Appointment with neuro #2 was this morning and surgery–after an MRV this Monday–will be February 26. Right before my daughter turns 1 month old.

I wish I had something poignant or some revelation about how much better it makes me feel to have this on the books, but all I want to do is run away. With her, preferably. So, if you see a chubby dark haired woman running with a infant car seat along the side of the road, pick her up and offer her a drink. She could use it.

I’m freaking the fcuk out and I don’t know how the hell I’m supposed to make it another 2 weeks after hearing things like “skull bone graft” and “may have innervation.” I feel sick.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to vomit up my Valium.

I remember it happening when my father had his unexpected heart attack last winter and wound up in the ICU for nearly a week. A day like any other, a day like today, in which my biggest concerns went quickly from “Man, I hope Alex goes to fucking sleep tonight” to “Man, I hope my dad makes it through the night.” The shift in thinking here is vast and it’s frighteningly quick.

Suddenly, even news that on a normal day would be some of the worst news you could hear “he had two clots, one of which is threatening to kill him, but we’ve removed one of them” sounds rather…good. It could always be worse, you tell yourself as you pace up and down those hospital corridors peeping into rooms whose occupants, well, HAD it worse than you do. But somewhere in those dark recesses of your brain, you remind yourself that even though for now, for RIGHT now, things are going as well as you can expect, they can sour without warning.

Yesterday, The Daver and I took our week old daughter to a pediatric neurosurgeon after we picked up her MRI films from the hospital. We sat there in the waiting room, me with a baby on the boob while he filled out the piles of paperwork and received the kind of pitying looks from the other patients as they walked by that made my heart swim with tears.

Yes, it reminded me, it is this bad.

After the neurosurgeon, ranked one of the best in the area, bounded into the room, filling it up with a sort of ebullient energy that only someone who abso-fucking-lutely loves his job has, he flicked through the massive stack of films to find one to show us what was wrong with our daughter. In cross-sectional picture form.

And for some reason, despite my incredible love of anatomy, my utter lack of horror for things like internal organs and dissections (I am, apparently, my father’s daughter), I could hardly handle looking at these films that showed my daughter’s head. In ways I never wanted to imagine it.

It’s funny–I know HOW these things work, I could probably give you a dissertation on reading an MRI of the brain without much prep–and yet seeing these parts of brain, parts of my DAUGHTER’S brain, made me cry and feel revolted. It felt unnatural to be looking at these films. In several, I could see that she was crying, or at least her mouth was open and neck arched backward and I ached. I physically ached for her.

Sure enough, right where some brilliant tech had put some of the measurements on the films, the brilliant and kind doctor pointed out what we can easily see from the outside: her cyst. In medical terms, as I alluded to by the title of my last post, it’s called a cephalocele, and it’s sort of like a hernia on the skull where the bones of the skull didn’t properly fuse together while in utero.

I’d known all about cephalocele’s before I’d birthed Amelia, before I married Daver, and I knew enough to know that the one that my daughter has been born with is really pretty minor. Typically, they cause all other sorts of neuro symptoms and retardation, but by the grace of God, Amelia seems to have none of those. We will, of course, know more as she ages and appropriately (or not) hits all of her milestones.

The upside to her cephaolcele is that it’s not an ENcephalocele, which means that the cyst is full of cerebrospinal fluid WITHOUT brain matter. The bad side is, of course, that she’s still going to need brain surgery in the following weeks. And no matter what way you try and spin this, it’s fucking scary.

The bounding doctor would like her to have this surgery in the next couple of weeks so she won’t remember it when she gets older, and while it makes sense to me, I’d still like to cocoon myself away from the thought of my daughter going under the knife for the next, oh, I don’t know, 60+ years? By which time I’ll be dead and I won’t have to sit in the PICU for several days while she wakes up, my breasts aching and full.

