property for us, we moved in at the beginning of April. That is where we will stay until the house is rebuilt.

-          Fire started in the garage, spread quickly to some flammables, exploded a propane tank and some gas tanks… fueled by a south wind with the garage door open, the house didn’t really stand a chance.

-          Probably a power strip? Maybe a battery tender? Maybe just the outlet? It was unclear. Definitely electrical though.

-          Yes. We were insured.

-          Yes, we intend on rebuilding on our property, the contractor expects the process to take about a year.

-          If I could go back in time and save one thing, it would be the Christmas ornaments

-          The remnants of the house were demolished at the beginning of May. Its now just a large sandpit with a gravel driveway. Even with no house on the lot, we call it the “broken house” we visit a lot because, well, when your house is on fire and you have to run naked (no, really, I was not clothed) to your neighbors house for shelter and childcare… you get bonded in an unbreakable way, we are family now.

Okay. Lets fast forward to now, July 2023.

Currently, I am 25 weeks along, with a baby GIRL. If I am being completely honest, this season of life has been so incredibly hard.

I’m tired. I’m overwhelmed. I’m STRUGGLING.

In absolutely every aspect of my life, I am treading water.

AT HOME: we have what we need. we’ve replaced most of our *essentials* … you know, like a car, beds, couches, cookware, stuff you use everyday. EXCEPT, anything that requires much of a design choice. Reese and I are too overwhelmed to pull the trigger on those things like Plates/Bowls/Cups – nope. Silverware? Nope. Home Décor????? Absolutely not. So we *live* here, but it doesn’t feel much like ~home~ here…. As far as day to day life, we get through… I don’t cook as much as I used to. Its hard for the boys to live in town (I married a caveman and gave birth to a nudist). I finally caved and hired a housekeeper to help me keep up with maintenance.

AT WORK: after the fire my work gave me 30 days off, it was SUCH a blessing. With reese returning to work after one week, I was the one having to meet with adjusters, settle with insurance, all the chores and bs that came with it. After that month I returned to work and genuinely, the trauma had completely wiped my brain. I struggled to catch up, but did eventually, and then we got slammed with an unexpected busy season, and also pregnancy brain and being generally overwhelmed and well… lets just say my boss and I have not been seeing eye to eye. Without getting into a ton of detail, its been a rough go since I returned.

MENTALLY:

Right after the fire, I was gutted. Deeply depressed. I thought we would never recover. I’d lost my first baby, my dog Luke, who had been by myside since i was 15. I cried daily. A lot of the time 3-4x daily. At one point I asked my husband, “at what point do I stop crying everyday?” and he responded, “well, I did for about 2 weeks, and based off our emotional baselines, that puts you around a month and a half or 2.” …… which really made me laugh at the time, and I sort of agreed with him, but he was wrong.

Shortly after this conversation, I realized I was a few days late… Reese was convinced I was pregnant. I was convinced I was not meant to be pregnant ever again, and that the fire was proof of that (it didn’t make sense, but move on, it was a faith crisis).

After about a week of having “symptoms” here and there, I finally bought a couple tests. I woke up one morning, took a test, placed it upside down on the counter and left to get ridge ready for school. I forgot about the stupid test. I come back to the bathroom 20 minutes later after making ridge breakfast, and as I’m brushing my teeth I remember it. I casually flipped it over, absolutely sure it was going to be another negative and clear as day it was POSITIVE. THAT was the day I stopped crying everyday (which is weird because you’d think pregnancy would make it worse, right??)

This baby saved me. She was gift from Heaven at a time I so badly needed to hear from God. My miracle baby. She pulled me right out of my sinking depression and put things into perfect perspective.

-          Thank GOD we didn’t have a baby when the house caught fire… the nursery was one of the most badly burned rooms in the house, the first room it spread to, and the fire started DURING nap time. (see picture below, but you’ve been warned, its pretty sad)

-          Thank GOD I wasn’t heavily pregnant when the house caught fire…the stress alone could have sent me into preterm labor, potentially harming me or the baby.

