- Hi everyone, so I guess first off,
I have someone new to introduce you to.
World, or YouTube, please meet Theodore Ira.
He's a little preoccupied right now,
otherwise he'd say hello a little bit better.
But I just wanna share a few things in this video.
I've had a lot of people commenting
and sending me messages, asking me about,
particularly about medications and pregnancy.
So I wanna share a bit more about what that was like for me,
navigating, balancing taking medications
for my mental illness with pregnancy.
I also wanna talk a bit about the labor
and delivery experience
and what we had to think about going into it
in terms of accounting for my mental health,
my mental illness,
and what that experience was like.
As well as what the first, I guess it's been five days or so
have been since the arrival of this little bundle.
All right, so medications through pregnancy
was a bit tricky.
I shared before that I initially,
when I found out that I was pregnant,
wanted to get off as much medication as possible.
And so I met with my psychiatrist right away,
as soon as I found out that I was pregnant
to go over the medications that I was on with him.
And he was really great.
He was very supportive and just said,
"Lauren, I think it's important
"that you stay on your medication,
"or on a decent enough dose of your medication,
"just in terms of
"you being stable and promoting your well-being
"in terms of promoting your baby's well-being as well."
But he said, "Ultimately like I'll follow your lead.
"And so if you want to reduce medications, we can try that.
"I just wanna follow you regularly."
And so we did that.
We went off of some medications that were a little bit more
potentially harmful to the baby,
and I stayed on two main medications,
but reduced the dosage.
And that didn't really go too well, unfortunately.
I started getting quite a few psychotic symptoms
and my mood plummeted as well.
So very quickly I think myself and my partner Rob realized
this isn't gonna work.
So I went back to my psychiatrist
and explain what was happening.
And I ended up going back higher
on one of the main medications, a higher dose
than I had started out on,
just to make sure that things were stable
and to make sure that I was staying well
throughout the pregnancy.
So I get a lot of people asking how did you balance that?
Or did you go off meds completely?
And the answer is for me, no,
it was not a safe option
to go off the medications
because my mental health just couldn't take
not being on medication.
And so in order to the safest environment
for the baby and for myself,
I had to work on keeping myself safe
by staying on medication,
but we we still got rid of the meds
that we didn't really need
and reduced it to the minimum that I needed to take.
Now, one thing that did happen
about somewhere around eight, eight and a half months
into my pregnancy,
this is when you start to have a lot more amniotic fluid.
And so my medications actually started
to be diluted quite a bit.
And I didn't know that this was what was happening.
So I just all of a sudden started feeling
really awful again and my symptoms started coming back.
So I went to my doctor and he told me what was happening.
that my body was essentially diluting the meds.
So I had to go up in dosage again
at that point on one of them.
And so that was hard to wrap my head around.
Keep going up on medication when I'm trying to
not expose my baby to as much medication as possible,
but it was really necessary again.
And my body was diluting it.
So he wasn't getting as much
as he would have been if I was on that dose before.
So that's what happened near the end of my pregnancy.
So might be something to keep an eye out for
if you are on psychiatric medications and pregnant.
So in terms of the actual delivery
and going into labor and whatnot,
I was quite concerned about psychosis
being triggered during labor
because it's a very stressful, intense experience.
And I didn't really understand how intense and stressful
until I actually went through it,
but it was something that was on my mind going into it.
And so I made sure I spoke extensively with my OB
about my concerns around the mental health component
of the stress of labor.
And so it had come up that a C-section was an option.
If things got bad, if things got to a point
where I was psychotic and it became dangerous
to continue with a vaginal birth,
then the C-section was an option,
an emergency C-section was an option.
This this something that I was, made me a little sad
because I did not want to be in a compromised state
for the birth of my baby,
but it was a good idea to talk about going into it
so that everyone was prepared
and knew signs to look out for and whatnot.
In terms of what my actual experience was like
going through labor and delivery.
