Migraines, Insomnia & Anxiety

                 

              Today, I decided to blog about my journey with essential oils as a mom and how they helped my chronic migraines, insomnia and anxiety. Essential oils are growing in popularity, and with several diluted and chemical additives being included in so many of them, it’s important to know the difference.  Let me take you back to where it all began for me. I have been a migraine sufferer for the majority of my life. It started when I was 12 years old. Beyond the migraines, I have also struggled with insomnia and anxiety, both of which also began at a young age. Some doctors attributed this to a hormone imbalance, and others to stress. All I can tell you is that any and/or all of these issues are awful, and terrible to live with.

                A lot of people describe me as an outgoing, sarcastic, and maybe even a little funny, gal. While I can see this being true, wink, wink, I also think those are all ways I have managed to mask my anxiety. I am definitely an extrovert. I feed off of other people’s energy. I love to be in social situations. Perhaps this is because it gets me out of my own head, it’s a distraction from stress. Before I was a mom, I was always out. Whether it was going to work, yoga, happy hour, friend’s houses, to dinner, to lunch, to breakfast, to brunch (maybe I have a food addiction too), to clubs, to theme parks, on trips, family gatherings, whatever it was, the last place I wanted to be was home, alone.

                Fast forward to pregnancy…I am somehow working from home. As an extrovert, this is terrible for me, but it pays the student loan and health insurance bills so I stuck with it. I figured it would be beneficial once the baby was born…Wrong. Throughout my pregnancy I struggled with sleep issues, and early in my pregnancy, migraines. Being pregnant means being EXTRA careful about what you put into your body, and so, I couldn’t take my prescription migraine medications, which left me with Tylenol. Tylenol? Really? My migraines laugh hysterically at Tylenol. It does nothing for them. So I tried Tylenol with a cup of coffee to get the Excedrin effect without the Aspirin…also, didn’t work. The only thing that managed to give me some slight relief was rubbing IceyHot along my eyelid and forehead accompanied by an ice pack. Hello, IcyHot, ON MY EYELID. I would rather feel the burn of the product than the pain of the migraine. Other than that, I suffered through the intense pain, auras, sensitivity to light and sound, nausea and vomiting. Vomiting on top of my already horrible morning/all day sickness. Sometimes for days. I’m not saying this to make you feel bad for me, lots of women struggle with this, it just sucks when you’re trying to work and you feel debilitated and there’s nothing you can do about it.

                Moving along again, my second trimester of pregnancy, around weeks 16-17, the nausea stopped, and so did the migraines. THANK YOU JESUS! No more migraines for the remainder of my pregnancy. The insomnia on the other hand, continued throughout the pregnancy. I remember lying in bed with big time restless leg syndrome and stressing about the sleep I would undoubtedly lose once the baby arrived. I would get so upset at the reality that I wasn’t sleeping, and I was scared I would lose my mind.

                Finally, baby is born, I won’t rehash that story…see previous blogs for that party. The first night in the hospital I didn’t sleep a wink, even after an exhausting day. Baby slept, not me. The next day the nurses said I had to sleep and offered me a Unisom type medication. I took it out of desperation to sleep, even if only for a few hours. Got home, continued to go hours, sometimes days, with zero sleep. Again, baby was sleeping, mommy, not sleeping. I started to feel the crazy creeping in. I was losing it. There are no words to describe the exhaustion of zero hours of sleep for days in a row. I felt like I was hearing things, forgetting things, I was afraid I might accidentally fall asleep holding the baby. This accompanied by the raging hormones and crying uncontrollably post-delivery left me feeling emotionally crippled. There were times I told my husband to supplement with formula so I could take a Unisom and sleep for 5 hours straight. Thank God for those times and for him being willing to get up and do the nighttime feeds even when he had work the next day.

                Then, wouldn’t you know it, my migraines returned. A mere two weeks post-delivery I got my first migraine. Awesome. Again, I reached for the IcyHot, Tylenol and coffee just to try to dull the pain so I could still breastfeed and not take my prescription meds. Well, this lasted only so long, and so I decided I needed to take the medication so I could be able to care for my baby. Taking the meds meant 12 hours of no breastfeeding which translates to pumping and dumping. This happened often enough to make a cow cry over my spilled breastmilk.

