Motherhood with PND

OK, so postnatal depression sucks.

This time, I kinda expected it. I know that sounds crazy, and I hate saying it out loud, but I did. I had it with India, so the midwives and doctors had warned me that it is a possibility it could return
See,  I never realised with India until her two year assessment when the health visitor clicked on straight away. She asked me how I was feeling, and I kept changing the subject to India, until she looked directly at me, and asked me again.
Well, that was it.
I I just broke down into tears.
I had put in so much effort to being this perfect parent to India, and putting my all into trying to fulfill all her needs, I just hadn't thought about myself. My upbringing wasn't the best, and therefore I wanted to make sure India had everything, and I had all these irrational thoughts in my head of what she needed me to be like. I kept her in my bed until she was 4 because I was so convinced if she slept in her own room, something would happen and she wouldn't be alive in the morning when I checked up on her. I wouldn't let anyone babysit because I had visions of terrible things happening to her, and no one looking after her like I did. When she reached 3, she started nursery three afternoons a week, and I remember the dreaded feeling I had. I would drop her off, and linger on for as long as possible, and then wander the area around the nursery just in case anything bad happened and I was nearby. In my head, the 20 minute walk home was too far, I needed to be closer.
Now, I know this all sounds irrational, but at the time, this all made complete sense in my head.

Now, forward on a few years, India is five, I have a new partner Ben and we welcome our little boy Arlo into the world. For the past year I had been off my anti-depressants and I was starting to feel myself again. They had taken me out of the rut I had found myself in and my boyfriend had a way of snapping me out of the pity parties I was holding for myself.
I thought I had got over the depression and anxiety throughout the pregnancy tbh. I had the typical pregnancy worries, apart from the fact he was growing so fast and had to have some growth scans and diabetes test, along with my thyroid functions constantly checked, it all went pretty smoothly. I was induced on my due date due to him being so big, and I also had high blood pressure so I was pretty happy to know I wasn't going to have to go over as he was quickly running out of room! Everything went smoothly during the birth, and we got to take our little boy up to the ward to await his first visitor, his big sister India.

As I sat there, trying to breast feed, and I turned to my boyfriend and just said "I haven't been this happy in such a long time!"... look down, to see my two hour old baby boy limp and blue. My first thought was to shake him, whilst shouting for my boyfriend to take the baby to a nurse. He let the tiniest noise out when the nurse took hold of him, but he still hadn't got his colour back and I sat there thinking the worst.  I was so convinced I had suffocated him with my chest. I know, another irrational thought, but I was convinced. Arlo got rushed off and we had no idea where they had taken him. Alarms were going off, nurses were rushing round and we were left in limbo looking for our baby boy.  We heard a little cry come from a room, and ran to it thinking it was Arlo. But it wasn't. 

Finally, for what felt like hours, but must have only been five minutes, a nurse found us and took us to where Arlo was. He was surrounded by doctors and nurses, a mask was on his face and tubes were everywhere. No one was telling me what was going on and our baby boy was lay on a table, obviously not well, and I couldn't do anything to help him. My little boy.

They finally took him down to the Intensive Care Unit and placed him in an incubator, which was when India arrived. It had been explained to her that he wasn't very well, and she was able to meet him but he was in a special bed to help him. Her eyes filled with sadness as she looked down on him in the incubator, and I had to hold the tears back not wanting India to know how I was feeling.
The next day he was moved to neonatal, still on tubes and in the incubator, but it was a step in the right direction! He was doing so well, and I couldn't be prouder. But that walk back to the maternery ward, without my baby, killed me every time. I would lie there, listening to other babies crying and being comforted by their mothers, and I couldn't do that. My baby wasn't with me. And it was killing me..

