When I first became pregnant, I knew that my husband and I would face many parenting decisions once our child was born. Some would be small, like whether he should wear the bunny or rainbow outfit home from the hospital. And others would be more critical, like what we should do after he lost a bit too much weight in the first week of life.
But the most challenging decision I have had to make in the two years since I became a mother was how to cope with my anxiety.
At age 29, years before I got pregnant, I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) while undergoing treatment for alcohol use disorder. During my first therapy session, my therapist recognized that I had been drinking too much as a coping mechanism and diagnosed me with GAD.
After the diagnosis, I realized that I had been living with anxiety for as long as I could remember. My Latino family never talked about mental health when I was a child, so I never knew I had anxiety until it was severely impacting my life. When I reflect back, I’m so glad I sought professional help: Some research suggests that only 34 percent of those in the Latinx community who experience symptoms of a psychological disorder reach out to a mental health professional, compared to 45 percent of the national average.
Things significantly improved when I got sober and began seeing a therapist regularly. As time went on, I learned various coping techniques: lighting a favorite candle, drinking a cup of citrus lavender tea, journaling, coloring, cooking, reading and snuggling with my pets all helped me manage stressful situations.
A few years later, I found out I was pregnant — but suffered a pregnancy loss shortly afterward. Although I was able to get pregnant again a few months later, my anxiety was suddenly through the roof. I wasn’t alone: Black and Latinx moms tend to experience elevated numbers of perinatal anxiety. One survey found that 22 percent of Latina moms experience anxiety during pregnancy, a rate that is 12 percent higher than white pregnant moms. Cultural stigma about mental health care, health care access barriers and societal discrimitation may result in Black and Latinx women being disproportionately affected by PPA, research suggests.
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I found myself checking the toilet paper after every bathroom visit, fearing that the worst would happen again. At my prenatal appointments, I asked a million questions to determine the baby’s health. Eventually, I started to obsessively look at pregnancy viability statistics: If I made it to 12 weeks, what were my chances of having another pregnancy loss? At 20 weeks, what were the chances then?
Around 16 weeks, I started struggling with insomnia and began to nest in the middle of the night. When I spoke about what was happening with my OB/GYN, she diagnosed me with perinatal anxiety disorder.
Although anyone can develop anxiety during pregnancy, I was at increased risk due to my history of mental health struggles and past pregnancy loss, my OB/GYN explained. I accepted the diagnosis and began to see my therapist more frequently.
I still had anxiety and sleepless nights — often, I'd stay awake counting how many newborn onesies we had in the house — but I felt a tiny bit better as the weeks went on.
By the time I hit 35 weeks, I finally started to feel more like myself. And then the world shut down.
Panic attacks during the early pandemic
Ironically, my perinatal anxiety subsided just as an anxiety-inducing pandemic was spreading. Suddenly, I found myself 37 weeks pregnant and panicking about what was happening all around me.
In March 2020, news about the pandemic just kept getting worse. Like all parents at that time, I was concerned about how COVID-19 might impact pregnant women and their babies. And as I began to hear that certain hospitals in New York City weren't letting partners in the delivery room, my panic really hit the fan.
After a week of near-daily panic attacks, I began to consider anxiety medication for the first time.
Previously, I hadn't thought that medication was necessary for me because I was able to manage my anxiety with therapy and coping techniques. As the pandemic intensified and my due date approached, I kept trying my usual anxiety fixes, but they weren’t having the same effect. Being home all day, pregnant and constantly worrying, made me reconsider whether I could benefit from medication.
When I had yet another panic attack thinking about my husband being locked out of the delivery room, I decided to speak with my doctor.
Finally asking for help
Talking about my anxiety wasn't easy for me. Throughout my life, I had heard negative comments from my Cuban father about not wanting to be “the crazy one” in the family. I was often told to keep quiet when there was a problem so we wouldn't “air our dirty laundry” (said in Spanish).
When I was first diagnosed with anxiety, I slowly opened up to friends about what I was going through. But I still felt like there was stigma about taking medication for one's mental health, so I was hesitant to tell my loved ones that I was considering it.
But my husband knew I was struggling and experiencing heightened anxiety. Finally, I said the words: “What do you think about me trying anxiety medication?” He was incredibly supportive.
Unfortunately, at that point I was almost 39 weeks pregnant, and my OB/GYN didn’t want me to start a new medication so close to my due date. Instead, she recommended that I start taking a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) for my anxiety the day after giving birth. And that’s what I did.
It took some time for the medication to start working. In the first few weeks of motherhood, I was so focused on keeping my tiny baby alive that I honestly had no time to ruminate. By the time I started to feel anxious again, I realized that it had been over a month since I had a panic attack. What really shocked me, though, is that when I did find myself starting to worry excessively, I was now able to “turn off” those thoughts much more easily.
As the pandemic went on, I still felt anxious at times, but I could pull myself out of a negative thought spiral within a few minutes.
Taking medication for one’s mental health is a deeply personal choice, but discussing it with my doctor helped me make the right decision for me. Over the past two years, I have continued taking my medication (and in fact, my doctor recently opted to increase my dosage during the Omicron wave, which was causing my panic attacks to flare up again).
While medication hasn’t completely eliminated my anxiety, I am no longer having panic attacks and am now able to recognize when anxiety sets in so I can manage it.
Medication has become one of the many things I do in order to be the best version of myself that I can be — and that includes being the best mom.
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