                In a last ditch effort to help my migraines and insomnia, I decided to try acupuncture. I went to an outstanding practitioner, but unfortunately it did nothing for my migraines. It did seem to help with sleep, but the day after a treatment I would always get a migraine, so after several months of treatment, and hundreds of dollars, I stopped. Well, this is when I found the oils…Thank you Rachel, for introducing me to these oils! I received a sample of M-grain. A Young Living essential oil blend made specifically for migraine sufferers not accident related. I started getting a migraine one day and tried the oil. I was skeptical, but guess what? It worked. I started getting another a few days later. Used the oils again, and it worked again. This happened several more times and that was it. I was sold. I contacted her and she told me about the Premium Starter Kit with diffuser. She mentioned I may find it helps with my insomnia and anxiety as well. Knowing how the M-grain worked for me, I was all over this. I made the investment, I bought the kit, and I bought a bottle of M-grain.

                Here I am, a mere seven months later, I am an avid oil user and a true believer in the power of essential oils. I went from taking my prescription medication 5-10 times a month, to needing it only 1-3 times a month. I’m sleeping better at night thanks to a diffuser blend of Lavender, Patchouli, Cedarwood, and Frankincense, along with the occasional Sleep Essence supplement containing a blend of essential oils said to improve sleep along with melatonin. Not only are these oils blowing my mind and helping me with my issues, but they are a lifesaver for my husband, dog and my one year old son. Got the sniffles? There’s an oil for that. Diaper rash? There’s an oil for that. Colds, viruses, bug bites, sun burn, restless baby, stinky diaper pail, stinky dog? Whatever it is, THERE IS AN OIL FOR THAT.

                For months now, I have been ecstatically spreading the word about these oils since I started discovering their many benefits, and I plan to continue. I have replaced just about every OTC medication and toxic cleaning product in my house with essential oils and essential oil products. I even use it as part of my daily skin care routine! My son, who goes to daycare three days a week, has benefited tremendously from the diffusing of essential oils. There has not ever been a time where I have needed to go into his room in the middle of the night to comfort or calm him when he has been sick so long as I put him to bed with the diffuser running. That in and of itself is amazing, and it is no exaggeration for me. Am I saying I will never need to comfort him? No, I am just saying what has happened thus far, and regardless, I believe whole heartedly that the use of essential oils has helped speed his recovery from illnesses much faster than if I had done nothing at all, or just used infant Tylenol.

                If you’re interested in learning more, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. I would love to talk to you about Young Living’s essential oils and how they might be able to help you and your family. Keep in mind, not all oils are created equally. There is truly a difference between what you can buy in the store, and what Young Living offers. Young Living offers a full seed to seal guarantee on all of their products. They are 100% pure, therapeutic grade, harvested at the peak of their growth. "Only 2% of essential oils sold in North America are suitable for medicinal purposes, and Young Living makes 98% of them!" www.Distillery9.com

Please send any and all questions to: Lola2680@gmail.com

Baby Number Two ???

             

              To have another baby, or not to have another baby??? Is it just me, or has the first child not even left the womb and everyone already wants to know, “Are you having another one?”. I swear this all starts when we are in high school. You’re a freshman and everyone is like, “Are you going to college?”. You’re like, hello, I’m 14, I can’t decide if I’m too old for fruit loops or too young for a protein shake. Then it’s “when are you going to settle down”, followed by “when are you going to get married”, followed by “when are you going to have a baby”, followed by “when are you going to have more babies”, followed by “what is your blood type, social security number, and yearly salary”…. I admit I am probably guilty of asking one, or all of these questions to someone at some point, and I hate it because it sometimes seems to make people feel bad for the kind of life they might be living in that moment.

                For me, the question of are you having another baby was a question I dreaded because I know deeeeep down that I want another baby, but mentally wrapping my head around it is a whole other story. So….when people ask me it brings on this flood of feelings and thoughts that would likely crush them if I could somehow manifest the thoughts into an object and answer them honestly. I realize it isn’t so much the question, but the intention behind the question that really gets to me. For instance, some people ask if you’re going to college like it’s a bad thing if you say no. The same applies to the “are you having a second baby question”, as if deciding to have only one child is the be all end all most terrible thing you could do.

                Here is the out loud answer for me: Do I want to have a second baby? Yes. Can I have a second baby? I hope so. Are you going to have a second baby? I would like to.