Not only those two timings being perfect, but everything else seemed to fall into place…

We loved our little house, but it was never intended to be our forever home. We were going to outgrow it within a few years… but we couldn’t imagine ever leaving that property. We had begun small renovations, but had explored what it would take to add on 1,500 sq ft addition, but it seemed expensive and unobtainable with young children in the house….

Now, by the grace of God, we get to build our DREAM HOME on our PERFECT property with our chosen FAMILY as neighbors. FROM SCRATCH. That’s amazing!!!! A once in a lifetime opportunity! A blessing!

It sometimes feels so far away from being reality, but in 5 years, this will feel like a distant (dark and tragic) memory. At least that’s what I tell myself when things get hard.

Had it not been for baby girl, I truly don’t believe I would have been able to see the blessing in this so soon, if ever at all.

Don’t get me wrong… this still sucks a lot, all the time. Little reminders of things we lost will set me into a downward spiral… wanting a piece of clothing, seeing pictures of ridge with a special blanket or in baby clothes we thought all of kids would wear…. Shoot the other day I cried over a tomato that triggered a memory of our garden. Grief hits in waves. Its never ending, but we are choosing to grow around it.

THE BABY: Ok, so this post is a rollercoaster of emotions so far, right? Ups, downs, deep deep lows, unimaginable highs… That’s exactly how my mental health has been, a rollercoaster. Somedays are so busy, I forget I’m pregnant. Somedays I’m so busy, all I can think about is being pregnant. I’ve been into lists and bulletpoints this post so lets just keep it going, shall we? Here are all my pregnancy/new baby/postpartum related anxieties…

-          For starters, we have no baby items, we lost all that, and we have not even began to replace anything. We don’t really even have a “nursery” for her in our new house, we plan on just keeping her in our room until the house is done…whenever that is.

-          After struggling with infertility for so long, I am so so so afraid I am going to lose her, or do something that will harm her. Way more paranoid than I was with ridge.

-          Also, she is WILD. I have been feeling her kick since TWELVE weeks… she kicks so hard that reese felt her at 16 weeks. At her ultrasound, she looked right at the monitor and smiled the biggest open mouth smile the ultrasound tech said he’d ever seen…. I think my girl is going to have quite the personality, and she has already filled us up with so much joy, it doesn’t surprise me one bit that she also radiates it.

-          While I’ve always wanted to grow our family, I am so scared a new baby will take time away from Ridge… which I mean is inevitable, because babies also need attention I hear, but I am so afraid to miss out on Ridges milestones too… I’m afraid I won’t be able to handle splitting my attention in two.

-          POSTPARTUM. Ugh, I really try hard not to think about this because I am more afraid of it than I am willing to admit. Its no secret postpartum rocked my world. I ended up suicidal and having hallucinations, narrowly evading a stay in a psych ward and being on anti-psychotics for 18 months… I used to say I was prepared for round two because “I had all the available resources”…. But, to be honest, this time around I really don’t. I have my husband, I have my therapist… but my psychiatrist (the best, my biggest champion) had a health issue and was forced to retire shortly after the fire, and I have not sought out a replacement. Partly because I’m busy, partly because I’m in denial that I need one, and partly because I went through 3 the first time I shopped for psychs and had an absolutely horrible experience and don’t want to have to go through that again. I am terrified of postpartum. Terrified this time won’t be different.

Well, so much for keeping that short and sweet. Now were all up to speed. It felt good to get it all down, to finally write again… its been so long, I forgot how much I loved doing it and how easy it felt to write the things that were hard to say aloud. Hopefully this keeps me motivated to keep updating the blog. I’ve had so many PPD/PPP mamas who have followed my journey over the last 3.5 years reach out for guidance, or ask how its going, and I want to be open and honest with this second baby… I have no idea what the future or my mental health holds, but for the first time in a long time I feel hopeful.

Here are some pictures of things i mentioned, the images of the fire and the aftermath may be triggering so, be advised.

Picture 1 - the house shortly after we all got out

Picture 2 - The nursery

Picture 3 - Baby K’s SHOCKING pregnancy test

Picture 4 - Demo Day!

Picture 5 - Baby K at 20 week Ultrasound, looking DIRECTLY into the screen and SMILING

Picture 6 - our growing family on our 4th of july vacation, i was 20 or 21 weeks along?

