Trying to Conceive While Managing Depression

I was diagnosed with depression in 2013, 4 years later than I should've been, and a year before I met my now husband. I was medicated and in therapy, and rather well managed if I do say so myself. But in 2017, when we started trying to conceive, everything changed.

Each month, I'd wait not so patiently for my at-home ovulation kit stick to turn positive, and I'd find myself filled with hope. Hope that nobody talks about. But the hope rose in me, nonetheless. And then the stick would turn positive and I'd demand to my husband that we were intimate, not just once but 2 or 3 times within the 24 hour window.

Trying to get pregnant

I'd find myself filled with excitement - this could be it. This intimacy could make us a baby.

Then there was the waiting. The 2 weeks of waiting. The waiting again, that we don’t talk about. The waiting that tears apart my heart. The wondering, every time I felt something different in my body – was this it? Was this our baby?

Then my period would come. And I'd be crushed. I'd sink into a hole, much like the ones of my pre-medicated depression days, and I'd I close the curtains and hide under my covers in a way that meant I wasn't okay. But again, we don't talk about this, because doesn't everyone go through this cycle when they're trying to get pregnant and shouldn't I be okay, like more okay than I am I right now?

Managing depression while trying to get pregnant

Here's the thing I learned – trying to conceive while managing depression is different than trying to conceive without managing depression. Even on medication and in therapy, my brain chemistry works differently than other people's.

And some events - like desperately trying to have a child, the one thing I wanted more than anything else in the world – it throws off my brain chemistry in a way that other people don't have to deal with. For them, the cycle is just the cycle. You wait, you try, you wait, you find out, and you move forward – pregnant or not, ready to try again.

Worry, sadness, despair...

I couldn’t function like this. The days and weeks between "events" were full of worry, of sadness, even of despair. Each negative ovulation kit test made me worry that I wasn't ovulating like everyone else, or "normally," and each negative pregnancy test made me sure something was wrong with me, that I'd never be able to get pregnant on my own. (Spoiler alert - I wasn't able to get pregnant on my own, I ended up trying IUI and then moving on to IVF in order to conceive – but that’s a whole other story.)

Ultimately, I knew I needed to talk to my therapist about how trying to conceive was affecting my mental health.

Working with my therapist

We talked about ways that I could protect myself, including increasing my medication and also by being honest with my spouse and my therapist about how each stage of the conception process was affecting me mentally.

My depression was always going to be a part of my life, and ignoring it only made it worse. So trying to conceive became trying to conceive while managing my depression.

I just want to say if you are managing this or have managed this, I give you so much credit. It's incredibly difficult. And you're not alone.