The highs and lows

It's such a massive change to the status quo when you fall pregnant. Huge courses of hormones fill your body in levels never experienced unless in pregnancy. These hormones help with the nurturing of the child within you and allow your body to make the necessary changes so that one life can now support two. No wonder pregnant women are treated with special-ness. So they should be! It's these hormones which made me cry at the huggies ads, or the panadol ads, or the "baby animals RSPCA" promo. The life within you changes your very temperament. I would never have been caught dead crying before being pregnant, and then it seemed that I was never not crying during the process. A whole 10 months of being a blabbering woman.

This time round post-baby, I feel much better within myself. I'm thankful that my body is coping with the loss of hormones more than last time.

But after making many more friends who are also mothers, I am finally getting a grasp of how wide spread depression is amongst new mothers and even second-time (or more) mothers.

When you wake up in the morning and you're already feeling like you hate everything (and I mean everything), you sense that something is not quite right.

I've found that my body is quite sensitive to changes in my natural hormone levels, and anything done to change these artificially winds up causing my mental state to be altered dramatically. I know this now, and am more aware of what drugs I put in my mouth. But it took a long time before I cottoned on to what was wrong within me. I put it down to being young and tired, and stressed, and anxious. But I need to say that panic attacks are not meant to be the status quo, and stress and anxiety should not be your natural state of being. They shouldn't be your breakfast, lunch and dinner. The might be the salmonella poisoning that you get very rarely. (But as Craig will testify- does actually come your way when you use a chicken knife to butter your toast.)

As hormones settle within me again to pre-pregnancy levels, I find myself feeling "wrong" only about once every 2 weeks. It just ends up being a bad day. And I try to minimise the day's badness by treating myself lots and taking care of myself as best as i can. I also include God even more in these days. He helps me grow in love. I know on days like this when I meet others, that I'm most likely bad company. I'll say more hurtful things than usual. I'll be impatient with my girls. It just seems to happen, even though I make a conscious effort to not be that way. (So sorry if you've been bitten by "bad" Nicole)

I try to correct the wrong thoughts that come into my head. Explain to them why they are wrong. But gosh, it took me a long time to get to a place where I learnt to master these thoughts and feelings, rather than them controlling me.