The first thing I said to David when we got home was, "You just need to fall in line buddy." It sounds funny but he really did. Having a third child in the house was work. It was an extra mouth to feed and I was the only one to feed him! But, I think everyone was so happy to have mom and dad back in the house full time that the extra chaos that a newborn brings seemed simple compared to the last 4 months. Not to mention the fact that we had two boys that needed care. Family and friends would ask me, "Are you worried about him getting sick since he was a preemie?" Nope. I can honestly say I was not. Jonah and Caleb were going to bring home bugs from school and daycare and there was not a thing I could do about it, except really through hand washing. In fact the second week after David got home both Caleb and Jonah got strep! David went everywhere, to the Halloween parade at Jonah's school and the Halloween party at Caleb's daycare. He went with me to the mall and everywhere else in between. I had been confined to a hospital bed for so long that staying in one place for very long was not in my vocabulary anymore. I wanted to go and experience life, take walks to Starbucks or just visit a friend. Those first few weeks and months of having David home are a blur of caring for three children but there are a few details that I remember. I remember being happy to be with my family and I remember feeling content.
In December my nephew was turning 5 and having a birthday party. My sister-in-law and her husband with their two boys live outside of Chicago. My mother-in-law suggested taking the train to Chicago with the boys. I thought it was a great idea. I had travelled in the car with an infant many times. It is no fun when they get hungry and start to cry and then start to wail. Travelling on the train would be a relaxing way to get to Chicago, plus my train crazed son, Jonah was going to LOVE it!!
My mother-in-law loves to make any little trip a big deal. She packs little presents, buys special treats and she had brought her iPad. A new gadget at the time. We planned extra time to go to Zingerman's in Ann Arbor to get sandwiches for lunch...Yum! Even with three kids and all our luggage and the stroller and a car seat we got on the train with little issue. The boys went back and forth to the cafe car at least 20 times and I sat and nursed David as often as he needed. It was a fun and relaxing trip until about halfway though I remembered that I had forgotten something important at home, my antidepressant, Zoloft. "Shit! Shit!" I thought. I could not believe that would do something like that. "How in the world could I have forgotten that drug!?" I tried to talk myself down from my mistake. I had forgotten to take doses in the past and there was no major problems. It was Thursday and my husband was driving to Chicago with his father on Friday. Greg would be able to bring the medication with him. Really I was only going to miss two doses. I would be fine I thought. Things will be okay. Only they were not okay.
The next night I was sitting in the rocking chair in my sister-in-law's family room nursing David. I noticed that his nails were really getting long and sharp and asked her for the baby nail cutters or baby scissors for his nails. The next few moments began the unraveling of the tightly wound ball of string I was holding onto very precariously. Those scissors were put into my hand and in a split second I started to have intrusive thoughts. Over and over and over and over again I thought about cutting off the tips of David's fingers. I put the scissors down thinking it was me holding the scissors but the thoughts persisted. I was so disturbed that I had to put David down. I laid the boppy on the floor, propped him up in it and walked away.
My brain was spinning. I was thinking, "No. Not again. It's the damn Zoloft. I forgot to take it and now I am having these intrusive thoughts. Fuck!" I was able to calm myself down by reminding myself that Greg would be in that night and I could take the medication. Getting the drug back in my system, I thought would take the intrusive thoughts away. These intrusive thoughts were not new to me. Instead they were like an old bad friend coming back to visit. After my second son, Caleb was born I suffered from post partum depression pretty severely only I didn't think it was severe. I ignored the intrusive thoughts with Caleb because they scared me. I thought I was crazy and was terrified of someone finding out that I was in fact crazy. So I kept my mouth shut and dealt with them the best way I could. This time I had name for these thoughts. I knew that these thoughts did not mean I wanted to do any harm to my baby. I knew I was not crazy but I also knew it meant that things were not good. It was the first signal of many signals that I ignored. Greg got in late that night around midnight. I took the Zoloft as soon as he could fish it out of his bag. I went to bed praying that night that the intrusive thoughts would be gone in the morning.
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