the "vatta" temperament

i don't know if you have heard of the ayervedic classifications of "dosha". anyway my friend who is studying it in depth did a consultation with me and it reinforced what i already knew, that i am very "vatta", air, nervous system imbalances, easily spiritual, disorganized, unable to do anything consistently, make friends easily with like minded people- trusting, moody, then the physical stuff: dry skin, fast metabolism, small bones etc. she said i was the most vatta person she'd come across, as most people are a bit of a mix.
anyway all this to say that my blog does not escape my vatta nature. i do it in an intense and genuine soulful way, but cannot keep it up in a disciplined consistent way at all. in fact due to this very nature, she did not give me a lot of instructions about diet, habits exercise etc. as she knew i would not be able to follow them. she sort of gave some gentle suggestions about ways to try to ground myself. we vattas are very much air, in our heads, need warm food, even oily heavy food to get us down to the ground. also even meals are inconsistent. some days i eat regular meals, other days i snack all day, other days i forget to eat, and some days i eat really only salty and sugary foods. it turns out ice cream for breakfast is not so bad for me.
that's what i like about this ancient system, it is all about how to balance one's intrinsic physical/spiritual/mental/emotional nature...
anyway so here i am, i guess it's about two months and a week later.

quick report:
two weeks ago i noticed the very moment my brain switched over adn went to manic mode, shortly followed by "mixed state", anxiety, paranoia, fear of getting psychotic etc. i took care of it pretty quickly with a heavier dose of seroquel, leaving three messages with my psychiatrist and of course telling denzel. it was very intense but i'm getting used to knowing that for now i am in a sort of "episode" or kind of fragile imbalance state where i take a more klonopin during day and sometiems extra seroquel in day and more seroquel at night too. the depression peeks its head through all this too so i'm continuing wellbutrin...
it has been mixed with baby. moments of delight and connecting with her and enjoying her laugh and smile, lots of physical contact and full of love for her. then also horrible moments of feeling resentful, bad, wanting not to have her around, or feeling kind of like a zombie or whatever the word is for feeling totally cut off and not responding to her at all and feeling bad about it but somehow locked off and incapable. other worse moments of bad thoughts that are too hard to write about. but feeling a little proud of myself that i'm livng through it and surviving...
a lot of this was triggered by our wonderful nanny having to leave due to the hours no longer suiting her for her family life. we now have a new nanny, but it was a terrible shock and loss. i still miss the old nanny. so does denzel. this ending somehow went to my nervous systema and triggered all kinds of abandonment stuff that went to my brain and started the bipolar imbalance going...
that's about all for now. i'm still quite paranoid around the new nanny, and a little paranoid in general. i should be asleep as i took my meds and usually make myself go to sleep earlier than this. bad sign. i'll take an extra seroquel now.
still attending the postpartem depression mother's group with baby. it's helpful but as it is a drop in group i find myself missing one of the mothers who left. she shared so much and then she was gone and now there are new moms there. i am such a creature of attachment and staying with people in my life that i am too sensitive to changes and people leaving... i hope the people who read my blog will come back... ok. i really will go take another seroquel...

introducing the new post baby comic strip!!!

More Confessions...

the bigger confession I should have drawn a comic strip of was an earlier sin I committed today. (funny how as a jewish superstitious atheist i freely employ all this dramatic wording from other religions, esp. these days, the catholics with "confessions" and "sin"... one thing i've gotten even more comfortable with due to pregnancy is all my inconsistencies and total contradictions...)

anyway earlier today i purchase a pair of designer sunglasses on sale, still at a high cost though they were more than half price. there was no need for them. even if i eventually have money to turn them into prescription sunglasses and wear them as regular ones until them, i do not need them. but they were ultra cool looking and i enlisted a friend who has kids herself and is trying not to spend extra money to tell me they looked great on me and stand there while i bought them.

this is not a purchase to be making with only weeks left before baby girl arrives, when i am in debt and will need extra money in the first couple of months of motherhood. on the other hand i'm sure the baby will be happy to see me stroll her down the street in her new lightweight stroller wearing those sunglasses and the sandals i got a few weeks ago in bright colors to match her stroller. she will be delighted and thinking, this was a very necessary purchase. i was there when you made it and got a nice rush of excessive spending high from you, thanks mom... of course this is not something i will be doing when she is here outside my belly.

also getting ready to get rid of another major sin very soon. the tv! i grew up with no tv and we both want to get rid of our tv and bring up baby without tv. i'll stil want a screen of some sort to watch movies on as i do not consider my film interests to be bad influence on baby and they are easier to keep away from her. i returned my baby einstein dvd after reading that article that came out and realizing it's best of all to just read to her and have denzel play music and sing to her...