Unfortunately, the doctor whom I adored on sight, does not take my insurance and although I have a PPO, I’m not sure we can swing the thousands of extra dollars it’ll require to have him specifically do the surgery. Besides, he argued, this is a minor surgery. It’s not like it’s REAL brain surgery (his words). So, he referred us to a colleague of his whom we will see on Wednesday of next week and form a Plan Of Attack.

I only wish this Plan Of Attack included leaving my sweet baby girl’s head unscathed and eating a bunch of Funyons while sitting on my bum, but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to get out of this one.

And so I sit here, waiting again while freaking out quietly, and trying to remind myself that things could always be worse. Always.

It doesn’t help much, but it’s all I have to cling to right now. Well, that and my brand new bottle of Valium.

I want so very badly to come here and type out just how happy I am to have my daughter home. I want to tell you all about how her biggest brother is also her biggest fan and how her middle brother, although he won’t touch her, screams “BABY!” joyfully whenever he sees her. I wish I could wax poetically on how much easier having her come home has been than I’d previously worried.

But I can’t.

I’m stuck in this limbo, waiting for surgery on her brain and the subsequent recovery which I imagine will take place over many more hospital days. I’m afraid to get too excited about her knowing that I’m going to have to give her back to the hospital again, and knowing how well I won’t handle this. I cannot picture me NOT flipping out the entire time that she’s gone, pacing the corridors of the hospital with snot dripping down my face and tears blinding my eyes, because it’s what happened before.

If it’s something primal my reaction would make more sense, and maybe that’s what this is all about: maybe I can’t help my reaction and I can’t CALM DOWN like I should be able to while my baby goes in for surgery. I’m picturing a highly tranquillized day that day. Otherwise I physically do not know how I’m going to get through it. I don’t appear to be made of strong enough stock to handle this.

Our appointment to discuss the MRI results, which, of course, don’t show a miracle, is tomorrow with the doctor who doesn’t take our insurance, and from then on we should have some sort of plan. I imagine that although the plan isn’t going to help as much as hearing something like “OOPS! We totally made a mistake. Your daughter is fine!” knowing what the next steps are may help somewhat.

Or maybe they won’t. Maybe I won’t feel better until this is all over. And maybe I won’t be able to come here and share all of the good things in my life right now because I’m too afraid of losing it all.

Can you please say a prayer tomorrow for us?

Jessica Kate and Charley said goodbye to their daughter Tuesday after a long battle with cancer. My heart is shattered for them.

And thank you to each and every one of you who has held my hand during this week. Words will never express just how that helps me feel better. I am so lucky to know each and every one of you.

I’ve been going back and forth and trying to decide if I should talk about what’s been goin’ on (with apologies, of course, to Marvin Gaye) and I’ve decided that tentatively yes, I will do so. Between the precipitous drop in postpartum hormones that always leaves me sputtery, spineless and weak and the Very Real Fear that something is wrong with my newest daughter, I’m kind of a mess.

Okay, fine, you’re right Internet, just like you always are. I’m really a HUGE mess right now.

By trade, I’m not A Worried ™. I tend to be more cautious and careful while I’m gestating a crotch parasite, but after they pop out and are alive for about 6 or so months, I tend to stop worrying. I’d only invest in one of those video baby monitors to perform hilarious Stupid Human Tricks on it while Dave is on an Important Work Call and while I see the need for a bedside apnea monitor in many situations, having the damn thing in my house would freak me out and my thinking would get all skewed and I’d convince myself that because I had it, my baby would stop breathing.

See: not rational. So I ignore it.

I worry when I need to, like when Ben is dealing with a bully or a super-crazy-liberal private school, or Alex comes into the room holding an empty pill bottle and not usually other than that. It’s probably one of my better features, along with my shiny hair and impeccable powers of observation.

I fully expected to be worried from the start of labor until I pushed Amelia out, you see, because while she was cooking, I couldn’t SEE her. Once I could see her chubby face I knew I’d relax and begin to prepare myself for the inevitable poo I would have to take before I left the hospital to come home to Casa de la Sausage.

