The Journey Thus Far: Part Two March '19 | Adjusting to Life as New Parents

March 2019 - The First Month

Our wee boy was absolute perfection. I remember laying in recovery, skin to skin with my son, while he slept peacefully. His first feed took over an hour as he would fall asleep every minute. In the end we fed him by syringe so he could get some rest. It only took 1mL of milk to fill his tiny stomach.



For the first few days he just slept. We had to set alarms every 3 hours to wake him up and feed him, both night and day. Each time he fell asleep on the breast we would have to wipe a cold cloth on his face so he could continue feeding. In his waking hours he had what we called “greyhound chatters” where his wee mouth was chattering away. This was the first symptom of his detox from my medication.



I was admitted to hospital for four days as the risk of postpartum psychosis was high. My partner stayed each and every day, sleeping on the floor beside me. By the fourth day I was ready to leave and had all my bags packed however when they weighed Riblet it showed that he had lost a significant amount of weight and we wouldn’t be able to leave until he gained something. I remember feeling dread around spending another night in hospital. I had cabin fever and was ready to go home and the guilt around my partner sleeping on the floor was becoming too much to bear.



That day we were instructed to do top ups of milk after every feed. I would pump all throughout the day and after each feed we would give him a bottle. He hated it and so did I. He was so full that he was adamant on not having a bottle and would vomit after each feed and I felt so guilty force feeding him. Thankfully he gained 20g over night and we were permitted to leave.



It was such a relief to finally be back home. Instantly I felt like I could breathe again and was looking forward to the next week and a half that my partner had off from work. It was the longest consecutive days we had spent together and it was magical. Every time I looked at Rohan that biggest smile would spread across my face and when my smile was so big it couldn’t grow anymore, I would laugh. My partner said to me he had never seen me so happy in my life and I was a beacon of love. My family was perfect and I wouldn’t swap it for the world.



In hospital we had organised a routine for feeding. In order for us to get enough sleep we took shifts with feeding. My partner would feed him anytime from when we went to bed til 2am and then I would feed him from 2am onwards. This meant we both got at least a six hour chunk of uninterrupted sleep and it was definitely our saving grace.

I recall being slightly worried about my abundant energy and the possibility of postpartum psychosis setting in but I tried to just enjoy the high and the energy while it lasted. I would wake up early in the morning, feed Riblet and then put him back to bed. I would spend a few hours each morning having time for myself and allowing my partner to get a much needed sleep in. I loved my morning routine and was thriving.

Once my partner started back at work things changed. I was bored and felt like an old cow just sitting and feeding constantly. I felt anxious and there was anger boiling up inside me. My high started fading away and the disrupted sleep caught up with me. My mind started ruminating on old wounds and I would get stuck in a negative spiral.
I find it hard to recall how I was feeling. I knew it wasn’t as bad as when I was pregnant but it was bad enough to warrant an emergency meeting with my psychiatrist at Mothers and Babies. It was decided that I would be admitted onto the ward to try and alleviate my symptoms. For some reason I didn’t think that I needed to tell anyone that I was going to be admitted but on a bad day I told my partner in a melancholic tone that I was going to go to hospital. He was quite shocked that I didn’t think to tell him earlier and I couldn’t come up with any reason why I hadn’t; I was apathetic about life.

The day before I was admitted I remember being full of rage. Not around anything specific but just angry at the world and everyone in it. I had a breakdown and began screaming outside. My parents came out to try and console me but they had also seen this side of me before and knew that they just had to wait it out. While my dad was outside with me we heard the gate open and he walked around to see who was coming in. Instantly I knew what had happened; someone had called the police.

The officer I talked to was very understanding and offered me support and after he left I went inside and starting packing my bags, feeling like the timing was right.

The Journey Thus Far: Part One Nov '18 - Feb '19

TRIGGER WARNING - talk of suicide.

How much can change in a year? Nine months? Six. Three. Even as little as one. Turns out, it’s an astronomical amount. I have been on a journey, a journey of self discovery and recovery, that has had equal parts triumph and disaster. I am not one often to reach out or be public about my struggles. At times I have shared my thoughts and feelings around my mental health. I even, at one point, started a YouTube video series where I talked about what is was like living with mental illnesses but as with most things in life, these feelings weren’t linear. Sometimes, I would be more than happy to talk about how things were and other times I would be so deeply ashamed that I would isolate myself and not speak. The latter occurred more often than not. Now, with slight trepidation, I have decided to share my journey in the hopes that one person finds comfort or hope in my story and struggles.

November 2018 - End of Second Trimester
November started with a trip to A&E and the beginning of what would be the worst months of my life. I was home alone when all of a sudden I felt as though my brain wasn’t getting any oxygen and was about to burst. A glimpse in the mirror saw that my face was beetroot red-purple and before I could pass out I quickly lay down on my bed. Struggling to stay conscious and with my heart racing and pounding I felt around for my phone and called my dad. He told me he would be home as quick as possible and to stay flat and wait; I didn’t dare move for fear that I would collapse with no one home. Upon my dad’s return my feet and hands were white with blue nails and I was shaking. We decided I needed to been seen and with much difficulty I crawled into the car and we headed for the hospital.