I Still Struggle

It’s been 2 years since I was diagnosed with postpartum depression, and about a year since I began treatment for postpartum psychosis.

You’d think I’d have it all figured out by now, right? Well if you’ve been around a while, none of this will come as a surprise to you.

Here’s the truth; even on medication, I still fight bouts of cyclical depression, intrusive thoughts and to be fully transparent I had a psychotic experience about 8 weeks ago. (But in all fairness, NyQuil was involved so I’ve passed it off as a fluke.)

I still really struggle with the PTSD/anxiety from the psychosis. I have a really tainted relationship with my brain… I just can’t trust it. I still have trouble going to my office, and I’m only in the office 2 days a week… but that still sometimes gives me extreme anxiety… I’ve learned that sometimes I have to let anxiety win. When I get so anxious I have trouble breathing, or it makes me physically sick, I let my boss know I need to work from home that day. We have an unspoken understanding that this means I’m in a bad spot and I need a day. I’m really lucky that she is as accepting of this as she is. I also still have a hard time with crowded places; in fact, I’m already anxious about an upcoming family gathering. I avoid grocery stores. Restaurants stress me out but I’m getting better at them and have learned to distract myself while dining out.

Logically, I talk myself through these situations in advance. There is going to be ambient noise. There are going to be multiple conversations happening, possibly loud noises, this will be normal. But when it happens, when I’m in the thick of it, I feel like I have so little control. My heart races, my hands start to shake, my breath feels like its stuck in my throat, I go into fight or flight. When I finally get back into my comfort zone it feels like I’ve run a half marathon. It’s exhausting, its defeating, its unhelpful. It’s something I’m working on in therapy.

I still have a lot of work to do. But I do believe that overall, I’m in a way better place. I finally broke out of depression survival mode (DSM) and started doing things for me again. DSM is the place depressed people get stuck. DSM is using all the energy you have to just to scrape by the day-to-day stuff. Getting out of that rut has been really freeing for me. I’ve taken up running and have been reading 3-4 books a week. It feels so good to have hobbies and personal interests again. Something to give me purpose outside of being a wife, a mother, and accountant.

In the grand scheme of things I feel like a completely different person than I was even a few short months ago. I feel so far removed from the darkness that once ruled my every move.

The other day I was driving and caught a glimpse of the tattoo on my wrist. The semicolon represents an authors choice to continue a sentence instead of ending a complete thought; and the cross represents the faith I learned to lean on when things got dark.  When I got the tattoo, I intended for it to be a reminder of my faith and my second chance at life. But in that moment, I was reminded of my strength and my many blessings – all the things I almost lost. I’ve grown so much. I’ve overcome the hardest 2 years of my life. Tears filled my eyes as I thought about the special moments over the last year I would have missed if I had let suicide win.  I almost missed out on getting to watch my baby grow up, my greatest joy.

I don’t know how I made it out alive. But I did. And I’m better for it. I had a lot of help but there were things I had to learn on my own. Things only I could do to help myself.

1. Even the worst version of yourself deserves patience and grace.  

-  Be kind to yourself. Talk to yourself the way you talk to your child. You deserve the same amount of gentleness and care.

- “You are worthy. You are good. You are safe. You are loved.”

2. Be grateful for every little thing

-  Everyday say, out loud, 5 things your grateful for. The out loud part is important.

- “I GET to read my son a book today. I GET to eat lunch today. I GET to watch tiktok with no pants on.”

3. If God woke you up today, you BELONG in this life.

-  The only way to find out why God woke you up today, is to keep living.

-  YOU belong here. When you feel like you’ve lost control. When you feel alone. When everything is going wrong. When you feel like death is the only option – You. Belong. Here.

(IF you or your loved one is struggling with intrusive thoughts, reach out to the suicide hotline 1-800-273-8255. If you ever just need someone to hear you out, to feel less alone in your thoughts, don’t want to feel judged by someone who has never dealt with depression, my DMS are always open.)

Plan C and a ½.

Hi friends. Wow, 2 posts in 2 weeks, who is she??? Could a depressed gal do THIS?? (spoiler alert the answer is yes)

I know you’re all dying to know - how did mommy weekend go? Are you still depressed? What’s the tea??