But it didn’t happen that way at all. Suddenly, the room was swarmed with neonatologists and specialists while I hung 34 feet in the air, crotch on display for all to see and I wept. I sobbed, I wept and I shook. Had The Lump been on her arm or leg or somewhere other than the back of her head, I’d have apologized to her for the plastic surgery she would invariably require, promise her a boob job–or a nose job–as a booby (get it!?!) prize and move the hell on with my day.

Over the following 12 or so hours, despite being filled with The Panic AND The Hormones, I managed to convince myself that it all was okay. That the cyst was full of fat or goo or hair or gold something.

Then the dreaded phone call post CAT scan prompted a flurry of people coming into my room and forcibly removing the baby from my boob. Which may or may not have happened quite like that, but you get the picture. From out of nowhere.

The NICU time wasn’t nearly as brutal as it could have been and I thank God for that each and every minute I breathe, but it served to remind me of just how not in control we are. I’d prophetically made a comment about that a couple of days before Amelia was born–how parenthood strips us of our control–and it rang true once again. Despite all of the ultrasounds and folic acid and all that shit, these things just…happen.

The neurologist, while seeing something unfavorable on the CT scan and thereby ordering an MRI without so much as seeing my daughter, has let us know remarkably little, save for the fact that he doesn’t accept our insurance. We have an appointment on Friday to talk about the MRI results–which he claims are not dangerous or urgent or anything else. But the whole time we were there, he appeared to be in surgery for patients with Real Problems.

Which reassures me more than it might someone else. As does the fact that she seems to have no visible neurological issues and manages to both eat, shit, and scream up a storm. Being home with her is awesome but waiting and seeing what the hell is going to be the next steps is sort of like torture. But I don’t exactly feel comfortable pulling the doctor–apparently an amazing MD–out of Real Brain surgery to hold my hand. Dave spoke with him while I was in a drug-induced coma and seemed to be reassured.

I’m aware that whatever is going on with her is not currently life-threatening, and while that does bring me some peace, not knowing exactly what is going on or what will be going on is slowly driving me bonkers. I’m hoping like crazy that I’ll look back on this and while I doubt I’ll laugh, be able to say, “Wow, Becky” *bitch-smacks self* “You have a degree in Freaking The Fuck Out!” Because that would beat the fcuk out of the alternative which is that something is really and truly wrong with my sweet and feisty daughter. Something I’m pretty sure I’d never recover from.

So now I sit here in Hermit Mode waiting for Friday and unable to do much besides care for my kids and my overactive boobies while avoiding talking on the phone or to anyone besides Daver lest I break down completely, unable to pull myself back out of the fit. Sleeping is not going so well–me, not her–as I seem to flip out and imagine Worst Case Scenarios, up to and including Daver getting arrested for human trafficking–and the fact that I’m not an emotional eater means that I’m literally forcing myself to eat fatty food.

If my dieting self could see me now…

*sighs*

Hold me, Internet? Don’t mind the spit-up on my shoulder–it’s dried. And ignore the boogers, Alex sneezed on me but I wiped it up as best as I could. Oh, and that smell? Probably more spit-up. Don’t worry, it’s not catching.

Oh, and BONUS!! for listening to me whine. Here’s Amelia!

As anyone who really knows me knows, I’m not really one to talk about “My Feelings.” Hell, typing that simple word there, the one any 3-year-old sings about, makes me squeamish. I’d prefer that I don’t have them at all, truth be told, let alone mentioning to people–some complete strangers no less–that I might have feelings other than “happy,” “sad,” “sleepy,” or “I want a fucking cheeseburger.” Potentially a side of “I need a damn nap” as well somewhere in there.

So when I struggle with something, I tend to downplay it. I don’t often get into the nitty-gritty of what’s goin’ on to even my best friends, I don’t have long and detailed discussions with Daver about whatever issues there may be floating around in my head, and I certainly don’t want to admit it to myself. It’s like I somehow imagine that if I don’t talk about it, it doesn’t exist. Besides, who wants to listen to someone whine about their life?

