Life has been pretty busy lately, hence my sporadic posting. I know that’s to be expected when you’re adjusting to life with an infant, but on top of that, coordinating work and daycare schedules has been more challenging that I thought. We moved Sebastian to a daycare closer to our house because it makes our commute much easier, but I’m still getting used to the new routine. Also, I’m missing our old daycare because they were taking such good care of him. His previous teacher helped him finger paint, made little art projects with his footprints, and she gave him plenty of one-on-one time. The new daycare is fine; they take good care of him, too, but I don’t get the sense that the new teachers are as engaged as the previous teachers. Sure, they have a certain curriculum and they teach him things, but it doesn’t feel as personal as the other location. Maybe I just need some more time to get to know them better.

Blurry Sebastian photo

Anyway, when I got dressed, I thought to myself, “Here’s another ‘mom’ outfit,” but, just like I mentioned in my recent Mom post, I would have worn this type of outfit before becoming a mom. Also, when you’re a mom, every outfit you wear is a mom outfit! But this one is my new favorite because it’s comfortable and stylish. And I love this shirt. It has become my go-to, and I’d wear it every day if I could. It’s from the “A New Day” collection at Target. The boat neck design makes the shirt feel kind of preppy, and I appreciate that they added an extra piece of fabric in the shoulder to hide your bra straps. I hate it when my bra straps are showing!

I’ve worn this outfit to work, doctors appointments, running errands, hanging out around the house, dinner, etc. etc. You name it. It’s the best. It’s really good for transitioning into Fall, too!

Sebastian doesn’t love taking pictures today as much as mommy.

What is your go-to “mom” outfit?

Shirt: A New Day via Target | Jeans: Banana Republic | Necklaces: Old Navy | Watch: Old Navy

I’m taking a break from the rain and gloom of today by sharing with you an outfit that I wore last week when we still had some beautiful sunshine. I picked up this faux wrap dress from Target as the Mossimo brand is being fizzled out. It has a satin weave and a breezy silhouette, giving it a style that is perfect to take me from a casual day or the office to fancy formal events. If it were the weekend, I would’ve kept it simple by pairing it with sandals, but since I wore it to the office, I decided to dress it up by slipping on my new open-toe booties.

I love the pink and olive colors. For some reason, the colors, pattern and style of this dress reminds me of Miami. I’ve only been there once and I wasn’t really paying much attention to what folks were wearing, but it’s definitely what I picture Miami ladies wearing. Maybe I’m just imagining things!

Real talk: I had this dress altered for a better fit. I asked to shorten both the shoulders and the bottom hem of the dress and I think it turned out pretty well. However, there is a snap in the front that allows you to choose how deep you want the front V to go. I love this feature but since having the shoulders altered, it’s very easy to snap open with even the slightest pull so I have to be careful, especially while at work! Next time I’ll wear a thin cami underneath, just in case.

Dress: Target | Cardigan: Banana Republic (old) | Shoes: via Rack Room | Necklace: Old Navy | Watch: Target

Skip. Like what happens when you hear a loud clap of thunder that makes you jump up out of your chair, but instead I’m just sitting at my desk in my quiet office, staring at the computer screen.

Flutter. Like the butterflies you get in your stomach when you’re nervous, but instead it happens in my chest while I’m sitting quietly on the couch, watching the evening news.

Race. Like when you’re watching your favorite sports team hit the winning shot right at the buzzer, but instead I’m sitting in a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam.

These are the peculiar sensations I’ve been feeling in my chest lately. For the average person, they’re no big deal. For the anxious person, they’re pretty common. For someone who is about 3 months post-heart attack like me, they’re cause for concern. My primary care physician thought that these sensations were simply due to stress. She made me go to the cardiologist, who agreed that it was probably just stress because everything else looked fine, but hooked me up to a holter monitor just to be sure.

Holter monitor, hour 1

A holter monitor is a small, portable monitor that measures your heart’s rhythm. I wore this monitor for 48 hours last week. Every time I felt a skip, a flutter, or a racing sensation, I pressed a button on the side to record the sensation in the results and then I described in a little journal exactly what I felt and what I was doing when I felt it. At the end of the two days, someone read the monitor and compared it to the notes in my journal to figure out what was causing my heart to act up like this.

