Anyone pregnant with ADHD?

[magnificatAnimaMea]

So far pregnancy is not difficult for me, except for one thing... I have ADHD, have hitherto been on methylphenidate, which really calms me down brilliantly and gives me the ability to focus and stop being scattered and jittery.

Obviously one shouldn't take methylphenidate when pregnant unless it's really really necessary, so I had titrated down to a very low dose (10 mg) when TTC and stopped taking it the minute i knew I was pregnant.

In the last few days the ADHD jitters have been returning, to the point that today I'm absolutely climbing the walls with nervy fidgety restlessness, can hardly talk properly because i'm distracted and my voice is actually shaking with nerves, I can't focus long enough to finish simple tasks, argggggggggh.

Does anyone have any solutions? My only solution is exercising to complete exhaustion, but that doesn't work for more than a few hours, and is not sensible in pregnancy anyway.

To add to the complication I am now being strongly encouraged to apply for a 3-year contract job starting in January, by a colleague who doesn't know I'm pregnant, or that I have quite strongly ritalin-dependent ADHD. It's the first suitable job for me that has come up in our town in >5 years.

I'll contact the organization's HR department to ask for further details, but I think there would be no maternity pay at all (contract staff have no benefits), but the funding would be flexible, i.e. could be extended beyond the 3 years.

However, there would be a lot of pressure to complete work in the 5 months before going on maternity leave, and then huge pressure to complete work during maternity leave, as the employers' ability to get further funding depends completely on their ability to publish results during the current funding.

I think it wouldn't work with both the pregnancy/maternity issues and the ADHD issue (which makes it hard for me to concentrate even when not sleep-deprived with a newborn). B*llocks.

How pregnant are you? Months?

I think you would still get some form of maternity pay. There are different types. My self employed friend got it, I also got it as bank staff.

It's in a different country where maternity pay doesn't happen unless it's provided by the employer, and this employer doesn't provide it for postdoc staff.

The issue is less about the pay, more about the fact the project wouldn't be feasible on the timescale required/ with most of the project being in the time I can't have methylphenidate to cope with ADHD. i'm 5 weeks pregnant. Of course 5 weeks isn't very far along, and so the pregnancy/ ADHD issue may become moot (hope it doesn't).

Don't complicate your life. Have a stress free pregnancy