It Won’t Be Like This Forever. Awareness for Postnatal Depression & Anxiety.

In today’s episode I share my postpartum journey and in particular, my battle with postnatal depression. In light of Perinatal Anxiety & Depression Awareness week, I speak out about how I knew I was struggling being a mother, how I reach out for help, what help looked like and how I was able to overcome PND and now be expecting another baby. Mental Health of mothers and fathers is a topic close to my heart and I pray this episode speaks to you. If you do find yourself needing help, let this be my encouragement to you to find the strength and ask. Call a trusted friend or family member, go and see your doctor or, if you are in Australia, call the national PANDA hotline.

This is my story around postnatal anxiety and depression. Now at the time of recording this episode, I have had this once undiagnosed with my son and I had it quite bad with my daughter, throughout her first year. I'm currently pregnant with my third child, so in this episode, I'm going to share my story with you and also share with you what it was like to fall pregnant again, and what I'm doing now as well.

When my son was born, I had a lot of breastfeeding issues and I got mastitis three times in the first six weeks. And everyone just told me, you just need to get to the six weeks and it’ll get easier. Instead, I ended up in hospital getting drained and IV fluids and painkillers and everything. I felt really, really guilty and was looking at him thinking “don't feed, don't feed”. I felt so much mum guilt around the message that ‘breast is best’. I was told “you shouldn't formula feed”, which made me think formula feeding means that you're not a good enough mum - which is a lie! In reality, I was not giving myself and my baby what we both really needed at the time - which was the space to enjoy being a mother for the first time and obviously for my son to be a newborn. So with him, I had a really hard time with guilt and shame going to formula feeding, which I really hid until he was off the bottle.

And then when my daughter was born, I had the exact same problems again and went to formula and thought, “nah, this is I'm going to be okay. I'm going to be okay. I did this with my son and he's fine. So I'll just do it with her. I've got friends, who've done this. This is okay.”

But I honestly felt like a fraud. My job is in holistic wellness. I'm all about natural wellbeing. And I wasn't able to do something that my body is naturally meant to be able to do. So again, I found that really hard with her. And then she got really, really unwell when she was only a few weeks old, and she ended up in ICU. She was on breathing machines sedated for a week. That was really hard as well. So with all that, when she came out of hospital about a month after that, it hit me that we nearly lost her. We were really hours. If not minutes, if we didn't seek help when we did, she would have stopped breathing. We wouldn't have her. I just kind of went into this downward spiral of “I should have known earlier, something was wrong. I should have called an ambulance. I should have done this. I should've done that.”

I felt really guilty, along with the formula feeding and everything else. I felt like I'm not equipped to be a mother, I'm not meant to be doing this. I’d ask, “God, why am I doing this? Why have you placed the desire in my heart to be a mum, when I'm just so out of control and struggling so much that I can't do what I'm meant to do for these kids.”

When did I know that something wasn't right? I was driving home one day, I'd taken both the kids out and when we got home I thought, I'll just put them inside and then I'll get back in the car and I'll just drive away and I'll call my husband and tell them that they're okay, they're inside, but I'm not. You need to come home and be with them. And that was kind of where my mind kept going. I just wanted to get away, away from this whole situation. I was so weighed down with guilt and all these ‘should've’, ‘could've’, ‘would've’ that I just thought that I just can't can't do it - it's too much and it's too hard.

So when I got home, I called our baby nurse, who I have come to have a beautiful relationship with over having my children and seeing her. I called her and said, I need help right now. And she, so, so lovingly talked me through putting the kids back in the car while I was on the phone to her. My phone was on Bluetooth in my car and she spoke with me as I drove to meet her at the doctor's surgery. Then she took me inside and spoke with me there. So I was really, really am very blessed to have had that in my life, but I kept it between her and I for a little while. I didn't as much she was saying, you need to go home and tell your husband.

I was really ashamed to admit that I wasn't coping. And I think particularly too, as a Christian, we think that we should just be able to cope. We don't think that we should be depressed or anxious. We don't think that we should be experiencing all these emotions and feelings that are all part of being human. Just because, I have Jesus, so I should be able to cope with this, but I eventually did tell my husband and it was honestly really hard and it took a little while for us both to understand each others thoughts and for him to really comprehend how it was impacting me. Then I told my mother and my mother-in-law and they so lovingly offered to have the kids when I needed and to come and help around the house.