Along with a few other personal issues and matters, (waaaay too long to put into this)... this all took its toll on me, and drastically. I felt like all I was doing was crying, and just feeling so helpless. I hadn't seen my daughter in a few days due to her being with her dad, and there being a few issues around that, so I just felt like everything was falling apart around me.
I remember one morning, Ben had come back to the hospital and we walked down to see Arlo, and a nurse was stood there feeding him his first bottle. This destroyed me. I should have been doing that. I'm his mum. I should be giving him his first feed, and now someone else was doing it.

I felt like I had failed as a mum.

I had tried to breastfeed him again, and every time I tried, I would just get so anxious, still convinced I had suffocated him with my chest, and I was convinced it would happen again. By this point, they had explained they had found a shadow on his lung so it was an infection, but in my head, my irrational thoughts had come back and they were taking over again. I would sit there, crying, trying my best to breastfeed, and no matter how hard I tried, these dark thoughts come back into my head and the nurses and I, decided it wasn't beneficial of my mental health to feed him this way.

Again, I felt like I had failed as a mother. 

All these things I had planned in my head, motherhood as I imagined second time round, I had failed at the first hurdle. I felt like I had done parenting so wrong the first time, I wanted to try my best to make it better the second time, and it wasn't happening like I planned.

Fast forward a few days and we finally got to bring our baby boy up into the maternity ward, still trying to convince myself everything would go right now. India got to have a big cuddle from her new baby brother, and I just couldn't be prouder looking down at them both. 

But that week, due to the stress of the complications with the baby, not seeing my daughter, issues with "family members", my blood pressure went sky high, resulting in being checked every hour during the night, and therefore not being able to enjoy some time with my baby, just us.

We finally got the all clear, and we were told we could leave on the Wednesday, but on the Tuesday I fell so poorly. I was shivering, but the sweat was just dripping off me. My tshirt was sticking to me, I had the worst headache and felt so sick, but I kept reassuring my boyfriend I was OK. I didn't need the nurses to know. I didn't want to waste their time. What if I'm seen as a burden for them? Again, my irrational thoughts were back and I was convinced I was being a nuisance still being in the hospital. But Ben, being Ben... he knew something was wrong and told the nurses without me knowing. After they checked me over, before I knew it, doctors were in our room and I was having tests done with swabs and all sorts.... lovely, I know. 

The day before we were due to come home, and here I was, throwing a spanner in the works. Nothing was going right, and I felt like it was all my own fault.  This whole week, I had just sobbed all day every day. Nurses kept telling me it was baby blues, but I knew it was more than that. It was coming back, and I could feel it taking a hold of me again. 

Wednesday came and they gave us the best news we could hear. We could go home! I had five days of antibiotics to take, and had to be checked over the week after, but I was completely fine with that! We could finally go home, I would be able to see India and now settle into our new routine with our new family of four. 

Now, Arlo is nearly six months and I've tried a few anti depressants since having him, but all the side affects I have had with them, outweigh the good. So now here I am, trying to battle PND without medication.

I still have bad days, the days where I feel overwhelmed before I've even got out of bed.
The dreaded feeling of going to a mums and tots group, or even doing the school run. The constant knotted feeling in my stomach, a mix of nerves and dread and I don't know why. But it's there, and I feel sick from it.  

No matter how bad of a job I feel like I'm doing with my two children, the smiles on their face tell me different. As long as they're happy, I need to remember I must be doing an alright job. Don't get me wrong, I still have (a lot) of days where I feel like I'm not good enough, or I compare myself to other mums online, and even on the school run who look like they have their shit together, but not all days are bad days...and those days, I truly do treasure.

 Unless we talk about it, keep talking about it, and don’t judge us when we do, because believe me, we’re already doing that ourselves, then nothing will change. Don’t try and face this alone, the biggest step you’ll ever take is accepting that you have a problem. The brain is just another organ in the body, it can get ill just like all the others, we need to treat it as such, not just devour medications that suppresses the person we are.

Maybe talking is all we really need, accept that Reality Shows are far more Show than Reality remember that all you see on Social Media are the filtered snapshots of a life they want you to see.