Holter monitor, 24 hours

My two biggest fears regarding the results were on opposite ends of the spectrum. On one hand, I was afraid that the results would come back totally normal and would not show anything wrong. You’d think this is the best case scenario, but for me and my anxious mind, it would mean that I’m just crazy and/or hallucinating these sensations when I absolutely KNEW I wasn’t. On the other hand, I was afraid that the results would come back showing something catastrophic, like my heart was giving out and I only had a few more days to live, all the while wondering how I even made it this long.

Holter monitor, hidden under my shirt and in my jeans pockets

I got the results back this week and, luckily, they were right where I’d want them to be, comforting every so slightly my chaotic mind. They found that my heart rhythm is normal and that the ‘fluttering’ sensations correlated with occasional premature heart beats. These are benign but can feel strange or abnormal. Ultimately, there is no clinical concern but I should try to control my stress levels, as stress exacerbates the prematurely timed beats.

So, I’m not going to die of heart failure any time soon, which is good news. I do feel the occasional skip and flutter but my mind doesn’t automatically assume the worst. I’m working on addressing the stress in my life, which is extremely difficult given that I’m a new mom with a hectic work schedule. I’m slowly getting to a point where, when I feel my heart make its weird beats, it feels a little more like this:

Skip. Like when I see Nick and Sebastian after a long day and it makes my heart skip a beat.

Flutter. Like when my closed eyelashes lightly brush against Nick’s closed eyelashes during a long kiss. 

Race. Like when Sebastian is about to roll over/crawl for the first time and I’m so nervous for him but I know he’s strong and can do it. 

I had my first panic attack in graduate school at the age of 29. I’m not exactly sure what triggered it but it was probably a combination of being under a lot of stress as I was working on my master’s thesis, not getting much sleep, and drinking too much caffeine.

The morning of my episode, I began experiencing vision problems, my heart was racing, my hands started tingling and then went numb, I kind of felt like I was in a cloud, and I just kept thinking that something terrible was about to happen and I was going to die. I texted Nick to tell him that something was wrong and that I loved him. Then I broke down in uncontrollable sobs right before my friend and I were supposed to conduct an interview for one of our classes and my friend, Aarti — who was absolutely amazing through the whole ordeal — kept me calm and drove me to student health. She helped me sign in and waited with me the whole time. Aarti, you’re truly the best!

photo source

When the student health doc couldn’t find anything physically wrong with me, she said, “Sometimes we think we feel things and that causes us to panic.” And that’s when I knew I had just experienced a panic attack. I looked up the symptoms and sure enough, it was text book. I also knew that some of my family members had similar experiences and were actually diagnosed with general anxiety disorder (GAD). I had a few more panic attacks after that but, because I knew what was happening, I was able to make it through them without incident.

Until I had a heart attack.

photo source

After I experienced a postpartum heart attack, my anxiety skyrocketed. Every little pain, every twinge, every time I felt lightheaded, every time I felt even slightly “off,” sent me into panic mode. I was constantly talking myself off the ledge. It took me about two weeks to realize that my medication dosage was too high, which causing a lot of unpleasant symptoms, and once my doctor lowered the dose, I felt much better. I also started seeing a therapist who has been a tremendous help. She taught me to use grounding techniques – small activities incorporating the five senses that bring your focus back to the present — which have been a life changer! I still have panicked moments where I start to feel anxious, nervous, or scared for no logical reason but they do happen less frequently. And when they do happen, I resort to one of my grounding techniques and I am able to remain fairly calm until the moment passes.

I began to wonder if I’ll ever feel “normal” again, or if I was really going to have to live with this for the rest of my life. In search of more resources to help me cope, I came across the book On Edge: A Journey Through Anxiety by Wall Street Journal reporter Andrea Petersen. I just finished it and I feel like it has really put a lot of things into perspective.

photo source: Goodreads 

While I was expecting a memoir with some stats sprinkled in, this book was actually kind of the opposite. Petersen does weave her personal history with anxiety into the facts and stats, but I felt like the majority of the book discussed anxiety history, research, and treatment.  I was a psych major in college, I’ve already read that text book. Nonetheless, it’s still a good read. Sprinkling in her experiences as examples made the material more tolerable and you find yourself really relating to her, especially if you also suffer from an anxiety disorder. Her experiences helped to put things into perspective for me. Strangely, it makes me feel better that we share a lot of the same triggers (anything health-related) but that she also has triggers that I thankfully do not have, like driving on highways. My therapist is glad that the book resonated with me and that I was able to use it to examine the anxiety in my own life.

