Thirty-One Springs

Tomorrow is my birthday, and this blog is officially one year old! When I started writing here, exactly a year ago, I had many expectations, many dreams, and a bit of fear of the unknown future ahead of me. A year ago, I had just started reducing Effexor XR, so that I could try to get pregnant off medication. I was hoping things would go smooth. Well, as you all know very well, they didn't. I have walked a long path and have had a relapse. I changed medications. I did not get pregnant. Tomorrow, while I celebrate my 31st birthday, I want to focus on being healthy, taking good care of myself, enjoying my free time and enjoying the people I love. I want to keep feeling happynthenway I have felt since Cymbalta started working and cast away all the shadows. I still would love to become a mother, but I am not a slave of my obsession anymore. Happy Birthday to me:-)

Giving up and letting go

It has definitely given me a sense of freedom. It seems I don't care anymore. It still hurts a bit when people ask if I have any news, but it's been better than before.

Yes, I gave up trying to get pregnant. I decided I am too tired to keep doing ovulation tests et all. The holidays and our trip to Brazil are approaching and I simply don't want to fuss about not being pregnant again.

My husband, on the other hand, seems to really want to keep trying. I know what some of you will say, yeah, of course he does, for he is a guy and he likes it, but I can assure you that that is not the case. Sometimes both of us are tired and hubby says we need to try because I won't just get pregnant if we don't "do the deed".

Well, honestly, after I learned about my friend's sister, who did exactly the opposite of what I'm doing (that is, she avoided having intercourse on the days she was most fertile) and got pregnant, I don't know anything anymore. Maybe if we avoid my fertile week, I'll get pregnant!!!

Anyways, I am super excited about our trip. We'll spend 2 weeks in my hometown, where I'll get to see my family, and friends I haven't seen in over 3 years, and then we'll go to the northeast of Brazil, to a coastal city called Salvador! The beaches there are awesome and it is going to be summer time! I can't wait!

My medication seems to be working well. Sometimes I forget to take it in the morning, and then I have a problem, because if I take it too late in the day, I can't sleep. Nevertheless, I am very satisfied with Cymbalta, especially knowing that it is much easier to stop it than it is to stop Effexor.

It does have side-effects, though, I keep having very vivid anxious dreams. I usually sweat a lot while I'm dreaming, which means I get very dehydrated. I'm still taking Kavinace, 2 pills a day, and I notice the difference in my anxiety if I don't take it. It definitely helps. I can certainly recommend Kavinace to anyone suffering from anxiety, insomnia, nervousness, stress...

I've also gained back some of the weight I had lost. I'm not totally thrilled about it, especially because people think it is okay for them to approach me to say "oh, you've gained some weight!" I think it is because I am not overweight, so they must think I won't care! No woman likes to hear she's gained weight. Besides, I do not think it is very polite to tell someone that he or she gained weight, even if it is true!

I would love to someday come here and let you all know I am pregnant, but unfortunately it hasn't happened. Perhaps it will happen during our vacation, when we'll be relaxing at the beach... I wish!!! Happy Holidays, everyone!

It's time to be thankful, but I'm not

I resent that I'm not pregnant. I envy every single woman I see with a child. I want a baby. It's been 7 months and 8 cycles, for goodness sake. How much longer is it going to take?

I'm on my period and it has been bitter. I have painful cramps when I'm off the pill. I had some spotting earlier last week and I actually thought I was pregnant. Spotting is a sign of pregnancy, plus the pain in my breasts seemed to be more intense this month. I did a pregnancy test yesterday and it was negative. Then, a couple hours later, my period came, accompanied by a lot of pain, physical and emotional, that is.

I should be thankful for all that I have, but I am greedy. I want it all- I want a baby; not just any baby, a healthy, perfect, wonderful baby. Conceived by my husband and I, naturally, lovingly...

Isn't it flawed enough that I need to be on antidepressants while trying to start a family? Do I also have to suffer to get there?

