Well due to much insipration from a new friend of mine who is a Pro-Blogger, I have decided that I would like to start blogging too.
The title 'Inside the fuzzy head of this mummy' explains exactly how my head feels since I became a mummy 2 years 8 months and 9 days ago. I had Archie at 33 weeks and he was in the NICU for the first few weeks of his life. I didn't bond with Archie till he was nearly a year old. The reason simply boiled down to the fact that when he was born he was taken straight from my womb to an incubator. I didn't see him, didn't hold him, didn't touch him untill 24 hours later when I was wheeled into NICU and told "this is your baby". Was that my baby? how did I know that was my baby? He could have been anybody's baby.
We got to take him home after a few weeks and I just 'got on with it' He could tell that I had a strange feeling towards him, he only wanted to be held by other people but me, he always settled for his dad and not for me, his face would never light up when I walked into the house after being out, there was just a very very weak bond (if any at all) there.
I spoke to my Health Visitor and was sent to the GP and put on Antidepressants, after a few months on these I was right as rain again, loving life with my little family. How simple. But its not always that simple is it?
When I gave birth to Isla-Mae at 35 weeks December 2010 I felt all this instant love and need to protect her come over me, she was taken to the NICU too but not before i'd had some skin to skin with her, held her, talked to her etc.
When she was 2 weeks old she became very ill with Bronchiolitis and Pneumonia. She was taken into hospital where I sat with her for the first few days and then made the decision to go home one night and let my husband stay with her instead. I got a call the next morning explaining she had deteriorated and to get to hospital asap. I sat by her bedside in hospital day and night watching my beautiful little princess struggle to breathe, she just got worse and worse and was eventually put on a CPAP breathing machine to help her breathe and give her a rest. I have never in my life prayed as much as I did in all the time she was poorly. Thankfully she became a lot better and was soon well enough to come home.
It hit me hard and all of a sudden I became this overprotective mummy worrying about every little thing. Was she breathing, was her chest recessing, were her nostrils flaring? Frantically searching for any symptom that she wasn't very well or that she was struggling again. After a couple of months of this I became somewhat suddenly 'detached' from my children. They hadn't gone anywhere, I hadn't gone anywhere but I just felt no desire to play with them, take them out. I just wanted to sit alone in a dark room in the quiet and not be disturbed. Time went on and it got worse and worse, at an appointement to my doctors surgery to take Isla-Mae to be weighed I broke down to the nurse and Health Visitor. I wasn't coping, I needed help. I couldn't carry on putting on that brave face anymore.
I was started on Citalopram which didn't help and thenafter a review from my doctor the dose was increased. 4 months later I was still feeling low, not wanting to do anything etc and was sent to see a Psychiatric Consultant and was put on Venlafaxeen. I have been on these now for 6/7 weeks and really cant tell how i'm feeling, One minute i'm up and within a second i'm back down again. I see the Consultant again this Thursday for a review where hopefully he can tell me how he thinks i'm doing because with all that is going on right now this mummy has one fuzzy head and she cant work out what is what. xxx
