8w 2d

I'm in that part of pregnancy where everything is dramatic and quite possibly the worst thing that has ever happened to me. Except I've been through this part before so I know that the hormones never really go away and I'm not going to feel like myself again for at least another year, if that. If that sounds overly pessimistic, let's not even talk about the fact that my Mom predicted my hormone-induced depression and encouraged me not to get pregnant again to avoid it. That's how bad it was the first time.

Yeah, clearly I did not take that advice to heart when I accidentally got pregnant seven months after she gave me that speech.

A huge part of my stress centers around my job - the job that I cannot reference on the Internet and directly address in any way. I tried once on Facebook and was promptly "talked to" about it. I cannot discuss any part of my job, my coworkers, the stress, or how it makes me feel in any "public forum". Although my semi-private blog did not come up in a google search of my name, I can only assume that it's just a matter of time before I'm in my boss' office discussing this with him. And that makes me sad. Most of the time, it makes me mute. I don't want to fear the wrath so I avoid the behavior. The only problem with that strategy is that I don't really have anyone I can talk to about the stress and how it's affecting me. Writing is part of who I am and how I cope.

It wasn't until after I got pregnant that I realized how much I was relying on vices and addictions to cope with my job. I drank, a lot for me, both socially and alone. I smoked cigarettes before cold calling and when I needed a break during the middle of the afternoon. I would text. Most of all, I took anti-anxiety medication when my throat felt like it was closing up and my heart was hammering in my chest and I still had to make 75 more phone calls. Then I got pregnant and all of those coping mechanisms (as faulty as they were) were stripped away. I can't drink. I can't smoke. I'm not dating and don't have texting to distract me. My friends get tired of hearing how sick am I and how hard this pregnancy has been on me so far. So I'm left with the anti-anxiety medication.

Here's the problem. The medication is a Class D, which is just one step about Class X in terms of safety during pregnancy for mother and fetus. The Reproductive Psychiatrist wasn't concerned when I told her I used the medication "as needed". She said it was a small, unduplicatable study that led the FDA to classify the drug as a Class D. My Ob-Gyn, however, keeps emphasizing that I should really be weaning off the drug and only taking it under EXTREME DURESS (her emphasis).

All I can say is, "I'm trying". I focus on breathing, but feeling like the world is falling apart around me and I will be homeless, living in my car with son in under three months, means there is only so much the mantra "I breathe in. I breathe out" can get me. There is no happy space I can escape to at work when my job is on the line. I take the medication, keep my head down, and worry with every pill that I'm causing irreparable damage to my unborn child.

In other fucked up news, I got in a car accident and my dog potentially broke the neck of my kitten. I found her dead when I came back in from doing errands. If bad things happen in three, can I at least keep my job and my baby? That's my hope right now. Keep my job. Keep my baby. Don't cause any birth defects. Focus on the little things.