A Catch

  Even though she was an awesome eater, G was not gaining weight with my exclusive nursing efforts.  By three months in, I had to make the tortuous decision to start supplementing her with formula after each nursing.  I was on the mini pill for birth control and it had to be taken literally 24 hours to the minute from the last dose to prevent pregnancy from occurring.  Miss it by 5 minutes or stop breastfeeding 100% of the time and you were unprotected for two weeks while you started all over doing it perfectly.  It was the only breastfeeding-safe birth control so I used it.  My post-partum with G was far harder than it had been with M so I was on shaky ground as it was.  Weening her left me feeling like I had failed, but I couldn't watch her starve on what my body was making to stave off my feelings of inadequacy.

  I went to the doctor and talked to him about getting on a more stable form of birth control and opted for the patch since there was no having to remember to take it.  Just stick it on and a week later take it back off to replace with a fresh one.  Simple enough.  He ran a pregnancy test just to rule it out and it came back negative, but something felt... off.  I felt like I would be doing something somehow wrong if I put that patch on myself.  I procrastinated until my milk ran out a about a week or two later and bit the bullet.  G was being bottle fed now so there was no more snuggling while she would at nurse at night, I had to get up to make and then feed her the bottles.  By two days into my patch being on I woke up in a state of pure exhaustion and a sense of desperation to make it stop.  The lights went out in my brain and I felt nothing.  Not happiness, not sadness, not anything at all.

  I robotically went about feeding and taking care of my baby and toddler while this thought kept running through my mind that I could jump off the balcony.  Not because I wanted to die, but because I would get rest once I hit the ground four floors below.  I heard this voice tell me to call my husband so I did.  "D, I think I will jump off the balcony today."  He was home in half the time it usually took and had me to an emergency room as soon as he got to me.  They put me on an antidepressant and sent me home with a diagnosis of post-partum depression.  I took my pills, but they were like peeing on a wild fire.

  After three weeks on my birth control patch, it was time to do a week of no patch to allow for a period.  I took off my patch and... nothing happened.  Well, no period that is.  Other things did start to happen like food aversions, intense fatigue even after G was in a good night sleep pattern, and morning sickness.  It hit me as I attempted to make dinner one night and became so ill at the very thought of the food that I had to go lay down on the couch until D came home from work.  As I lay there I thought about my missing period and how familiar this feeling was and it hit me that I might be pregnant.  I told myself I was losing it and promised myself that once D got home, I would sneak off to take a test and get this wacky thought out of my head.

  D came home and I made an excuse to go to the store like wanting a Sprite or something and he didn't think anything of it.  I started doing a mental checklist of pregnancy symptoms I didn't have and almost had myself convinced out of testing when I pulled into a parking spot.  There was this voice that whispered to me "don't do this alone LaNae, it is going to be positive" and I brushed it away as I buckled down and went in and bought a pregnancy test.  I didn't want to freak out D so I opted to take the test in the store restroom and put this nonsense behind me.  After a matter of 0.2 seconds, it was bright positive.  I sat shaking and although I wanted to cry, the tears felt trapped in my chest somehow.  I just sat there in shock and terror looking at this test telling me I was very pregnant.  I had a 4 1/2 month old at home and this didn't seem possible.  No.  Just NO.

  I tucked the test into my purse and stormed from the restroom clearly upset and got behind the wheel of my van not sure how I was even going to drive the 2 minutes to my apartment.  I managed to go into auto pilot and got to my parking garage and wobbly made my way to the elevator.  When I opened the door to my apartment, I literally screamed out D's name.  He thought I was hurt and rushed to me.  I thrust the positive test at him and then he had to catch me as I lost my leg strength and almost hit the floor.  I wept into his chest not to hate me and how sorry I was and how scared I was.  He reassured me that there was nothing to worry about and that it would all be okay.  As he worked to try to calm me, I suddenly remembered that moment after G was born and how I told him, "A baby this perfect will come with a catch.".  Well, a catch is exactly what we got.