I know, I know I sound like a broken record; I'm fixated on this idea of getting pregnant. I
want it and I want it now. And it's not happening. Sometimes I'm walking down the street and I
daydream of my growing belly, of the pains and wonders of motherhood, of the delivery, then my
baby boy or girl, holding him/her, the photos, the clothes, the joy, ah! The joy.

Am I being ungrateful? Am I asking too much? Can't it just happen one of these following
months??

I'm seeing my OBGYN in January. We'll run some tests, see what's going on. I will have had
other 3 cycles by the time she sees me. We're going to Brazil for the holidays. It will be a
lot of traveling. My husband says it is actually better that I'm not pregnant right now. I
don't know. I want it too much, perhaps. I dream of it too much. Even of the sickness, the
throwing up, the joy, the joy of motherhood.

But I need to be thankful. Thankful that my depression symptoms are under control; thankful that I am overall healthy; thankful that I have family and friends, and support.

All I want for Christmas is a baby growing in the oven. That's all. It seems that's too much to ask for.

Excuses

I have been away from here, perhaps because medication has been working well, so I don't feel the "need" to stop and reflect about my feelings. My therapist had asked me to try writing here and there, so I could channel my emotions into powerful statements of self-assurance...

I'm having some side effects I don't like. I dream vivid, anxious dreams all night long, it seems. My dreams tend to repeat themselves and mix what I like to call my "two realities", Brazil and California. I dream I'm there, but living this life, here, or sometimes it's a mix of my former life in Brazil but with elements of my current life here. I have constipation, which I've never had in my life. Still, the benefits of medication out weight the side effect.

Last month, when I had the confirmation that I was not pregnant, I cried. I cried in therapy later on, too, and it felt good. I hadn't cried for a while. I have my yearly OBGYN appointment scheduled for January, so until then I need to relax and let go. This month I had all the signs of ovulation, but the ovulation tests say otherwise. I did not get a positive result. I use the ClearBlue digital ovulation test, so there is no gray area. I'm either ovulating, or I'm not. I felt the urge to call my doctor and try to have an appointment just to address my possible infertility problems, but I've been able to contain myself. I can wait until January. It is not a big deal.

Life has been going on as busy as possible. I'm writing a paper for one of the classes I'm taking, it is almost all done. I'm on page 4 out of 5! wooo... I'm also enjoying my French classes and I plan to enroll on Beginning French II, which starts in January. It is finally cold in California, and I haven't been exercising much, but I'm giving myself a break from self-criticism. I'll exercise when I feel like it. Today I have mainly worked on my paper, which is due November 23. I have to mail it in to the professor, so it needs to be done by the 20, I say. I'll probably be done earlier, hopefully this Sunday, or Monday. I wished to be done today, but I don't think I have enough concentration left in me to do it.

I so wish I was pregnant by now. I really did. I dreamed of being 3 months pregnant, waiting for that ultrasound that reveals the baby's gender, waiting to be able to announce to the world that I have a baby coming! But it hasn't happened. I have to keep on living, and living as best as I can, because that is the only life I have.

The Blessings of Depression

I wrote the following post last week, after watching Steve Jobs' commencement speech for the 2005 Stanford graduate students. My psychiatrist had already told me to watch it, and when I learned Jobs had passed away, I decided to finally watch it.

Can anything good come out of depression? Will I look back to this time of my life, in the future, and acknowledge there was a purpose for a relapse? Does depression make me wiser? As I reflected on my life, I've come to realize there were things I would have never done, and people I would have never met, if it weren't for my illness.

This is a very long and personal post, and I hope it helps anyone out there who's also trying to connect the dots.


"All I can say, when I look back at my life, is that suffering from depression and going to medication and therapy at the age of 23 was the best - and most important - thing that happened in my life. Because I was sick and suicidal, all my family, which was highly dysfunctional and complicated at the time, went to therapy with me. My relationship with my parents, especially with my mother, improved 1000%. Moreover, had I not gotten sick and gone to therapy and medication, I wouldn't have realized that I wasn't happy, and that I needed to change that. I was engaged to be married at the time with someone who was insecure, possessive, jealous, controlling, basically mentally sick himself. As I got better and improved, I started to realize that that was not the life I wanted for myself. I broke up the engagement and, later on, the relationship, and lived the best 5 months I had ever lived in the past 4 years.