otherwise going through all kinds of ups and downs and emotions. yesterday i passed the vet elvis goes to and saw a vet tech walking a little cute doggie with one of those plastic shades on her head and practically burst into tears. not sure if it was seeing the elizabethan collar on the dog or somehow missing elvis' baby days or some kind of reminder of times elvis has been in the vet or sick. almost cried on the subway tonight after intense therapy session...

having weird dreams again like i did in the beginnign of being pregnant...

still no comic strip...

feeling ok now but earlier in the day i cried a few times... yesterday i cried on the way to the baby party with denzel. my friend and her husband and beautiful baby had a very nice party for us but i was not in a great mood at the beginning. everyone seemed to have a good time and i was glad in the end that i had decided to have a coed party rather than a typical shower. we've gotten some great and lovely gifts for the baby.
plus the ice cream cake! i splurged on a yummy ice cream cake that was great. i had two pieces and i know it was good because my picky gourmet mother had two pieces. my father also came to the party and they enjoyed hanging out with my friends. my sister brought her kids and husband.
by the time we got home i was feeling uncomfortable and sort of muscle pain from the fetus moving around and stretching.
i'm still anxious about everything and also money.
today i took elvis out for his late birthday special walk to the park by the water and he enjoyed it and had a lot of energy. i cried on the way there and on the way home and when i got home.
denzel and i took a long walk in the pouring rain and got soaked looking at dressers to possibly use for the baby. there was a bamboo type tray at a store that we joked about being the perfect baby changer. we'll probably just change her on the bed or the dining room table with a towel. i'm starting to get annoyed at all the ridiculous marketing geared at making new parents spend money they don't have.
i feel huge and can't believe how big i am and don't recognize myself anymore though friends say the nice thing about me looking the same except for the big belly. at least my face is not all puffy. i dont' understand how people say they love being pregnant. i am happy to have the baby moving inside me but i don't love being pregnant. i miss my meds and my old normal body and being able to bend over and cut my own toenails and do activities like exercise (which i was so not into before being pregnant but there's nothing like being unable to do something to make you want to do it) and having energy. and the crying feels weird, i feel like i'm a kid crying and scared and helpless.
tomorrow we go back to the doctor.

elvis' big day is tomorrow!

just a quick note, thanks for all the comments and for people who had experience with teeth procedures and their animals...

i'm a little less worried after talking to the vet on the phone yesterday. anyway tomorrow morning i bring him in for his teeth. turns out the cleaning only takes about 15 minutes and then it's a bit longer if they extract any teeth. it will be great to have it over with and know that it's good for preventative health that it's all done.

elvis is doing great. of course he has no idea he's going to the vet tomorrow. i pick him up tomorrow night.

i've had an up and down week but managed ok. today i got a haircut and wasn't sure i liked it but denzel took some photos of me and elvis and the belly to send people who haven't seen us in a while and i felt pretty good about my hair and my looks, which was nice...

more anxiety...

just read too much on the internet about pregnancy, well specifically about delivery, actually about c sections as i decided quite a while ago to have an elective c section. there are some truly "crazy" judgmental people out there, i can't imagine that is good for their children. to tell people you do not know things like "you spread your legs to get pregnant, you should spread your legs to have the baby". this from a woman. it actually seems that the people with the most opinions about c sections are women, and the most intolerant and judgmental stuff comes from people who have had their child in whatever way they think is better. i just don't understand how people can complain about being given more choices.
who am i hurting by having a c section. one person actually made a mean comment about mothers choosing c sections as being selfish and not caring about their babies.

i can't say i'm completely comfortable with my decision but not because i might want to deliver the "natural" way, but because i'm not comfortable with getting the baby out either way. i wish honestly that i could just burp and she'd pop out. i'm scared totally of all of it, so the c section does not remove the fear. if i could be knocked out completely and wake up feeling ok with the baby there, i'd honestly choose that. i don't think that makes me a less fit mother. the things that could make me a shitty mother do not have much to do with getting the baby out. but it amazes me that there are women out there who think that way.

one of the reasons i chose the c section option besides the cowardly fear of labor aspect is the bipolar issues. i think the worst scenario would be long labor no sleep and then emergency c section because of complications, what could be more stressful, plus the huge stress leading up to labor of anxiety about it. i'm the type who carries stress around and then has an episode from all the collected stress, just like what happened this week. and lack of sleep for a prolonged period of time makes me manic. so i think choosing the c section option is actually also for the baby, so i can be more likely to be able to handle the first moments of motherhood without already being crazy and anxious and manic.