First off, mommy weekend was great. It was nice to have some time to myself and I started finally writing something I’ve wanted to write for a long time. It felt good to do something just for me.

Did it cure all that ails me – well… not really.

When I came home on Sunday my husband saw me sitting somberly on the couch, “it wasn’t everything you hoped it would be, was it?” he said.

“How’d you know?”

“Because being away from you two has never made me feel good.”

He was right, even when I was away, I was facetiming them, jealous of their little adventures and all the fun they were having. I was getting the alone time I needed but felt like I was robbing myself of the memories being formed of a beautiful spring day with my family. Mom guilt strikes again.

 The week that followed was hard. I struggled with my thoughts, I was tired, I was stressed – still depressed.

I know I said Plan D was next, but I’ve concocted a new plan… We’ll call this one Plan C and a ½. Here it is – Plan C and a ½ is distraction. Filling the void with work/play/forced human interaction and making myself uncomfortably busy for the next couple weeks. You can’t be depressed if you simply have no time to feel, right?

Here’s the thing – this feels like a bad idea. This sounds like I am making my life harder, more stressful, tiring. If anything, I’m setting myself up for failure because you know what’s hard when you’re depressed? Everything. Everything is harder when you’re depressed.

But I’m going to try it anyway and maybe I can unslump myself by simply faking it till I make it. You know what they say, *HaPpInEsS iS a ChOiCe*. (this is satire, this advice is garbage don’t ever say that to a depressed person).

If it doesn’t work – I’ve got a psych appointment in a few weeks anyway so there’s always that.

Rotten Zucchini & Depression

I’ve been MIA for a little while - over 2 months to be exact… and if you’ve followed my story, you may know what this means for me, and if your new here – hiii, welcome… sometimes I post regularly and sometimes depression kicks my ass.

I’ve been struggling.

I went on an awesome vacation with my husband in Hawaii, had the BEST time of my life, refreshed my soul and my marriage and came home with the really cliché expectation that this experience would in some way make me new and give me the motivating fuel I’d been searching for.

But, I came home, and depression reared its ugly head, raised its spears and yelled “we attack at dawn!”

I spent a week on MY time, doing whatever I wanted, forgetting all the responsibility of home and then was *shocked* to come home to see the responsibility hadn’t diminished in my absence, if anything it had multiplied.

For about a week or so I just blamed it on “post vacation blues” … but deep down I knew this was more than that. I’ve delt with this cyclical depression in postpartum for 2 years now, I’ve learned a lot about myself and how I cope, and I have learned that my first big red depression flag is dinner. Or really, the lack thereof.

Undepressed Tiffy plans family dinners at least 5 days a week, meticulously grocery shopping, prepping meals so they are easy to cook after Ridge is home from school…Undepressed Tiffy doesn’t let the fresh fruit/veggies/raw chicken spoil or go to waste. Not that Tiffy – she has it figured out…

It starts slow, ordering take out or going out to eat a few times a week… Maybe I’m just a little depressed… and then before I know it, we are eating chicken nuggets or mac n cheese for the third time this week, there is rotten zucchini at the bottom of the fridge accompanied by chicken with a sell by date of at least a week ago…. Red flag, Tiffy… I think this is full fledge depression.

I WANT to feed my kid healthy meals. I ENJOY making meals for my family and I take pride in making just a little bit extra so my Husband can have something lunch the next day.

The reality of depression for me is that just living becomes so exhausting that the things I enjoy stop being joyful and start feeling like burdens. The crave to do them exists, it’s the will to do them that becomes harder and harder to find.

I could blame this episode on a lot of things. My workload stacked up. I’ve been really stressed. The world got scary. My 2 year old needed surgery. The weather was bad. After 8 months of trying to conceive (TTC), I got yet ~another~ negative pregnancy test followed by a period (that gets harder on us every month). I haven’t been sleeping well… I could go on… But I don’t think any one of those things caused me to sink into a depression. The culmination of those things was unhelpful, sure.

