I’ll respond to your awesome comments in the last post later on…I just need to blast this out.

Day before yesterday evening, I started getting physical stress symptoms of lightheadedness, nausea, throat tightening, and cried a lot. I put on the social networking site that I needed a hug. Next thing I knew, I got tons of cyber hugs and Coworker Sandy and her husband Rich stopped by after work to physically give me a hug. Since Mr. W had also gotten home shortly before, the 4 of us plus baby went to Claim Jumper for a quick bite. She started fussing just a teeny bit in the restaurant, but Mr. W was able to rock her to sleep for half an hour in her carseat. I had a great time and felt much better.

Yesterday morning, it happened again. I was thinking about all the crap I had to do and remembering being woken up at 10:30p by stepdaughter’s return (I was asleep in the baby’s room and the garage door opening and closing woke me up) and having to deal with…stuff. I started feeling dizzy and faint again, the nausea came back even as I tried to eat a waffle for nutrition’s sake holding the baby. I called Mr. W and left him a vm just to tell him what I was feeling in case something happened to me (like passing out) while I’m caring for Allie. He was concerned and immediately got the rest of the day off and came home mid-morning.

He pushed me to get an appointment that day with a doctor or a therapist, asap. I managed to get one with someone who’s not my doctor, but is in the same building, and after that, Mr. W dragged me and the baby to San Clemente beach for lunch.

Allie didn’t sleep much during that period, but did take a quick 20-some minute snooze in her stroller. We had lunch waterside, and a nice hilly walk to and from where we’d parked. I felt immediately much better. Oh yeah, while I was feeding Allie before we left the house, Mr. W went downstairs and had a private talk with stepdaughter. When he came back up, he said he could think of a few options: we hire a nanny to help right away; I go to my parents’ house on weekdays, or he drops me off in Vegas to live with his parents for awhile so they could help me care for the baby. I was unhappy with the solutions that suggested I leave with Allie; I feel like I’m the least portable person there due to Allie’s needs. He also thought I should go on medication. That means breastfeeding is over. The one thing I thought I could do sorta right was breastfeed; if that’s taken away, then I feel totally useless as Allie’s mother. At least the consistent thing from pediatricians and baby nurses was that Allie is very healthy and her growth is excellent and they credit BFing for that. The last pediatrician said I must’ve been giving her good antibodies in milk or she’d have been a lot sicker with the RSV infection.

Before leaving the house, I popped in stepdaughter’s room where she was watching a show on her laptop. I said I just wanted to give her a hug, and she hugged me and told me she didn’t leave because of me; she left to see if it’d be better for everyone if we weren’t living together. She was reassuring, saying now that she knows what’s going on, we can figure out how to do this living situation thing, and she knows it’s hard, but it’s not my fault. We hugged again as I kinda lost it in tears again (all day). Yesterday I was in the baby’s room when she came home and I didn’t even know because she used the front door!

Anyway, the appointment went well. Dr. House (yes, it made me nervous, too) was very sympathetic, also felt I have postpartum depression and that I’m physically healthy. He urged me to keep my therapy apptmt next week, and when I asked if he were comfortable doing all my therapy documentation in a note for work, he looked up my info on the computer, saw all the prior diagnoses by my primary care doc AND the therapists, and immediately did an off-work note from the date I gave birth to the end of March. When I got home, Mr. W immediately scanned and I emailed it to my timekeeper person at work. She said it was perfect, and immediately passed it on to payroll downtown. She said this note will change all the vacation and other time they’d been using for my being off to “sick” time. Yay! Two things off my plate. The doctor also ordered a blood test to rule out any possible random physical reasons for my physical symptoms. The lab results were all within the range of “normal.”

I DO feel better. I didn’t want living with the stepdaughter to start off with both of us tiptoeing around each other and resentful, but it started off fine. The work issue is resolved. AND Allie slept through the night last night. 7:40p and still down now. I’m gonna go back to bed.