but at this point if i had to have the baby tomorrow i'd be frightened out of my wits. one of the reasons i never wanted to have a child until recently was that i really thought i could not handle the zero hour of getting the baby out of my body. i still feel that way.

it sure would have been nice to go on the internet and read some reassuring comments from other women. there was one reassuring comment from someone who said it was great and she had little pain and recovered quickly. and two friends of mine had no problem with the surgery. i guess i should focus on the real people i know and not the crazy comments from random things on the internet. plus i was born by c section myself and my mother said the experience was great. if i'm this freaked out now i can only imagine how i'll feel when it's time to deal with the reality...

of course i wonder why am i freaking myself out now. i could be just relaxing and trying to find that elusive bliss the media makes you think you're supposed to be feeling while pregnant. or i could be making a fun comic strip for this blog instead of another anxious rant... maybe soon, i hope.

mixed state, hello old friend...

thanks to everyone for the supportive comments on last post. it was the beginning of an "episode", what i think of now as a mixed state. i had my first mixed state about 9 years ago; up until then i had mostly had either manic or depressive episodes. anyway it took me some time to learn to recognize them on my own but i can say i have gotten pretty good at it. it only took until tuesday for it to really dawn on me that my mood and mind and thoughts and chemistry were not about hormones and pregnancy but that i was experiencing a bipolar episode, a mixed state of depression, anxiety, psychotic thinking and so on. not much mania in there that i could recognize at all to sweeten things up, although there may have been a little hypomania on fri. and sat. before my depressive sunday.

anyway i won't get into the "psychotic" thinking that i experienced as i need a break from it, but i was proud of myself for the most part as tues. when i truly realized this is what's going on, i called boyfriend, psychiatrist and therapist and took pretty good care of myself. since then it's been moments of calm followed by more thoughts and weird scary imagery, destructive stuff i have not acted upon, as well as regular depression and so on. i've just been coping with it by trying not to increase anxiety about it, accept it and go on with my day doing my regular things and work and walking doggie etc. trying to avoid too much stress.

a lot of the stuff of the last post continues to plague me. the only physical thing that's a real pain in the ass, is that i learned in the first trimester that big meals are really uncomfortable and lead to indigestion and all kinds of yucky sensations, but every time i go out to a restaurant for dinner, i end up eating too much and feeling truly horrible, wishing i could throw up. i did that tonight and it's really annoying me that i could not monitor myself and eat less knowing full well this would happen. and it coincides with an easing up of some of the worst mental episode stuff. so i'm annoyed with myself that i am feeling so uncomfortable when i have a lull in the "sickness" of bipolar stuff.

anyway i'm not at the point to take any meds. i'm just riding things out and tolerating the brain chemistry storm... i will try to look at some blogs and comment again soon. at the moment i have no mental energy for anything much. it is soothing to know that i'm still walking and feeding and taking care of elvis. even while feeling like a failure as a mother, i can comfort myself with the knowledge that i'm able to take care of my dog while dealing with bipolar illness, a big accomplishment for me. and denzel has been really a wonderful caring and supportive partner and i know it's not easy for him.

red dress and the drawing i posted...

hi everyone! thanks for all your words of support. i've been sitting here catching up on your blogs and eating a lot of peanut butter and honey on rice cakes. the best is if you have bananas to put slices on the peanut butter and honey. i remember once reading that a movie star ate a lot of peanut butter when she had to get fat for a role. i ate it all the time when i wasn't pregnant and it didn't make me fat. at this point, i've given in to just trying to be ok with the body stuff. i'm going to a wedding on saturday (i'll get to be not just the pregnant lady guest but the pregnant lady with her boyfriend living in sin and having a baby out of wedlock! fun.) and i just might wear the tight red dress i met my boyfriend in years ago. i tried it on last night and he recognized it right away and said all the good boyfriend pregnant daddy stuff like how hot i looked in it. then i neurotically tried to find out if i looked that different, like i wanted him to say "it's the same you just with bigger boobs and a belly." he then said he was only going to give me a few comments every time i put on clothing and bug him about my looks, which was probably a good idea. anyway the point is i think i'll try to go to the party in a clingy red dress and just flaunt my big belly and pregnant body, more for myself to feel good. it's a fun nontraditional wedding so it's the place to wear a red dress!

