Learning new things

I was walking through the shops and out of the corner of my eye noticed a magazine called Practical Parenting. I admit I was sucked in by the front page headlines and paid my $5.95 for it.


One of the first articles I came across was on spotting the signs of antenatal depression. I was quite aware of postnatal depression but I had never heard of antenatal depression. Apparently 1 out of every 10 women suffer from it but why do we know so little about it? I suppose people put it down to being anxious, feeling out of sorts and just being "hormonal" or "emotional". But surely people put postnatal depression down to the same thing?


The alarming thing is that the majority of women who suffer antenatal depression will suffer postnatal depression. I have a friend who suffered postnatal depression and had to be put on anti-depressants. It seemed so sad that she was in such a state it made it difficult for her to enjoy her beautiful baby boy. And now as she prepares to give birth to her third child, she's concerned it will come back. I couldn't imagine anything worse than being worried you won't be there for your child. 


I've never suffered clinically diagnosed depression, but I am prone to anxiety attacks. Or "worrying about worrying" as one counsellor told me. So I would not be surprised if I was struck down with some form of natal depression, or heaven forbid, both. 


My husband and I are now officially trying. The timing of course isn't good as there's a high chance I could loose my job. No guarantees of course but to find out you don't have a job while you're a few months pregnant would be something likely to cause a great deal of stress and anxiety. But, after discussions with my husband, we both agreed that we can't put our lives on hold waiting for something that may or may not happen.


The more I travel along this path, the more I realise that sometimes life just happens to us. Things happen when we least expect and sometimes at the speed of light. We can choose to struggle against it or we can choose to accept what happens and do the best we can. As the Rolling Stones said, you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need!