Hi.
I was coping well.
My contractions were pretty intense.
They were every two minutes
basically from the get-go.
And I coped okay for awhile
but when they started to get really painful
and really intense, I did start to hallucinate a little bit,
but it was okay because I was able to identify
that their hallucinations and to manage it.
And I told Rob that I was starting to have hallucinations,
but that it was manageable and we got through it.
Yeah. Apart from that, it was
pretty, pretty smooth sailing, as far as delivery can be.
I was worried about right after,
postpartum depression for one or postpartum psychosis.
But neither of those really happened.
We really prioritized me resting and recovering.
Rob has been an absolute saint
and has done so much to take care of this little one Teddy.
And yeah, that has done wonders
for letting my body and my mind recover
from the intensity and the experience of labor.
So in terms of what the last five days or so,
or I guess four days since coming home have been like,
we've spent a lot of time here in bed.
If any of you are parents out there,
I'm sure you can understand the level
of exhaustion that we're feeling.
It's been hard because that's just a part
of new Parenthood.
That's just a part of having a newborn at home is just
completely giving up your schedule
to whatever they need whenever they need it.
And it can be really exhausting.
I am pooped.
This lack of sleep was something
that I was very concerned about
because sleep is very, very important to me
in terms of maintaining mental wellness,
just like it is for a lot of people,
but particularly with people who struggle
with mental illnesses
like Schizoaffective disorder or schizophrenia,
sleep is a very, very crucial component of staying well.
And especially during this period of recovery from delivery,
I was worried about,
(laughing) excuse him, sorry.
(laughing)
I was worried about
what that lack of sleep component would mean,
but I have been managing okay.
Just like I said, like Rob has been incredible
in terms of taking you on
probably more than his share of taking care of Teddy
and taking care of the house and whatnot.
So I'm very grateful for that,
but just finding balance overall
so that we're all able to be okay, and get through this.
We do have two other kids who we have half the time
so we haven't had them back home yet,
that comes this weekend.
So that will be another challenge to work through
and figure out how to balance everything
and how to have everyone get by, staying well.
So stay tuned for that.
But it's just been a lot of just flexibility
and just trying to soak him up as much as possible.
I still can't believe
that this little one was inside of me for a while.
And just I'm so in love, we are so in love,
the kids are so in love
and it's just been really wonderful,
exhausting, but really, really wonderful.
All right, so that wraps up my experience
with navigating medication with pregnancy
and things that we considered with labor and delivery,
and what the last few days have been like.
Something that I do really want to mention though
is that I have definitely experienced
the intense fluctuations, the hormonal fluctuations
in my body in the last few days.
And I've had periods
where I've just wanted to withdraw and recede.
I'm really, really lucky that I haven't had
much depressive symptoms come about.
But if that is something that you're experiencing,
I just want to let you know that that is completely normal.
If you have just given birth,
or if you give birth in the future
and have difficulties with your mood and with,
yeah if you're struggling with depression postpartum,
that is completely normal.
And I would really encourage you to reach out.
That is something that I'm very grateful for
that I went into this experience
with a really strong medical support team.
My psychiatrist has been following me really closely.
My therapist has been following me closely
and I was already on medication
for my psychosis and for depression and whatnot.
So I had everything in place going into this, but
if you don't reach out for help, there, it's treatable.
There are people who can help you get through it
and it is totally normal.
So I feel very lucky that it hasn't been too extreme for me.
But if it is for you,
you are not alone and it will, it will be okay.
So thank you so much for following along
on this journey with us.
Can you say, thank you, Teddy?
Thank you. (laughing)
We'll be posting more about our journey
with Parenthood and whatnot,
but also some of our regular content too.
We are going to take some time to just soak this wee one in,
so if our posting is a little bit slower than normal,
we apologize, but hopefully you'll stick with us
and we can't wait to see you in the next video.
Thanks. Bye.