anyway about the drawing i posted. i was going to do a comic strip but then i suddenly could not think of anything and i had recently made this drawing and showed it to my therapist. he thought and i agreed, that the baby looked very happy and carefree and i looked happy and protective as the elephant mommy. i felt very happy and motherly while making the drawing and it was nice to show the therapist a happy picture as i mostly focus on my own inner conflicts and dark side in there with him... he also noticed that it looked like i was watering the tree with my trunk and that it seemed to be about growth which i agreed with.

i welcome your comments on the drawing even if you see totally different things in it. i debated whether to talk about what it meant for me as i like hearing what you all think just from looking at my pictures without explanation from me, but i felt like writing about some positive stuff about the pregnancy as i am very good at complaining. and there has been a lot of good positive stuff. it feels good to share the joyful part of connecting with her, the baby!

by the way we are past the 5 month mark!!!

we're back in comic strip form!

hi everyone!
finally marlena shuts up her big complaining trap of a mouth and you get to catch up on the important characters, namely elvis and the growing fetus (and denzel, at least through the fetus' point of view...)

2 comics...

these comic strips reflect the two sides of my life at present. the more healthy support system of two healthy males in the house who express themselves freely and move on without dwelling and festering and obsessing and feeding on their own anxieties...
and me and myself and my crazy mind that gets me into all kinds of trouble...

lazy lazy lazy pregnant lady...

hi everyone,
thanks for all the great comments. i can't believe i've been so out of it and unable to keep things going that it's been a total of 12 days since my last post...
i even finally did a comic strip a few days ago but i've been too lazy to scan and upload it,
so i thought i better get something up here now before people give up on visiting this blog. i seem to be more paranoid, or at least caught up in fantasizing that people are thinking things about me, a sort of sign of grand ol' narcisissm...
elvis told me to get off my pregnant ass and post. he's in fine form, actually sleeping soundly at the moment as is denzel. it's almost 1 am and i have the end of my 12 weeks insomnia can't get to sleep at night thing going on. same thing happened last night. i chose to lie on the couch and watch "little miss sunshine" again while finishing a baby blanket for a friend.

ok, so that's my big excuse! i organized a small baby shower for a friend that's happening tomorrow and then of course this evening got depressed and annoyed at myself as i had no energy or motivation to clean up the place and get it ready for tomorrow. all my ambitions of making fun decorations and welcoming posters went down the drain but i managed to clean up a little.
i'm excited to wear my new dress, green with apples all over it, a recent impulsive ebay purchase, but not so bad as it's worth over $100 and i got it for 25$. can still fit into most of my clothes...

so some updates on the pregnancy:
almost at week 13! that means the first trimester almost over and the fun best one begins! i hope i'll have more energy. the indigestion has subsided a lot. i've been lucky to have no morning sickness at all, just my regular awful excema and IBS that i had before anyway.
so far no mania, just a bunch of ups and downs with anxiety and irritability, grouchiness, mild dips in mood that don't last long and some nice sunny happy feelings and lots of good days, i am grateful for.
plus the big news i'm grateful for is that the CVS test came out fine. no genetic abnormalities, and since i got it out of the way about a week ago, i won't need to have an amnio!!! super good news for me as i'm super squeamish.
the CVS was stressful but i wont bore you with the details. highlights were dealing with an overly full bladder, having it done with a needle in the abdomen, and getting to see the little one moving lots beforehand...

i'll post the comic soon and you can read about my fascinating cravings. pickles and mint chocolate cookie (ben and jerry's of course) ice cream are the very latest. i love ice cream anyway but the baby is definitely into the mint flavors which i do not normally go for. i tend to go for chocolatey flavors but the baby has not been wanting any of that...

the newest odd thing is feeling like my belly is really expanding. at times i am kind of delusional and think it feels and looks gigantic already. then sometimes i look in the mirror and see that it's not that much bigger and most people who don't know me would have no idea i'm pregnant. it, the belly, feels much different though. it's a bizarre sensation, i'll try to describe it in a comic strip soon. it's also funny at times i want to tell total strangers that i'm pregnant, most of the time i refrain. there's a weird back and forth between wanting it to be obvious and feeling like it's too early to look really pregnant and wanting it to be a secret that isn't physically obvious and only my friends, family and blogfriends know about it...

also, we just found out the gender because the CVS test shows all the chromosomes. but i'll wait to do a comic strip about it and keep you in suspense to make sure you have reason to come back soon!
sorry for the text. i know the pictures and color are more exciting and a quick read.
elvis will be back soon in full form. his spring grooming is coming up in a week, so that will be big news...