I started saving money to study abroad. That was the beginning of 2005. I was going to Australia, and had already talked to an agency and set up a savings plan to have all the money by the end of the year, when I planned to spend my summer vacation there. It would be my graduation gift for myself. I was going to finish my degree in December, I planned, and everything was going according to my plan. Then, on February of 2005, as I was watching the principal of the school where I worked give a speech to the students, a commencement speech, as February was the beginning of the school year, I suddenly felt like running away. I felt this desperation inside of me. I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to teach. I wanted to disappear. When I got home after work, I was sick of my stomach and couldn't eat. That was the beginning of my anxiety attacks. Back then, I didn't know, or I wasn't sure it was anxiety. So my mother took me to the doctor, he ordered a bunch of exams, including an abdominal ultrasound, and everything came back normal. We told the doctor I had depression the previous year, and he immediately stated that I should go see a psychiatrist.

My aunt, who is bipolar, told us about her doctor, so we went to see Dr. Athos, who became my psychiatrist and therapist for the following 2 years. My insurance didn't cover him, so all the money I was supposed to save for my trip went into paying my treatment. I saw the doctor weekly, and went back on medication, this time including Xanax. I had to postpone my graduation as well, because I didn't feel capable of doing all the courses and all the papers I needed to do in order to finish. It felt like a huge setback. I wasn't going to Australia. I wasn't going to finish college by the end of 2005. I kept my job as a high school English teacher, at least. Because I often couldn't sleep, I would stay up online on a chat program called ICQ. In that program, people could search for someone from a different country based on hobbies, interests, age, gender, etc. Someone from Canada added me. I saw it was a 30 year old guy named Patk (nickname). I almost didn't accept the friend request! But I did, and we started to chat. Soon he convinced me to chat on Microsoft Messenger, and to buy a webcam and microphone, so we could chat via skype as well. Our friendship wasn't romantic at all. I was interested in talking to someone whose native language was English, and he wanted to know about Brazil and Peru.

I told him about my getting sick and not being able to finish college and travel to Australia. He praised me because, from his point of view, I knew how to fail, which was important. The thing is, if I hadn't had a relapse and gotten sick again, I would probably have never met Patrick. He told me, later, that he added me on the chat program because he was searching for someone from Brazil to whom he could ask questions about the country, and someone who spoke English and who were online at the time he was searching. I would have never been online at that time of the night had I not been sick.

By the end of May 2005, Patrick and I had grown extremely close. We chatted on skype almost daily. He could see me on the webcam and vice-versa. He decided he was coming to Brazil in July, during my winter vacation, to visit me in person. He arrived on July 16 and spent 9 days in Brazil. I had a friend whose mother had a bed and breakfast in a nice tourist town close to my town, so it all worked out. He met my parents and, by the end of the 9 days, we acknowledged we were dating. He invited my friend and I to visit him in California for New Year's, and aided by my friend (who did all the work to get the visas done and the cheapest flight tickets), we made it to California in the end of December. I didn't go to Australia, but California was a much better destination. We spent 40 days here.

Patrick came to visit me on April of 2006, and I knew, by then, that something needed to happen. I didn't know what exactly. In the end of May, 2006, unhappy with my job, and almost done with university, I made a big decision. I called my parents into the kitchen in the evening and told them I had decided I was going to quit my job. They were surprised, but they supported me. I gave my notice at the school where I worked the following morning. Looking back, I know that was the right thing to do, but back then, when I didn't know what was going to happen, it was pretty scary, and I know I was being very brave. Patrick then told me I should come to America and spend the rest of the year there with him. I could become an au-pair and secure a year or 2 there, while we worked on our relationship. I knew we needed to live close to each other to see if our relationship was going somewhere. We had spent a year living 6 thousand miles apart. It was pretty crazy. By then I had been on medication for over a year and a half, and I told my doctor I wanted to stop. We compromised on a maintenance dosage and I traveled to America on August 2006. My father picked up my diploma for me in September. I didn't even go to my own graduation, but it didn't matter. I had finished my 8 years in college and I was done!

