Why I Stayed on Antidepressants While Pregnant and Nursing

The tropical storm whipped the palm fronds outside into a frenzy, while inside my elementary school, I was getting whipped into a frenzy, as well. I overheard someone say that if a hurricane hit, we’d all be under water. When I finally got home, my tiny, five-year-old body bolted through the house, ripped open the sliding glass doors and dragged everything from the backyard inside—my toys, even my brother’s toys. My panic knew no toy ownership, only that we were going to all be drowning any moment and all toys should be saved.

From that first anxiety attack on, I struggled with more anxiety, depression, and obsessive compulsive disorder. I did all sorts of talk therapy and took a variety of medications to remedy these afflictions—some worked, some didn’t. At 30, I finally found Wellbutrin XL. It was like somebody turned down the static in my brain. I could finally hear myself think. So when I found out I was pregnant six years later, I knew that I would not go off the medication. Not even if there was a slightly elevated risk to the health