I think the most important thing is I, when I got to that point of thinking that I needed to get away, it’s like I was actually able to almost pull myself away from myself and make that phone call to ask for help. And I believe that it's only by the grace of God. So that would be my first thing, that if you are in a place where it's beyond you and you need help to just take a moment and for 20 seconds, pull yourself away from that situation and just ask for help, go into your closet or your bathroom and make a phone call to someone you trust and just say, “I need help”.

Help is going to be different for everyone in what it practically looks like. For me, I saw a psychologist very regularly for the next few months. I also ended up on medication. With the psychologist I did a lot of mindset work, a lot of mindfulness stuff, a lot of gratitude. So that was where I learned all about how gratitude actually changes our brain. I learnt the whole rock, the baby to rock the baby concept where I talk talked about in an earlier episode where you just focus on doing one thing, don't try and multitask and do a million things. Just focus on doing one thing. So if my baby's crying and needs to be rocked to sleep and just focus on rocking the baby to sleep, don't worry about the dishes in the sink. Don't worry about all the stuff that really can wait. So that was how she was able to help me.

It was also good to even have someone who was professional, but also removed from our family and had no personal investment in the situation too. So highly, highly recommend seeing a professional psychologist or counselor, if you are needing help. And then of course our family and then at church family as well, we were given meals, had help with cleaning, help with washing, and even help with having the kids if I needed them, things like that.

But there was one night, and one thing that changed it all!

One night at church, I do not remember what the message was about, but I just had a moment in worship where God said, “Do you trust me? You need to let it go. Do you trust me?”. I thought, yeah, of course I trust you. I'm a Christian. I trust you God. But I felt Him say again, “Do you really trust me, that I have made you to be the mother that these kids need and that I've given them to you because you are the mother that they need? Do you trust me in that? Do you trust me to help you?” And in that moment I thought, no, I don't. I actually don't. I'm trying to do this in my strength. I'm trying to keep this under my control. I'm trying to do it all on me and yet no wonder that I was feeling like it wasn't working. So I said, “I will trust you. Help me to trust you. It's not easy and I'm not good at it, but help me to trust you.” And in that moment, it was honestly like nothing else I've ever experienced, my mind was completely renewed and restored. That night I went home, I said to my husband “I didn't think I have it anymore”, we both cried. And then the next morning it was like, I woke up with fresh eyes and a fresh mind. It wasn't all perfect from then and of course I had moments where I slipped back into that mindset of trying to do it all on my own, but what I've learned to do is take those thoughts captive and think, no, that's not a helpful thought, so I'm just going to let that go. And I really believe that doing all the mindset work and the gratitude work with the psychologist, and then bringing that into a daily practice at home has really helped in that sense. Then I got to a place where I was able to come off the medication and everything was so much better.

Honestly, it didn't even cross my mind when we were trying to fall pregnant again. I think the only thing that has really started to trigger me a little is the breastfeeding issue because people are already asking me if I'm going to try breastfeeding and making comments. If I start to go down those paths in my mind, I start already putting expectations on me and this baby. And while yes, this is my third baby. This baby is no different to a first born. It's still a first time baby so it's not fair that we firstly put this expectation on mothers that a third baby means that everything's just gonna fall into place and they're going to have it all figured out and do it perfectly. But we forget that this baby is actually a first time baby. So I'm really trying to take those thoughts captive. I'm not putting any expectation on myself or my baby this time around. So, when we fell pregnant, there was no real thought about I'm going to have to deal with this again, but I of course have a plan in place. Something that my obstetrician and healthcare providers all do is when you have had PND, they just flag it to monitor you and make sure that you actually are doing okay. I guess it means having more honest, open conversations with you about how you're really feeling, which I honestly think that's how all mothers need to be spoken to, regardless of whether they have had postnatal depression or anxiety before. But I'm very, very excited to have this, another little blessing, little girl on her way.

If you are in a place where you think you might be struggling in this way or you're scared to have another baby for this reason, I would encourage you to ask for help and be willing do the work to move on and also look to God for help, look to God for peace and for healing, because it is something that He is willing and he's able to do. He doesn't want to see his daughters or his sons for that matter, struggling with this He's willing and able to heal.

I hope that has helped you and if you know, a mumma who is needing a little bit of encouragement with her postpartum journey, then please share this with her because we'd love to send her some love and light as well.