This has been staring me in the face for the past few weeks. I wondered what irreparable damage I was doing to baby 2.0’s internal organs and future psyche as I passed the 30 weeks mark a few weeks back.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a huge advocate of better-living-through-chemistry. Zoloft was a literal life and sanity saver as postpartum anxiety and obsessive-compulsive behavior started THE NIGHT I gave birth to my daughter nearly three years ago. I had a successful and mostly happy pregnancy the first time around. I had weaned off Prozac before conception efforts began with Baby #1. (I had taken that since my eating-disordered days as a teen many years ago.) I felt totally fine. I thought I would be totally fine. I was until I gave birth, the hormone drop began and mental illness reared it’s ugly-head again.

Fortunately, I knew about Katherine Stone and her amazing work for women all over the world. (She really has become a role-model for me in my life and someone I hope to meet in person one day so I can tell her that. ) So, I took action immediately. I talked to a therapist and joined Team Zoloft so I could be the kind of mother I knew I could be. I stopped worrying about the negligible amount of Zoloft in my breast milk thanks to Katherine and the community she built. I stayed on Zoloft throughout this pregnancy until recently. 

So you may be asking why I decided to wean off Zoloft in the 3rd trimester this time, knowing what I know about my mental health. Well, I just started to sort of panic that there would be a problem. I understand the odds. I took a very low dose and the odds were very slim that there would be a problem. My doctor said the baby could have some withdrawal symptoms like listlessness and trouble eating.   Yes, I know newborns are typically listless by nature and have to learn to eat anyway, but I just had a weird feeling. My doctor said there are many other women who feel the same way and take the bottle of Zoloft with them to the hospital and start it up right after giving birth.

That was good enough for me. Done. That’s the plan. It took 1-2 weeks to wean off the meds and feel fine for now.

I just felt like I had done everything in my power to have a healthy child the first time and I wanted to make that same effort for the second. My husband reminded me that even when you do everything to have a healthy child, babies still get sick and we’ll handle that together if it happens. True.

But, I still feel better knowing it’s out of my system and the bottle will be waiting happily in my hospital bag.

Maybe it’s  because it’s Shark Week. Maybe it’s because of that scary story that came out this week about Usher’s son. But, water safety has been on my mind this week. We have decided we officially have a water baby. I swear our child is part fish. She LOVES being in the pool. She loves summer and our little daredevil is happy to push away from us as she learns to jump off the side of the pool into our cautiously open arms. I in no way want to squash this enthusiasm. I love the fact that my 2 1/2 year-old  loves kicking, blowing bubbles and dunking her whole head in the water. I remember to my younger sister wailing during swim lessons at the pool because she didn’t want to get her face wet. I was far from a super swimmer myself, even though I was on the swim team for a few years.

As my daughter grins and giggles, inside I am reeling with anxiety that she will go under and we will not be able to get to her. I have horrible flashbacks to my early days of motherhood with Postpartum Depression when I was forever worried that she would drown in a pool, the ocean 2 hours away, lakes 20 miles away, the bath, a puddle or a heavy rain. I often let my husband take the lead on swimming in the big pool. I usually relax after a little while and we have a great time. The pool we joined rocks and we always have fun with neighborhood events on Friday nights.

It seems to be a trend that every toddler wears a Puddle Jumper. Have you heard of these? They’re like an arm floatie/life jacket hybrid. I felt like a sorry excuse for a suburban pool mom for not having my kid stuffed in one of these.  I held off on buying any type of floatation device because I heard it stunts their swimming progress or whatever. I’ve also heard “No! You can’t buy those because then they might not know when they aren’t wearing one and jump in and sink!” Huh? I mean, I think she’s going to know when she’s wearing one.  We don’t own a pool because of my anxiety. (Okay, right. We don’t own a pool because that shit is expensive and we would never clean it.) I feel like that’s a problem for pool owners. She’s never going to wander into our backyard pool and sink, nor will she ever be at the neighborhood pool by herself.

I bought a life jacket anyway.  Why?  Because it made me feel more secure. It reduced my mama anxiety, which made it worth every penny of $24.95. I didn’t get a Puddle Jumper because we tried arm floaties and she hated having something on her arms. I went with a Speedo life jacket for toddlers. She calls it her “puffy vest.” We had a very serious conversation about how she can float above the water with her puffy vest on and how she needs to always hold on to Mama and Daddy when she doesn’t have it on. I think she has a pretty good grasp of this concept and it has made pool time much better for me.

What do you do to ensure water safety with your little one? What do you think of my life jacket decision?  Any thoughts?  Did I do the right thing?

Alright, let’s get through Shark Week with no water injuries, shall we?