                Aaaannnd here is the reality: Do you want to have a second baby? Yes, BUT…..Can you have a second baby? I hope so, BUT…..Are you going to have a second baby? I would like to, BUT…..and the Buts are the uncomfortable part of the conversation because in the but (if you will) is the lengthy list of concerns, worries, and anxiety that the thought of having a second child brings about in my crazy mind. Would it be great to have a second baby? Of course it would, but this Moming thing ain’t easy and it’s terrifying and gratifying all at the same time to even think about it. Can we afford another baby, will I ever sleep again, can I handle it, can my husband handle it, can the dam dog handle it, is our house big enough, is our car safe enough, what the hell is going to happen to my body this time, is my pregnancy going to suck again, is my delivery going to be a nightmare again, who is going to be the next president, did I eat breakfast today, when did I wash my hair last….and the list goes on, and On and ONNNNNNN…but at the end of the day….drum roll please, Ryan and I have decided to try for another baby….yikes.

                With all my worries, doubts, anxiety, demanding job, bits of insomnia, migraines (shout out to Young Living Essential Oils for saving my life and helping me sleep better and reduce my migraines), blab la blablaaaa, we are going to try to have another baby…I realize that if I can’t make up my mind, then I know for sure I must want another baby because if I was dead against it then it wouldn’t be a topic of conversation, and I would be on birth control STAT. I also realize I get upset with people for asking because of my own internal struggle with it. I am a worry wart and I can’t stand the enormous amount of worry that comes with my answers. Truth be told, I’m probably never going to “be ready” to have another baby, but I know this much, for me and Ryan we want our children to be close in age. There is ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong with spacing out your children, but I am talking about me right now and what I feel will work best for me and my family, and with that being said, I’m already probably a few months behind…but hey, it’s our schedule after all.

                Again, I will never be ready, I will never have enough money (what’s enough money anyway?), my house will never be big enough, and my car will probably not be safe enough, but here’s what I do know…I will continue to be a kick ass mom. I will make mistakes along the way and I will learn from them. I will love my babies with every bit of myself. I will go through periods of embarrassment when my future children throw horrible tantrums in public. I will sacrifice and do what ever I have to do to make it because that’s just what you do, and that is what finally gave me the courage (yes, courage) to decide to go for baby number two. It’s going to be really hard, I will probably cry on a daily basis, I will probably beg for 5 minutes alone, or 30 more minutes of sleep, but I will get by because I will have even more reasons to continue to do so.

                Flash back to when I was single, making great money, partying, traveling, living above the Hudson River in Weehawken, NJ (gotta plug Jersey), eating out all the time, shopping relentlessly (who needs a retirement fund when there’s shoes to be bought), going to yoga, chatting on the phone, hitting up happy hours, doing what ever the hell I wanted, I didn’t see babies and marriage in my future, marriage, maybe, but babies, no. I was having a great time and loving life, but who am I kidding, just over two years ago I was still dancing on speakers…yikes, it’s true. That life seems soooo far away right now as I’m picking up oversized blocks, washing bottle parts, singing Sophia the First, and Mickey Mouse Club House, and covering up the dark circles under my eyes, and it really is all good. I don’t regret a single thing because it’s all part of what makes me who I am, and I still surprise myself sometimes. I remember telling my grandmother I was getting married, I thought she was going to have a heart attack. My little old Italian Nonna, even with her dementia she remembered believing I would never get married. Forget it when I told her I was pregnant, that announcement landed her in a nursing home, probably a coincidence, but I like to believe it was the shock of me having a child that put her over the edge and some days I want to admit myself as her roommate (her cooking is killer).

Wrapping it up…One day when my kid(s) are grown, I am going to tell them all (or just some) of my crazy stories… like that time I drank champagne with P Diddy, and I’ll feel super cool and they’ll look at me like who’s P Diddy? Then I’ll tell them that for me, the greatest, craziest, most emotional, most rewarding journey of all is parenthood. The memories will be endless, the laughs will be plenty, the tears, trials, tribulations, bumps, bruises, weight gain, weight loss, weight gain again, yelling, timeouts, tantrums, diapers, hugs, kisses, holidays, all of it, will be great, and I’m only in the beginning stages…the best is yet to come…it’s baby making time!

OMG Labor & Delivery Day.....

