Alcohol Use and Pregnancy – Getting Help
CouldBeAnyone
member
I thought it might be useful to someone now, or in the future, to share my story. Before I found help, I scoured the boards and the internet to find someone else going through what I was going through. Or to find help specifically for pregnant women. I couldn’t find anything and felt very alone.
I’m a regular poster on this board, but am using a different screen name for this post. I am a white, college educated, upper middle class woman with a fulfilling career, a loving and supportive husband, and am a devoted mother to lovely children for whom I would give my life. I am also a pregnant woman consuming excess amounts of alcohol.
Earlier this week my therapist and I together called CPS (Child Protective Services) and got a referral to a program designed specifically for pregnant women using drugs or alcohol. It is voluntary and I am at no risk of losing my children, unless my baby were to be born with signs of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, which given the circumstances is unlikely but still possible. The amount I’ve consumed is irrelevant in my mind. It’s more than a glass a week, and less than a bottle a day. But it’s something I’ve struggled with before and since becoming pregnant.
Alcohol abuse started when I had two back-to-back miscarriages trying to conceive my second child. After a couple months, and with support from my husband, I was able rein things in and go back to very moderate social drinking. I didn’t drink during previous pregnancies. But after the birth of my last child, I suffered from severe postpartum depression, an eating disorder, and alcohol abuse. I worked with a psychiatrist and an eating disorder program to get all three under control. Then I became pregnant with this child and somehow I just couldn’t completely cut out the alcohol.
After struggling with this on my own and only having moderate and intermittent success in completely cutting out the alcohol use, I confessed to my psychiatrist the exact amounts I was consuming. We adjusted my anti-depression and anti-anxiety medication and she referred me to a therapist who specializes in pre and post natal depression. The therapist and I have worked on this, and most recently made the call to CPS to find additional help.
Being honest with myself, my psychiatrist, my therapist, and making the call to CPS was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But I am also having much greater success in avoiding alcohol and feel like I have the support I need going into what may be another very difficult postpartum period.
The program I’m using is 80% women under the poverty line, 60% women of color, and includes women using hard drugs, most of who are struggling with challenges I am not faced with. But like them, I couldn’t do it on my own and needed the support of professionals and other women struggling with the same issues in order to do the best thing for my unborn child, for my family, and for myself.
I may never tell friends, co-workers, or my family what I have struggled with or the risk I have put by unborn child in. But I am telling you, in case there is even one woman out there who faces a similar struggle. To you, I say: You are not alone. There IS help available. This does not define you as a mother, a woman, or a person. I encourage you to keep looking to find help, even if you feel things might, or could, or should turn out okay. Getting help will make you a stronger mother and a stronger woman.
Re: Alcohol Use and Pregnancy – Getting Help
support and not judge her. Good luck! You can do this momma
Best wishes for you and baby! Stay strong you've got this!
Thank you for all the support! I honestly wasn't expecting that. I appreciate your kind words of encouragement.
09/28/2015- Surprise! Conrad and Hudson born at 35w6d!