Postpartum Anxiety

What I posted in a message board this morning:

I went a Postpartum support group meeting a couple of days ago, and there I learned that there IS such a thing as Postpartum Anxiety and Postpartum OCD. Apparently I have more signs of these things than Postpartum Depression. Nick is over six weeks old now, and these things are getting worse.

Also, Nick was sleeping so well, and had a really nice night schedule for a few weeks. He would sleep for a 4.5 hour stretch, eat around 4 am or so, and then go right back to sleep for at least another 3 hours. I was getting at least 7 hours of sleep at night. For the last two nights, he's been waking up at different times, and then taken TWO hours to eat and go back to sleep. Apparently he is just getting distracted by looking at me and looking around. Also, some diarrhea, so I have to change his diaper three times sometimes before he will go to sleep again.

So the lack of sleep, plus my constant worry, plus the fact that at night I panic when I can't find my flashlight so that I look to check Nick's breathing a minimum of five times before I feel "free" to go to sleep. I have an overwhelming feeling that if I don't check constantly, something will happen to him (he will die) to punish me for not doing something right. I am constantly wondering/asking "what if? what if? what if?" until I am on the edge of constant panic all the time.

My husband, who had been against me going back on an SSRI until we were completely done having children (we're not - we'd like one more - but won't try again until next year at the earliest), because my being on a certain one during conception of our first PERHAPS played a role his defects. . . has finally admitted that maybe I need to go back on something, at least for a few months. (I want to. . . and I had been telling him that. I need to do something.) I was vocalizing my constant "worry thoughts" to him last night. I couldn't stop. He finally realized that there is a problem.

I was on SSRIs for anxiety, not depression, years ago in the first place. This anxiety I am experiencing now feels magnified greatly compared to then!

I have a doctor's appt next week to further discuss the SSRI option. I am partially breastfeeding my son - I don't make enough - but he gets between 7 and 11 ounces of breastmilk a day, and the rest is formula - so the plus would be that I wouldn't have to worry about him getting to much of the med, but I still worry about his developing little brain with the very little he'd get.