I’ve spent so much energy the past couple of years trying to point fingers and source each bout of depression with the hope that one of these days I would be able to somehow stop it before it took me out. Time and time again, I end up losing. Turns out, its mostly out of my control. As I look back at the past few weeks, I’m not sure there’s something I could have done differently that would have magically unspiraled my mental health. I can only control how I react.

So how did I react?? well – so far, I am not proud of my attempts to nip depression in the bud. It started with plan A…

Plan A: Alcohol.

I started drinking, more than usual... like ashamedly A LOT more than usual. To be honest, it did help, temporarily, at least. A few drinks deep and the weight of existence would lift itself off my shoulders. Until the next morning, I’d wake up and be *shocked* again to realize that this did not bring me the peace I was longing for. This worsened over a couple of weeks before I finally succumb to the fact that finding a short-term solution for a long-term problem just intensifies the problem. So, on to the next plan.

Plan B: find serotonin via drastic change in appearance. That’ll undepress me.

I cut about 7 inches off my hair… Plot twist – my hair stylist gave me some “texture” during this cut that is hard to style, and it turns out I don’t really like it…NEXT.

Plan C: Lean in.

Let the depression take its course. Get away for a few days, do something I love but leave time for me to do nothing at all… that’s right friends, it’s time for another - Mommy Weekend.

This weekend I am getting away from the house, checking into a hotel and working on my mental health. I need a break. I need a reset.

I know what your thinking – Tiffy didn’t you JUST go to Hawaii… isn’t a “break” what set this whole thing off??… and you’d be exactly right.

This is somehow different. Hawaii was for vacation, for my marriage, for the experiences and memories.

Mommy weekend is just for me. For my mental health. For re-centering, finding what brings me joy and exploring my coping mechanisms.

And let’s be honest, it could totally not work. That’s also a possibility. But there is no shame in my Plan D.

Plan D: Talk with my psychiatrist.

The beautiful perfect hawaii trip that started my mental downfall

10 Years

Lets talk about the #10yearschallenge.

10 years. That’s a long time. 10 years ago I was 16.

Here’s what I remember about being 16.

I filled my spare time with softball and volleyball. When I wasn’t at school or at practice, I was babysitting. I was obsessed with my dog, Luke. I think I wanted to be an author or a lawyer, but only because I was really good at arguing with my mom, and fluent in Latin. I pursued modeling for exactly 1 week before deciding that was absolutely not for me. I wanted to go to The University of Colorado, I don’t even remember why.

I don’t think I was sure about much when I was 16, but I very vividly remember, dreaming about being a mom.

Its been 10 years….

I didn’t make anything of my sports career – but my best friends from softball and volleyball are still my best friends today.

My dog Luke will be 12 this year.

I didn’t become a lawyer – but I have a masters in Tax Law, which is nerdy in its own right.

I didn’t go to Colorado, but had the best time at OU.

My dream of becoming mom – that one did come true. It is everything I could have ever hoped for. I could have never imagined the journey to get here would have been as hard as it was - but I made it and I think 16 year old me would be so excited about that.

Instead of making this about the past 10 years (because its boring, we get it, I became an adult I don’t need to recap my early 20’s…it was messy… lets move on), I want to look forward. Lets be cheesy, lets ask the question… “where do you see yourself in 10 years?”

I have never thought this through, or wrote this out, but I want to, and I’m excited to. I feel like there has been a huge shift in energy, and we are preparing for something big. I just have this feeling that the next 10 years are going to be my PRIME (this is coming from the girl that adamantly believed she peaked in 8th grade until about 6 months ago).

Here is what I am manifesting in my next 10 years.

At 36, –

• I am approaching my 13th wedding anniversary with the absolute love of my life.

• I am mom to more than 1 kid, but hopefully less than 5. (still a point of contention in my marriage, but I feel pretty confident the answer is more than 2 and less than 5, sorry reese!)

• My family is fully invested in following my kids passions. On the weekends, if we aren’t at tournaments or showing animals at a county fair, we are camping, traveling and exploring.

• I am an independent, successful business owner. (more to come on this dream in the coming months, hopefully)

• I’ve built a business so successful that it’s allowed my husband to make his hobby business a full time gig, we both get make our own schedules.

• I am an author; I have finally pursued my lifelong dream of writing a book.

