*Trigger warning - this contains an honest, open account of Postnatal Depression and some may find it distressing*

I thought that I was safe from postnatal depression. It was on my radar as my mum had had it with me, but I already had a child, and other than some early baby blues, and sometimes feeling down as a result of sleep deprivation I had loved the experience of being a first time mum. I loved my son and had bonded with him immediately. 

My second child, a daughter, was born in 2015 when my son was 23 months old. Towards the end of my pregnancy I had started to resent the fact that my pregnancy stopped me playing with my son. I didn’t recognise it at the time but I believe that this was the first trigger that led me down the path of PND. The next came when she was born. The midwife made an innocent comment that she was a big baby and my brain told me that it meant she wasn’t beautiful or cute. When she was handed to me I didn’t get the same rush that I had felt 2 years earlier with my son. It took a while for this to come. Whilst I did everything I needed to to keep her safe, warm and fed, it was a duty rather than love in the early days. 

I felt really conscious that I didn’t want anything to change for my son, so whereas with him I’d stayed in hospital for a couple of days and eased myself into having him in my life, with my daughter I just wanted to get home. Six hours after she was born we were being discharged. The next day we went out for a long walk and a coffee. She was barely 24 hours old. Although the birth had been relatively easy, by the time I got home I was in agony. Then came the feeding problems. Although she latched on really easily, within a couple of days I was in a lot of pain with cracked nipples. As a veteran breast feeder - I fed my son for a year - I wanted to get that fixed as quickly as possible. I booked an appointment with a private lactose consultant and we drove there the next day. She told me that my daughter had lost more weight than would be expected at that stage and said we should go to St Georges to get her checked out. Although the A&E staff felt she looked well and was responsive, they would let us leave until we had fed her some formula. I cried and cried in the room before I attempted this because I felt like a failure. I had exclusively breast fed my son and I wanted to do this again. Why wasn’t I able to feed my daughter enough? I didn’t feel good enough. I told one of the nurses why I was upset and she was very supportive, but that didn’t change the fact that I was feeding her formula against my will. They told me to do this once a day. I didn’t. That came with its own guilt because I was concerned I was starving her. We went back to the lactose consultant who diagnosed me with severely cracked nipples, thrush and also saw signs of mastitis. The next 2 weeks were horrendous. Every time I fed I winced and curled my toes. Sometimes it hurt so much I had tears in my eyes. I had wound plasters on my nipples, had to put cream on them for thrush, and had to wash towels/bras/clothes on a daily basis to stop the thrush from spreading. As if I didn’t have enough to do. 

By the time my husband went back to work after 2 weeks paternity leave feeding was almost fine (and continued that way then for a year). However I felt broken and we hadn’t really had any time to really spend proper time with our new baby as the 2 weeks had been spent going from consultant to hospital to GP, and had been full of pain. 

From there I can just say I was flat. I felt like crying a lot, I only got joy from my son, and I only did what I had to for my daughter. At my 6 week check I had an amazing GP who recognised that I wasn’t quite there and instead of going through the standard checks, stopped and talked to me. She referred me to IAPT and booked in another appointment with her. By this stage I found it hard to be on my own with my daughter. I couldn’t cope with her crying. One night I made my husband get up with me to change her nappy because I couldn’t be with her on my own. I cried and told him that I thought I hated her. It was so hard to say and still makes me well up now, the thought that at one point I didn’t love my amazing little girl. My husband was amazing and although he was working long hours he would get up every night when she needed feeding, get her from her cot (which was next to me), give her to me to feed and then settle her once I had finished. This is something that continued once she was in a room on her own as literally I couldn’t bring myself to go in there on my own at night. It felt oppressive and scary. My parents were also amazing and came down to help me a lot. 

A couple of weeks after the GP told me that I probably had PND I found myself a post natal doula. She was my first life saver, the second was Cedar House - a charity supporting women with PND which my doula found for me.  I knew I needed to talk to someone asap and the wait times for IAPT were crazy - women with PND are fast tracked and it was still 12 weeks from my referral to my first appointment. However I was nervous the first time I contacted Liz Wise at Cedar House as I kept thinking that maybe I wasn’t that bad, I’m being silly, I’m weak because I can’t cope. I contact Liz by email and she invited me to the group that week. I was so nervous going the first time. I felt embarrassed that I could barely speak without crying, I worried that the things that I was experiencing were going to sound silly and there would be people there with ‘real’ problems judging me. However the more these women spoke the more I realised that I was normal but I was ill. I would like to say that I was really hopeful at the end of that first session but speaking to some people who were at the end of their recovery journey I couldn’t see myself ever getting there, despite Liz saying that we would all get better. However little by little and working through my feelings and experiences alongside Liz and the other women I started to feel a bit better. I remember talking to the group about how I had bonded with my daughter and everyone was so happy for me and supportive.

The fact that Liz herself has been through this illness herself made me feel really understood. She didn’t just learn about it, she had lived it, and her comments and support were life changing. I attended the group for 2 terms completely free of charge. Recovery was in no way linear. I had weeks where I was upbeat and didn’t have much to say and then weeks where I didn’t want to go as I felt terrible admitting what I had been feeling. Although  I was never suicidal as such, I definitely had the feeling that she would be better without me quite a lot. I feel blessed that I found the group as I’m not sure how long recovery would have taken without it. That supportive space was so unique and special that attending definitely made me a stronger person. Sometimes I’m even thankful that PND was part of my journey because as a result of the support I found there I became a more open and honest version of myself.