When we arrived a stretcher was brought out to the car and I was wheeled into the emergency room. As suspected, each time I sat up my blood pressure would drop which would then be followed by a period of tachycardia. Investigations begun into the cause of these symptoms. Blood was taken and ECGs and thorough ultrasounds and echos were performed but to no avail. After three attempts and the help from many nurses I managed to sit up and my blood pressure stabilised. The blood tests uncovered that I was very slightly anaemic but that wasn’t necessarily that cause of my ill health. There was speculation that Riblet (the nickname for our child) was pinching my femoral artery although that generally happened towards the end of the third trimester. Nonetheless I was sent home with the advice that if this should repeat I would lie on my left side until it passed, which could easily be a few hours.

The first few weeks after being in hospital were horrific. If I focused on my breathing my heart would race and skip beats; if I focused on slowing my heart I would start hyperventilating. My limbs were constantly tingling or numb and cold and a lot of the time I was bedridden. This didn’t sit well with me as up until now I had had an active pregnancy, this was definitely spurred on by the fact that when I became pregnant I was in the depths of my eating disorder with which a part was my intense exercise addiction.
I tried reading books or watching TV, distracting myself with any means possible but this only heightened my symptoms. Looking back now I know that this increase was caused by my high levels of anxiety. I could barely sleep and couldn’t travel so at this time my partner moved in with myself and my parents so he could be close to me. Living under my parents roof and practically confined to one room was a struggle for both of us and tension grew. I fell into a deep depression.

December 2018 - Beginning of Third Trimester
In the past I have suffered with psychosis however this has always been coupled with a manic episode and I had never experienced it in a depressed state. This all changed just before I entered my third trimester.
I remember feeling like I could hear the entire world, not only it’s occupants but the planet itself. The world was buzzing in my ears telling me the something was wrong and I struggled with not knowing who I was or where I was. The screaming began not long after these initial feelings. I would collapse onto the floor shouting at no one. Yelling at the top of my lungs that, “I hated them. I want to kill them.” I felt as though I was being electrocuted and that my brain was being rejected from my body, like a transplanted organ. I would get stuck standing in one place because moving forward would mean continuing this pain of existence and maybe if I stood still time would stop, life would stop. This always ended with another episode of screaming on the floor with fear and uncertainty in my eyes.
For about three weeks this continued, with several events each day. My whole family was treading on eggshells around me and were exhausted dealing with this. My partner would leave for work each morning drained and come home each day with the optimism that maybe it was over but was met with the same distress.

January 2019
I had finally came out of my terrifying episode but the pain wasn’t over. This month and the next were filled with white hot feelings of sadness, despair, fear and a overwhelming feeling of wanting to give up. Our antenatal class teacher had her fair share of peri and postnatal depression and could always tell when it had been a particularly bad day for me. I had many days where I cried for hours on end, until my nose bled and others when I sat in bed for three hours navigating a panic attack. After each occasion of intense emotion I would hold my stomach and say to Riblet, “I know it may seem scary out here but I promise I will get through this and when you come out you will be so loved and safe.” Despite my intentions, I didn’t believe I would get through this. There were times where I was asking people around me to kill me, to let me die. I was severely suicidal but there was no way I would do anything to hurt my baby. At my lowest points, I wished that something would go terribly wrong during childbirth and I would die. This thought reoccured frequently.

February 2019 - The Birth
My depression hadn’t eased and my mental health was deteriorating rapidly. Throughout my pregnancy I had been waiting for my referral to Mothers & Babies to go through, a specialist mental health service for pregnancy and parenthood. My relationship with my case manager with the community adult mental health services I was currently with was complicated and unpleasant so for most of my pregnancy I was dealing with everything with no professional input. I started with the new service at twenty-seven weeks and it was clear I needed help.

One day towards the end of February I was having a particularly bad day and my partner decided to take me for a drive and a walk on top of the hills. We arrived at the Sign of the Kiwi and climbed to a spot where we sat and talked. I started asking him questions around how he would care for our child if I couldn’t. I told him that I needed to know that Riblet would be taken care of because I was planning to take my life after he was born. At this very moment a huge truck came into view, parked in our line of sight and on its side was written in huge, block letters, ‘SUCK IT UP.’ I said, “Well if that’s not a sign from the universe I don’t know what is.” and for the first time in a long time, I laughed.

That afternoon I had an appointment with my obstetrician. He asked me how I was doing and I racked my brain looking for a way to explain how I was feeling. I didn’t need to say much and thankfully he recognised what was going on. The decision was made that I couldn’t stay pregnant any longer and Riblet would need to be born, either by caesarian section or I would be induced. We agreed on a c-section and my obstetrician worked hard to get my booked in as quickly as possible. He told me that he had worked with several cases like this and that majority of people felt a million times better after giving birth. I remember the huge, thick fog of darkness surrounding me lifted slightly with the thought of this being over very soon.

The day of my surgery arrived and I was so excited to meet our little boy. We arrived at the hospital early and in only a few short hours we had a family. I remember feeling so much love and like I had finally made it out and I was thankful to be alive.