A Broken Shoe & Ramblings

I woke up this morning, 6AM, turned off my cell phone alarm, as usual playing Kenny Chensey's "If I Lost It" and laid back down, again as usual haha. Charlie woke up (on time, as he usually does) and got in the shower. I'm always the one who causes us to run late. I swear if it weren't for me, Monday through Friday he'd be at work a half-hour before he had to be. 

Kenny Chesney (haha)

So, when I'm dressing for work - basically still asleep - I spot a pair of shoes (due to the fact of rearranging the closet) I haven't worn in a year so I slip 'em on and we finally head out the door. After traffic, fog, getting stuck at about every light in the county, and no time to squeeze in the hot-chocolate Wawa stop I was dying for, we finally get to work. [We commute and work together for those who didn't know.] I badge in, sit my stuff down at my desk, pull out my yogurt, etcetera, etcetera, and walk to the break room. I trip on the way there, trip again, and then wonder why these slip-ons are so flimsy that they keep bending in half when I walk. I get back to my desk and realize the entire bottom sole is pulled apart from the shoe.  Great, I forgot these shoes broke last year, explaining the reason I hadn't seen them in so long, because I threw them somewhere in the back of the closet. So, it's Thursday, I'm tired, and I go all day with a broken shoe. If it were Friday I would care less! :)

Otherwise, I had a good, typical day. We almost got into a car accident on the way home. It was raining, and a van two cars in front of us decides they want to cut off traffic in the right lane, so they slam on the brakes. Our ABS comes on and we just barely miss them. Our poor Rogue! :( The Explorer behind us was actually going to hit us, so he completely DRIVES over the median and into oncoming traffic until he can get back over again. Thank God there were no cars coming! Needless to say we wanted to get home after that.

Our Rogue!

I cooked Shake & Bake chicken, mashed potatos and corn on the cob for dinner. :) While I was cooking, Discovery was playing a show on postpartum depression/women's experiences with it. I decided to watch it because TV never plays anything on it. Actually, no one talks much about postpartum in general. I think there needs to be more education about it, because it affected me. I didn't know anything about postpartum. I didn't really believe in it, to be honest. I think it's a reason it's not really talked about much. Especially, no one tells you about postpartum issues after pregnancy loss, not just after birth. I had postpartum problems post-miscarriage. My hormones reached the 13,000's and dropped dramatically in a couple of days (along with the fact of my hormones were screwed up from PCOS).

It took me about five months to get over the problems I had (and only about two months to get over the extreme anxiety). Many times I didn't want to go anywhere. I felt safest at my house or my parents' house, or the hospital. Right after losing the baby I had panic attacks, which due to my delusion, I wouldn't believe could be postpartum. I thought I was dying of everything. I was in and out of the ER for so many different things. One of the visits, I had a CT scan done on my head because I was feeling tingling and swore I had a tumor or was bleeding internally on the brain (which come to find out, the tingling was from anxiety itself). I remember the right side of my body felt numb at times. I was depressed, upset, felt like I was going crazy. When the anxiety would creep up, nothing could stop it, the fight-or-flight mode would hit, I wouldn't be able to breathe, and I would have to get somewhere, anywhere, and most of the time made people take me to the hospital or doctor again. I think I wanted to go because I felt like doctors could fix it. The doctors and nurses were always nonchalant about what possible reason it could be, which would aggravate me even more because I would swear something was wrong with my health. They would just prescribe me anxiety meds, nausea meds, pain meds, all kinds of things, and they never once told me this could be hormones. I feel like if a doctor had told me that, it could've helped, but I never heard it, so I would continue freaking out, believing I was dying or going nuts. I swore I was having a heart attack when the panic attacks would happen. I would have odd thoughts in my mind. I'd look at things and not see it as it really was. I'd look in the mirror, completely freaked out and out of my element and didn't even recognize who I was looking at. I would stare into my eyes in the mirror just so I could get a grip on myself, and cry. I couldn't sleep, and if I did it was restless. I was failing at work. My production was falling and I was almost put on warning for it. I was thinking to myself everything is falling apart and on top of it, I didn't even get to keep this child for all this. I was angry. I was counting down getting today over with because maybe tomorrow would be better. Every day was different from the last and I never knew what to expect or how I would feel. It was initially hard to grieve the loss of a child while going through something so hard. It made me not be able to fathom women who lose a child they've met or have stillborns.

People don't realize what hormones can do to you. It made me realize they literally run your body and your mind. If they're off, it can affect your life in different ways and you have no idea that's what's happening. I now understand what "hormone replacement" is for.

Now that I'm good, I look back on it and think to myself how bizarre I was. I feel sad when I think about it because it was the hardest thing I've had to go through...but it made me appreciate God because I knew he put me through it for a reason. It made me so much stronger than I was. It made me grow up and look around me...and it made me realize bringing a child into the world is life-changing. It made me feel closer to God than I was before. I couldn't ever thank my mom enough for being there for me the way she was. She didn't know exactly what I was going through, and yet she made me feel safe and helped me through it, even if it meant ER trips or staying up late with me until I fell asleep.

My Mom and I

The show actually said women with PCOS are more likely to have postpartum problems, and 50% of women with PCOS have some kind of postpartum issue. It's scary to think of it happening again, but at least I'll be more prepared if it does. The thing I hate the most about PCOS is it's not something you can cure. It can just be managed and if it's managed well you won't notice many symptoms. I want young women like me to know about what could happen postpartum, whether you actually birth the child or not, what to expect, and how they could handle it until it's over. If I had known anything about postpartum, and the fact I had PCOS, it would have been so much easier and I could've helped prevent it.

On a different topic, tomorrow is F R I D A Y! I'M SO EXCITED! Can't wait for the weekend. It's supposed to be beautiful weather. :) We're going to do some things around town and I'm going to go out with my mom. It's becoming holiday season and I love it. I can't believe Thanksgiving is just a couple weeks away...and that means Christmas :) I'm so in love with Christmas. Everyone seems to be in such a good mood around the holidays; you go anywhere and you can just feel it. I reaaaally want to see Jack & Jill in the theater; it looks funny. We're trying to save money because we aren't going to have much cash for Christmas this year, so we'll see :)


*Question of the Day: Do you do anything different to save money around the holidays?*