I Didn't Know I Had PND. #savethenhs

Here are some significant numbers for you.

Five - Michael was born on the fifth day of April.
Six - I met him on the sixth of April.
Seven - He did not breathe for seven minutes.
Four - I wasn't allowed to hold my baby until he was four days old.
Nine - he was nine days old when he came home. We were so thankful - we were told that if he lived, he'd be in for at least six weeks.
One - This was how many times I successfully breastfed my son.
Zero - This was the amount of skin to skin time I got with my son. 
Two - This is how old my son was when I found out I had PND.

I won't go in to my birth story because it is long and complicated, but here is a link to it on my old blog. Up until probably six months ago, I had been very adamant that I would never have another baby and couldn't even watch tv/speak to people online who were talking about pregnancy and childbirth. It caused me too much anxiety, and too many flashbacks.

Post birth, I had the usual appointments but I'm hazy on the details. I remember perching on the edge of a blow up bed with a health visitor, probably the day after Michael got home, because we had just moved in and didn't have any furniture yet. I remember the next visit, which I might even have written about on my old blog, with a different lady who told me she was so shocked at what an irresponsible mum I was. I remember smiling, keeping it together, even laughing as Michael peed on me before being weighed, then collapsing on the floor when she left. Crawling to my baby's Moses basket, lifting him gently out, fat tears landing on his head as I held him close to me and whispered "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I am the mum you got". I remember the next time that midwife came round; a furious James made sure he was home, determined that the reason I had been victimised was that I was a "young mum" (age 22), and lo and behold she was nice as pie.

And then the visits were done. When he was 8 weeks old I was climbing the walls (and very poor because SMP is awful) and phoned my area manager to let him know I'd like to come back to work. I returned when he was 16 weeks old, the day after he started weaning in an attempt to manage his reflux (it worked). I had no medical contact, really. I didn't get him weighed unless written to and asked to do so. I plodded along, working and being a mum. I got a second job over Christmas and cried when I got sacked days before the big day, being told "you're spreading yourself too thinly and your baby must miss having his mum around". The guilt. Oh, the guilt.

But, oddly, all of this seemed par for the course. We all get weepy. We all feel immense guilt because that's what happens when you're a mum, right? We all want the best and punish ourselves when we can't reach it?

PND was first mentioned on Michael's first birthday. Every present he opened, every bite of his cake, every jovial song was punctuated with a memory that stabbed me in the heart. I couldn't stop dwelling on the skin-to-skin I never got. The breastfeeding I couldn't manage. The fact my tiny baby had been sedated for an MRI. His swollen ankles because he kept wiggling and  ripping the wires out of himself and they kept having to make new holes in him to re -insert them. The shaved patches of his hair to make room for more wires to be inserted. His cracked and purple skin that hurt him and cracked again when he opened and closed his hands, because he was post-term and I didn't fight them when I knew they had my date wrong. Every time he smiled, I looked at him and saw sorrow; he could have had such a different start if it weren't for me and my body. I excused myself to the bedroom, where James found me crying and we talked about the possibility of PND. I looked in to it, but thought it sounded more like PTSD. From that moment, I began to see my feelings towards my birth and Michael's first year as healing, not punishment. We had been through an ordeal together - it was almost as if I was allowing myself to feel pained by the memories as a way of accepting that it wasn't my fault.

Fast forward to 2015 and I was put on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication. I was no longer crashing into pits of despair, but I became very self aware and realised I had been operating at what felt like about four notches below normal for as long as I could remember. I was no longer overwhelmed; I couldn't feel anything. I was aware of nothing but a quiet buzz and I couldn't decide if it was worse to feel everything or feel nothing. The few moments I did have of 'feeling' were because I was worried. I had been to a&e thinking I had appendicitis and discovered my anxiety was causing me real physical issues, and I found myself unable to manage my fears and stresses. This wasn't normal "I'm finding it difficult to get all of the things I need to do done" and getting a pills chucked at you to chill you out for a couple of months, this was all-consuming. I couldn't go on living my life. I never wanted to die, I just didn't have the energy to live. Socialising was out of the question. Somehow, I managed to carry on working and completing my university work while James took the reigns on parenting for a while, and we worked out systems so that we could manage my anxiety better together.

And yet that buzz was still there. It felt like I echoed on the inside. Like something was inside of me, tugging downwards and never letting go. Pills had zero effect on me (and to be honest I'm still trying to find something that makes me feel different - I am beginning to think that maybe feeling that way is just who I am and will never change) so I finally managed to get referred for some counselling (after trying and being told there was no help available for almost a year).

It was there that I was told I had PND. I said "no, that isn't possible. I never wanted to hurt my baby", naively believing that PND was the media portrayal of mums throwing babies down stairs or smothering them. "I don't feel like I can't love my baby", I said, believing media portrayals once again, "it's like I love my baby too much".

And it all went from there. I probably did have PTSD because of my own physical trauma during birth. The NHS literally saved mine and Michael's lives that day. But as soon as I started realising that PND could overwhelm you in ways that wasn't just feeling disconnected or even hateful towards your baby, I was able to allow myself to be a better and healthier mother.

Here are some significant numbers for you.

Five - Michael was born on the fifth of April
Two - the NHS saved two people's lives in that very room on that very day. 
Eighty five - the percentage of new mothers who suffer from PND. Each of these women rely on the NHS.
One - there is only one NHS. Without the NHS, this story would not have been possible. At the end of every paragraph of this post, this story had the potential to end had the NHS not been available to me and my family. This country would be lost without it and it baffles me that it's validity and necessity is even called in to question.

#savethenhs