Petersen does a good job of covering the history of anxiety, including old and new research, as well as old and new treatments. She highlights studies that show how anxiety could be genetic, how it affects children, and she shares her personal stories of her family’s genetics and childhood anxiety. She also dives into the topic of current treatments that include everything from talk therapy, exposure therapy, and of course, good ol’ medications.

Confession: my therapist has talked to me about taking meds for my anxiety and I was teetering on the fence. I don’t particularly want to take medication but I will if it’s the only thing that will help. I would use it as a last resort. BUT, after reading about Petersen’s experiences with side effects of the different meds she tried, I don’t think I’m interested in taking them. Especially after the side effects I dealt with from my heart meds; I think I’d rather feel anxious. But I’m really interested to hear others’ experiences with anxiety and medications.

If you’re suffering from anxiety, want to know more about the history and existence of anxiety, or if you just want to take a look inside the mind of an anxious person, then I would recommend this book. It might change your understanding of the illness and make you a little kinder to yourself and/or more understanding of others who experience it.

Linking up with: Spread the Kindness

This weekend, Nick and I went on a quick picnic date by the lake. It was doctor’s orders.

For the past few months, I’ve been experiencing a lot of health-related anxiety as a result of my surprise postpartum heart attack. I’ve been seeing a really great therapist for a little more than a month now, and I’m happy to report that my anxiety has subsided pretty significantly thanks to the grounding techniques she taught me. In our last session, she asked how my relationship with Nick was going. After a moment of silence, I said, “Things are good, but they could be better.” And it was true because it has been a while since Nick and I have really connected.

While I was busy focusing on keeping my anxiety-fueled freak outs at bay, Nick was focusing on keeping up with the day-to-day. We were constantly cleaning baby bottles, washing spit up off our clothes, and passing the baby back and forth; with that and work, we didn’t really have time for much else. When this became our norm, we stopped talking to each other about our life, our dreams and plans… hell, we barely even talked to each other about how our days were going. It was like we were on autopilot just trying to get through the days, and it was starting to feel like we were roommates working toward the same goal – to care for Sebastian and the house – instead of a husband and wife team running our lives together. I didn’t realize how easy it was to lose sight of important things like love and marriage when you’re spending all your time caring for a kid. Of course I’ve heard of it happening, but to other people. Right? I would never let that happen to me and my marriage. Right?

So my therapist suggested that we find a sitter for the baby and spend some quality time together, just the two of us, to reconnect a bit. And that’s what we did. We left the Sebmeister with Nana and PopPop and set out for a little picnic.

We settled down in a spot by the lake. We sat on our blanket and ate our little snacks and relaxed and talked. We chatted about the upgrades we want to do to the house, the vegetables I want to learn to pickle, and we made a little plan to get started, something we regularly did before Sebastian came along. We watched the boats drive by, pulling teenage boys on water skis. We discussed how cool it would be to live on a lake. Neither of us really care to have a boat but a jet ski would be awesome! As we watched three kids whiz past us on a jet ski, Nick said, “You probably wouldn’t let me go fast, would you? You’d be afraid of falling off.” I pointed out that falling off of a jet ski wouldn’t be too bad because I would land in the water.

Ultimately, we agreed that lakes are better than the ocean.

We had just gotten really comfortable on our blanket when big, fat rain drops started falling. They fell slowly, just enough to be slightly annoying. “This is like a metaphor for our lives,” I said. “We try to do something nice and simple for ourselves and then we get rained on.” Nick looked at me and replied, “Yeah, but what really matters is how you react to it. It’s just a few little drops, not a downpour. We’ll get through it.”

This is why Nick is my rock. He keeps me grounded and he helps me see that things aren’t always as bad as my mind makes them out to be. He calms the storm that the anxiety creates in my mind, and he loves me even when I’m at my worst.

Unfortunately our picnic was cut short by the rain as the slow, fat rain drops soon turned into a warm summer storm and we had to retreat to a covered shelter until it passed. But it served its purpose. We renewed our connection and promised that we would get better about regularly making time for each other in the future. We aren’t going to be undone by a few little rain drops. We always get through it.