    

     We left for the hospital at 5am, I told the dog we would be back with his new brother and he looked at me like I was nuts...I am, and I was. We arrived at the hospital and went through the lengthy check in procedures and I remember thinking I was glad my water didn't break because there is no way I would be filling out all that paperwork and having contractions.
     They checked us into our room and the party started...I got all hooked up to my IV and an hour later they started the Pitocin; the medication that strengthens labor contractions…sounds like fun right? I started progressing quickly and to be honest, the contractions weren’t that bad. I was walking around, bouncing on the birthing ball and feeling relieved that I could “handle” the pain…Little did I know that not long after the midwife was going to come in and break my water…ummmmm excuse me…I realize now that I was completely clueless to the fact that contractions are worse, MUCH MUCH WORSE, after your water breaks.

They started coming on stronger and faster and I was breathing like a person who was under water for far too long and thankful to have reached the surface. I had dilated to 5cm and was about ready to administer the epidural myself when suddenly the angel from heaven, AKA the epidural guy, came into the room and I completely forgot how terrified I was to have a needle put into my spine and welcomed him like we were friends since kindergarten. The epidural was a breeze compared to the labor pains and shortly after it was administered the pain subsided and I was able to relax…it was like a freaking miracle, epidurals are fantastic.

                My husband, Ryan, hates needles and had to leave the room when they gave me the epidural…so there I was laying on my side watching the screen and seeing these crazy contractions and not feeling a thing when suddenly I started shaking like someone left me in the North Pole with no clothes on in January. Just then, Ryan walks back in the room and is totally freaked out since I’m laying there hanging on to the bars on the side of the bed shaking and chattering my teeth together…he thought they paralyzed me…I crack up about this now, but I can imagine how freaky that scene must have been to him. Apparently this was a side effect of the epidural that I was also clueless about and it’s my fault for not taking birthing classes.

                The nurse came in to check on me and said I was at 6 cm and it would probably be a bit longer, no sooner did she walk out of the room when I felt this huge shift in weight in my lower abdomen and had the urge to push (it basically felt like I had to take a shadoobie, as Chelsea Handler calls it). Ryan called the nurse to come back, I told her what I was feeling and she said it was unlikely I had dilated 4 cm in less than 10 minutes, but she checked anyway, and she was wrong…I was fully dilated and ready to go. Ryan looked at me and all of the color had washed from his face, I could tell it was hitting him, he was about to be a daddy…

                Prior to the labor we had agreed he was going to stay north of the equator and leave the business end to the professionals….That worked out well for the first hour, but then the student nurses who were helping (yes, 6 student nurses watching me try to deliver a baby which on a normal day might bother me, but on an “in labor” day I could care less), had to leave for the day so it was up to Ryan to take over…thankfully, he did fine, but low and behold little Maverick was not fine.

                My doctor was giving a teaching seminar not far from the hospital and the midwife was there monitoring me every now and then. I pushed for 3 and a half hours, and Maverick wasn’t coming out. I could see the top of his head with a mirror and they kept telling me he was stuck on my pelvic bone. My epidural wore off and they wouldn’t give me anymore because they said it would be better for me to feel what was going on so I could push better. I was exhausted, in pain, and desperate for him to come out, but he wouldn’t budge. I will never forget the midwife, who shall remain nameless, coming into the room and looking at me like she was pissed I was taking so long to deliver this baby. Everyone thought he would have been born well before 2pm, but it was after 5pm, and no baby. At the next contraction she said she was going to “check me” and see how I was pushing…I literally gave it my all and I pushed, and she looked up at me and said, “I’m just not feeling the effort”. I burst into tears, the nurse who had been with me the entire time said I assure you she has been pushing with great energy this entire time. I begged for more epidural and asked to rest. They went outside of the room to talk and try to reach my doctor. When they came back in the midwife said they called the anesthesiologist to come and give me more of the epidural medication, I could rest for 30 minutes, then I had to push again, and if I COULDN’T deliver the baby within an hour, I would have to have a C-section.