This was how I got through months and months of living in a weepy, postpartum depression world after Alex was born (and never went to sleep again) before seeking treatment. And after I started my Vitamin W (Wellbutrin), I was seriously pissed at myself for not admitting my problem sooner. I gained nothing by staying silent, and the person who paid the highest price was me.

Before Alex was born, however, I struggled mightily with something even less talked about than postpartum depression: PRE-partum depression.

I spent most of the months I was pregnant with Alex after struggling to get pregnant with him in the first place, completely and utterly miserable. I worried and I fretted about each and every twinge, each and everyTHING I could think of. Most of those 9 long months were spent with me sitting on the couch feeling downright despondent, disturbed, depressed; certain that I wouldn’t get my happy ending after all. That my feelings of panic and dread were something MORE than a symptom of depression in my addled brain.

So when I got pregnant this time, I stayed on my Vitamin W until I was rudely informed by one of the OB’s in my practice that I’d be seeing the HIGH RISK OB if I continued on it. Not-so-shockingly, I decided to rough it out on my own until I couldn’t any longer.

Most of this time, I’ve been okay. Truthfully okay.

It wasn’t until Daver had a bit of a nervous breakdown at the end of August that I realized how thinly the string holding me together had become. It’s been a really, really hard year for me. No, that’s not quite true, let me rephrase that: it’s been a year that’s tested me. It’s been non-stop: my dad’s heart attack, my post-partum depression, Steph’s death, the two miscarriages, then this pregnancy that I never accepted would make it, then Dave’s breakdown.

I guess I only have so much to give anyone, and it’s all been taken. And I’m left sitting here and struggling, much like I did with Alex. I absolutely have my hackles raised, I’m going to see how long I can tough it out with this wee one still inside before I consider going back on my meds.

I’m thrilled by this baby, so very thrilled. I love my life, I love my husband (most of the time), and I’m tickled constantly (literally AND figuratively) by my two children. And I was so afraid to mention how I’ve been struggling BECAUSE I know that someone will misinterpret what I’m saying and twist it around to remind me of how lucky I really am.

Which is something that I already know: I have most everything in the world I’ve ever wanted. How many people do you know that honestly feel that way?

And I went back and forth with talking about this here. It’s a public forum, and while I don’t often worry about what I would say–people who I haven’t exactly peed roses about here may not understand WHY I feel like I do about them, but I tell The Truth According to Aunt Becky and I stick by it–I know this isn’t the same type of posts you normally get from me. Which will piss some people off.

But I’m telling The Truth because someone has to. Since those women went nuts and killed their kids, there’s been a huge push to get the word out about PPD (postpartum depression), which is good. People SHOULD know about it.

Pre-partum depression is rarely discussed, tho. Women don’t talk about it openly, lest they be branded as “ungrateful” or my personal favorite “unfit to be a mother.” Instead, those who suffer from pre-partum depression suffer alone and in silence about it. Because if you don’t talk about it, it doesn’t exist, right?

Don’t believe me? Do a google search for the term “prepartum depression.” Most of what comes up are other blog posts about it. It’s out there, it’s just swept under the rug.

So this is me, your Aunt Becky, telling you, that this exists. And it hurts. And it’s hard. And I’m struggling right now. I’ll make it through, of course I will, it’s what I do, but for now, for right now, I’m hurting.

And now I’m encouraging you, my faithful readers, to share YOUR Truth without hiding from it. The Truth can be ugly; it can be not-fun to admit; but sharing it is a Very Good Thing. Besides the uncle pervy’s out there who find my site looking for “cheeseburger crotch” and “excess skin balls,” I’m damn certain that someone will find this post, someone also struggling during what is supposed to be the happiest time of your life.

And to you, I tell you definitively that you are not alone.