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MENTAL HEALTH

POSTNATAL ANXIETY;

Trigger Warning: This piece discusses postnatal anxiety. If you do not have the mental capacity to read this right now, please don't, or if you think this may trigger you, be mindful while you're reading and stop when necessary.

LET'S GET REAL ABOUT MOTHERHOOD

In January 2019, I found out I was pregnant. I was 28, had a great job and was living in Bangkok with my partner Martin. We were elated (albeit a bit nervous given our zero baby experience). But we were excited to become parents and we felt ready.

I was lucky enough to have an uncomplicated pregnancy. However, I hated being pregnant.

I know I am so lucky that I got pregnant easily when so many women cannot but it doesn't mean I have to pretend I enjoyed it. There was no 'pregnancy glow', just constant nausea (like a really bad hangover), exhaustion and feeling so uncomfortable in my expanding body.

I missed having the energy to go to the gym and I felt like I couldn't perform as well at work because I was so tired. I was counting down the weeks until my son was born. Hearing other women say they loved being pregnant baffled me but I shrugged it off, knowing it was temporary and once my son was born, everything would be great.

Fast forward to October 2019 and I am in labour in a Thai hospital. I ended up needing an emergency caesarean and the whole experience was traumatic for both Martin and I. As soon as my son was born he was taken away to be monitored while I was rolled into a sterile recovery room alone and was not allowed to see Martin or my baby. I had no idea if he was OK, I only knew that I hadn't heard him cry and I heard a nurse say something about needing to monitor his breathing. I lay there alone, freezing cold, crying, and imagining the worst.

It was eight hours before I saw my son and luckily he was completely healthy. I instantly felt protective of him, but he seemed like a stranger - it was not quite the euphoric feeling I had imagined. I told myself that the 'bond' would come with time.

We spent the next three days in the hospital as I recovered from surgery and we learned how to be parents. That's when it started to get real. Everybody knows new parents are tired but nothing could have prepared me for this level of exhaustion. My entire life I've struggled to fall asleep - it always takes me at least an hour which is very inconvenient when you have a newborn. Newborn babies feed every 90 minutes or so which for me meant zero sleep. No matter how tired I was, I couldn't fall asleep fast enough before my baby would wake up and need feeding again. I was so tired that I was hallucinating and this was only the beginning.

The night we brought our son Henry home Martin and I decided to try a 'roster system' so we could each get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. I was on the first solo shift that night. Martin was sound asleep, Henry would not stop crying and my thoughts were racing.

'What is wrong with him? Why won't he sleep? Why is breastfeeding so painful? How do I know if he's getting enough milk? Maybe I'm starving him. I'm so tired. I just want to put him down and sleep but he's hysterical. Where are my motherly instincts?'

I realised I had no idea how to look after a baby and I couldn't believe they let me leave the hospital with him. I counted down the minutes until it was my turn to sleep, I then woke up Martin, handed over the baby and went to bed. I felt like I could sleep for weeks. But that doesn't happen when you're a new mum. You wake up after three hours with rock-hard painful boobs that need to be emptied ASAP before they explode. So that was my life for the next couple of months. I was sleeping for three hours at night until my boobs woke me up. Slowly losing my mind, becoming more anxious each day.