The rest of the story I might have mentioned already. We decided to get married. I went back to Brazil on December, 2006 to arrange the wedding; I was off medication for 2 months and all the agitation of getting married made me have a relapse. I was back on meds but I managed to continue on with our wedding plans. I traveled back to California in the beginning of February. We got legally married on February 15, 2007. I changed my visa status from tourist to Patrick's work-visa dependent, we went to Brazil in April and had our big wedding day with family and friends.

I've had amazing opportunities while living here since May 2007. My English has improved to the levels of high proficiency in all 4 skills; I've had the opportunity to take courses at Stanford; I lived for a year in lovely Los Gatos; I've realized I want to be a mother and for the first time felt prepared for it.

None of it would have happened had I not been sick. I wouldn't have realized that I wasn't happy. I wouldn't have searched for something else. I wouldn't have quit that previous relationship and I wouldn't have quit my job. I would have probably still been there today.

Right now I don't know exactly where the path is going to lead, but when I look back, I see it has all amazingly worked out okay. I had no idea, at the young age of 23, that I would be living in California, married to a Canadian computer systems engineer, and taking Classic courses and History courses at Stanford. If someone told me that, 7 years ago, I would have laughed. After all, I was engaged to someone else, I was a school teacher and made no way near enough money to travel abroad, and I had never heard of Stanford University.

So if I'm struggling with anxiety and depression now, there must be a purpose. I know I'll be able to connect the dots when I look back at this period of my life".

New month, new hope

My period came 3 days late and I cried silently as I acknowledged it's been 6 cycles (or 5 months) that we're trying to conceive. Granted, there were 2 cycles in which we couldn't try, because I was sick right on the fertile week, so I know it is still too early to freak out.

I've been feeling quite anxious, including at night. It isn't enough to prevent me from eating, but it is enough to disturb my sleep. Last night I was able to sleep without medication, so it was a good night.

I think Cymbalta is working. I'm not 100% yet, but I'm eating well, at least, and being able to cope without the aid of Clonazepan. I still want very much to get pregnant, and I feel frustrated and disappointed that it hasn't happened yet. Hopefully it will happen this month! Next week is my fertile week, so wish me luck! I'll try and do the ovulation test, to better pin point my most fertile day. I'm counting on those pregnancy hormones to make my serotonin super high. I need to hope it will work out well!

Limbo #2

I'm very anxious right now. I feel like I did absolutely nothing the whole day.
My period is one day late, but I don't think I'm pregnant. It would be ironic if I actually were pregnant 3 weeks after going back on medication.

I'm trying not to take Clonazepan, even though I know it would help me feel better. The last time I took it was Monday morning. I want to drink coffee, but I know coffee will just make me more anxious. Even decaf coffee has some caffeine in it. I've already drunk one this morning.

My classes at the continuing studies program were great. I already read the 3 chapters I'm supposed to read for next Monday's class. The French course on Tuesday was great, too. Very fun. I still feel anxious. Not enough to be sick of my stomach. Just enough to make me uncomfortable.

I have therapy today at 5pm. It is very hot now in Northern California. Late summer, as usual. We're almost in October. I feel I'm in limbo again. Waiting. Waiting. I'm trying to breathe deeply. I made myself some smoked salmon pasta for lunch. It was yummy.

I can hear the crows chirp outside. It falls into place now. It used to sound so odd. There are no crows where I come from. Here they're everywhere. There's a truck backing up. I can hear the beep, beep, beep. It is bright and sunny out. Apparently, it is going to rain next week. I can hear an airplane go by. My orchids need water. I don't feel like watering them. My basil plant is dead. Well, almost. End of basil season.

I've already gone for a walk this morning. Maybe I'll just lie down and try to sleep. Really? at 3:30 in the afternoon? feeling anxious? I want my period to come so that I know I'm not pregnant after only 3 weeks on meds. I haven't been to yoga in 2 weeks. I haven't even exercised this week, besides this morning. I don't know what else to say.