                I was devastated, I had not planned on a C-section at all…I was terrified to have an actual surgical procedure while being awake so I vowed I would get this baby out. She turned to leave the room when all of a sudden everything started beeping, the nurses came back in the room, the midwife exclaimed, “he’s going tachycardic, he’s going tachycardic”….In the blink of an eye they called my OB, the nurse came racing in and said, “your doctor is on her way, we are prepping you for a C-section, the baby’s heartbeat is too high and we need to get him out.” Well, that was it, I lost my mind, I started crying hysterically, I called my sister who answered the phone thinking she was going to be congratulating me on my delivery and I quickly shouted, I have to have an emergency C-section, I’m freaking out, just promise me it won’t hurt!” She stuttered a bit and finally said, no, it won’t hurt, OMG what’s going on and I explained in a half a second and hung up the phone…Ryan had been taken out of the room to don the surgical garb, I have to admit, he looked very Grey’s Anatomy attractive, and for a moment I thought I married a doctor…they gave me more epidural, switched me to a different bed and started wheeling me through the hospital to the surgical room, I threw up the entire way…lovely, but then again, I had thrown up several times while pushing too so I wasn’t too surprised.

                The room was like something out of a movie, huge bright lights in the ceiling, a huge team of nurses, I was hooked up to all kinds of stuff, and finally, my doctor arrived…She quickly said hello, explained to me that she felt there was something wrong since I had been pushing for so long and he should have come out, she began testing my lower abdomen to see if I could feel anything, and I still sort of could so I exclaimed, “I can feel that” as if shouting it would get the point across faster…she told them some medical terminology that I am clueless of and next thing I know I’m feeling like I’m floating on air…My hands were strapped to two poles and I was instructed to hold on tightly to try to stop the shaking from the second epidural, and I looked up at the nurse and said, “I feel like I just smoked a joint”…She giggled and said, “it’s ok sweetie, we just gave you some morphine”, well let me tell you, I heart morphine…I was TOTALLY out of it, I could feel the sensations of what they were doing, but I didn’t feel any pain and I was so gone they could have been taking my leg off and I wouldn’t have cared. I looked at Ryan and told him to start telling me a story to help me focus, and sure enough he started talking to me about the Philadelphia Eagles, and Chip Kelly, and who we would pick up in the offseason, and did I like Nick Foles as our quarterback, and then suddenly I felt this enormous weight being pulled out of me and seconds later we heard him cry, his very first cry. (Please note, I am now crying as I type this…the moment is still so real) We looked at each other and Ryan had the biggest smile on his face I had ever seen, he looked up at him and said he’s out, babe, he’s here! I felt like I passed out for a minute and woke back up to the sound of my doctor saying he’s out, and the nurses telling me they are cleaning him up and weighing him. Ryan went to him immediately and started snapping photos like a proud daddy. He came back to me and the brought little 7lb, 8oz, 20inches long baby Maverick, and they laid him on my chest…It was the best kind of love I have ever felt, it was love at first sight, truly, it does exist.

                They quickly took him away to the nursery, Ryan followed, and they stitched me up and wheeled me off to recovery. In the recovery room I was draped with tons of towels and sheets to bring my body temperature up, and finally they came back, Ryan and baby Mav. They told me I needed to try to nurse him, and they gave him to me. Thank goodness he latched right away, and I was amazed at all that had gone down in the last 24 hours. I realized women are freaking amazing, as if I didn’t already know, but we are…

                My doctor came into the recovery room and explained what had happened. She said I never should have pushed that long, that the wrong part of Maverick’s head was trying to come down the birth canal and it was unable to pass the pelvic bone since it wasn’t the part of the skull that collapses together to allow for the head to pass. She explained that the only way to get babies coming down the canal like that was with forceps or suction, which she considers inhumane and doesn’t perform those types of deliveries, or via C-section. My sister was delivered that way and she turned out ok, so I’m sure I might have been fine with that, but she preferred to do the surgery explaining in her opinion it was safer. She said he was so far down my birth canal that he was delivered in a breech position via C-section. In other words, he had to be pulled up out of my birth canal, then out of my belly.

                So there it is folks, the miracle of life….that entire time after my water broke Ryan and I stated back and forth a bunch of times, “never again”…, but I’ll tell you what…if all the stars aligned and I got pregnant, I would do it all over again, ALL OF IT, the crappy pregnancy, the crazy delivery, the vomiting, the pushing, everything, if it meant I could experience that feeling a second time. It’s the most powerful thing I have ever felt…

                So, ladies, the moral of the story is, ask questions, go to classes, read books, be afraid, but know that it’ll be ok, be excited, be thrilled and curious! Women have babies every day, every single day, around the world, in hospitals, on farms, in the outback, on boats, in taxi cabs, it’s crazy, and amazing, and nuts, but it’s literally life, and that’s my story so far, just a small, but gigantic, chapter in my book.