• I have a hobby. Something I do just for me. (I’m working on figuring out what this one is)

• After years of creating humans and sustaining life, my body belongs to me again. I have a positive, healthy relationship with it.

• My funny farm is thriving. My brahma heifer, Doof, loves to be ridden like a horse (if you don’t know what a brahma is – it’s God’s most favored centaur – except instead of part goat its part hunchback of Notre Dame, part cow, part bunny)

• My dog, Luke, will be turning 22, he is in exceptional health, the Guinness book of world records sends him a cake. (these are my manifestations, get your negativity out of here)

So there it is, my top 10 goals for the next 10 years. Imperfect, a little vague, surely with struggles of their own… but they are mine, and I am ready.

 It felt good to write it out, therapeutic and encouraging, try it out.. (and … for the record- cheaper than therapy so its worth a shot)

Me at 16

Me at 26

TTC

For a few months now my husband and I have been trying to conceive (TTC). While I am overjoyed at the thought of becoming a mom again, I can’t help but be anxious about all the other things TTC brings for me.

Emotionally, this journey so far has been exhausting. We never really “tried” with my last two pregnancies, they were effortless and exciting in their own way. This one is different. Every month I pin down my “fertile” days and follow them closely, monitoring my body carefully for signs of ovulation. Then 2 weeks later I have the excitement of peeing on a stick and trying not to get my hopes up. Each negative test is more devastating than the last. Then my period comes, my heart sinks, my dream of another baby feels further and further away….and then we start the process over again. It’s a discouraging rollercoaster.

TTC – 1, Tiffy – 0.

Then there’s controlling what I can control… and that comes with another hard battle for me: breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding hormones can act as a natural birth control, making it more difficult to get pregnant. For the past few months, I avoided research and wrote this off as a myth, telling myself I could do both. However, TTC has become so devastating that I finally have to face the facts. It’s time for us to end our breastfeeding journey. On top of TTC, I always told myself “When he can ask for it, he’s too old for it” … well, just this week he started saying “booby” when he was ready for milk. That solidified this decision for me, it’s time to quit.

I am so proud of how far we’ve come. For 2 years my body has been able to provide nutrition and comfort for my baby. Breastfeeding created a bond with my son that carried me through my darkest moments. I may not have survived my fight against depression and suicide, I quite literally owe my life to breastfeeding. I can’t help but mourn the end of this journey and all that it has done for me.

TTC – 2, Tiffy – 0.

On to the things I can’t control. The “what ifs”.

This one is big. This one is scary.

Its no secret I have struggled A LOT in postpartum. Am I ready to start it all over again? What if its better? What if its worse? Can I handle hallucinations again? Depression? Suicidal thoughts? Am I being selfish by risking Ridge’s ‘healthy’ and ‘stable’ mother for another child? I am so quick to let my thoughts spiral and create a sinking feeling in my gut.

TTC – 3, Tiffy – 0.  

These are questions in conversations I’ve had many times with my husband, my therapist and my psychiatrist.

All those conversations have led me to one conclusion. The answer to every single one of those questions is “I don’t know”. BUT! And this is a big BUT!

BUT – I have already done the dirty work; I have built my foundation of resources. I know the signs of struggle, I have grown to be more self-aware, I have my support team at the ready.

TTC – 3, Tiffy – 1.

Since the very beginning, I have been so meticulous and intentional about medication. I have been breastfeeding through this journey, therefore, every medication I have been prescribed has had to have been safe for nursing. However, I also made sure my medication routine would be safe for pregnancy as well – I have gotten it cleared with both my psychiatrist and OB-GYN. I won’t have to go through the process of weaning or be weary of potentially hurting my child. I feel safe. I feel prepared.

TTC – 3, Tiffy – 2.

While the score may portray a losing game now, the final score is determined just like quidditch. The snitch is worth 150 points. One of these days, whether it be next month or 18 months from now, I’ll catch my snitch, the test will be positive, and I will get to spend 9 months absolutely thrilled to be throwing up every day (that’s how my last pregnancy went anyway).  

To my future baby – Hi. I prayed for you for so long. I’ve loved you long before you were even conceived. I can’t freaking wait to meet you.