Depression & Pregnancy

In this deeply personal episode, "The Rebirth of Me," I unravel my transformative journey through motherhood—celebrating my son's birthday and my own rebirth. 

I share the raw truth of battling infertility, facing unexpected physical and emotional challenges during pregnancy, and the struggle with identity and depression postpartum.

This story is a testament to resilience, a journey from darkness to self-discovery, shedding light on the seldom-spoken realities of becoming a mother. 

It's an open invitation to anyone feeling lost or disconnected in parenthood, offering empathy, understanding, and hope. 

Through my experiences, I've learned the power of self-love and the strength in vulnerability. 

If my journey resonates with you, remember, you're not alone. Let's embrace our stories together, finding strength and rebirth in the face of adversity.

Transcript

So today is March the 25th and it is supposed to be one of the  most important days of my life and one of the happiest days of my life because today my son was born. But I have to say I was  also born on this day as well because, uh, I had no idea. For what was coming. I really didn't. So today is really going to be about my journey and my birth, um, my pregnancy and what I experienced after birth,  because as much as I want to celebrate my son today, I've been crying my eyes out because today was. 

It felt like one of the turning points of my life because it, uh, it, it wasn't the happiest day. It wasn't what I had expected. I had so many expectations of what this day would be like. Um, and I really, really want to share this journey with you guys. So I know that someone else, somebody out there will take something away from this and somebody out there would have been feeling like this after pregnancy, or maybe even during their pregnancy.

So for me, we were trying for a year and a half. You know, every month peeing on the stick, just wanting to be pregnant, having sex, like clockwork. When I was ovulating, just really, really trying so hard. And the more I wasn't falling pregnant, The more I wanted it really badly. I mean, I've always wanted to have kids, but I felt like the desperation was getting out of control.

You know, we were spending hundreds of dollars on seeing naturopaths and taking like vitamins and pills and like Chinese medicine and just doing everything right, uh, just so that I could fall pregnant. And when I did, of course we were both over the moon. First, I started to put on a lot of weight and I had always envisioned myself to be this sexy mama walking around in heels with just like a little balloon, you know,  uh, of a, of a belly.

And, um, no, I gained fluid pretty quickly, like within 10 weeks. People had actually asked me if I was pregnant, like it's crazy, but that's what happened at work. No jokes. Um, and so you can imagine the next few months I hit 95  kilos from 60 kilos.  So, uh, I was a big girl. Now what came after that was, Really severe pelvic instability, but, um, it, it was so bad that I started off on like, at first I couldn't walk and I didn't know what was going on and I couldn't understand what was going on with my body.

It took a long time. A lot of the physios I saw had no idea what was happening. So I wasn't really getting the right advice. I wasn't supported properly until I had actually gone to the hospital to find out what was going on. Now they got me on crutches. Turns out I had SIJ pelvic instability, all this other stuff around. 

That area, and I couldn't walk at all. I went from crutches to then, quite quickly, a wheelchair. Now, that is when I have to say, depression hit.  And the doctors were like, it's best we don't put you on antidepressants because it's dangerous for the baby. Just wait until you have the baby and then we'll see how we go.

So I kind of suffered on my own and felt a lot of guilt. I remember people around me that knew how badly I wanted to have kids kept just throwing that back in my face, you know, that this is what you wanted. You should be happy. But when you've got a disability, which is what I had at the time, and you've gained all this weight and you've only loved a particular version of you, which me was my physical.

And I hadn't done any work on myself. So. This was a massive shock. Like this was full blown loss of identity. And I felt like I didn't even know who I was and plus not knowing how long I was going to be this way for. Like I'd read up all this stuff on Google and some people said that it never went away and.

To be quite honest, 11 years later and I've still got it and I still have quite a lot of issues with that area. And I suffer from a lot of pain, like I suffer with chronic pain, but my, my mental state is so different that I know how to work around it. So anyway, my son is now born and I've been told vaginal birth is not going to work.

We need to go for cesarean. So I do. And he's a four and a half kilo baby. So I'm delivering this baby and I'm like shocked because he's four and a half kilos and he's hairy and he's just not what I expected.  And so, and he was full of blood and, you know, I feel really. Preach just saying what I'm about to say, but I was like, Oh my God, like, is this what it is?

Because I think I was so delusional from watching movies where they bring this newborn little thing on you and it's all clean. It's like, I actually didn't know what, what I was going to be receiving. So I was like, what, what's going on? And he was all bruised because the forceps and. I kind of really didn't welcome him with my heart, which is really sad.

Then they take the baby away until you recover while they stitch you up. And then, you know, you've got to recover from the anesthetic. And so it was a good hour and a half that I didn't have him with me, which in hindsight now, when I see people giving home births and people keeping the umbilical cord on, I can see how I was so disconnected from him. 

I've literally been crying all morning because it's so sad when I remember. My experience and it's something that I honestly don't reflect on enough because I feel this shame and this guilt that this is what I wanted and I love my son and it's his day and it's his birthday. I can't be feeling sad on that day.

I can't be thinking and that's selfish of me, but it's actually not. And it's time that I. Get rid of this shame and this guilt because I feel like a lot of my pain that is stemming from that area is because I'm still holding on to a lot of stories around how I felt, and I'm keeping a lot in.  And so I really wanna get rid of that today. 

So when we get home, I'm so confused. I'm so conflicted about how I feel about having a baby.  And like I said earlier, is that I've been wishing for that all of my life, and now I've got it. And now I feel ungrateful. So now I feel shame and guilt for feeling so ungrateful for not being grateful for having  the baby and he's healthy and you know, that's what you're supposed to really want and think about is that your baby's healthy and, and all that.

And absolutely, you know, that is all I wanted, but. The thing is my health deteriorated in the interim, so he was healthy, but I wasn't, and I couldn't actually walk after I had him. So I stayed in a wheelchair and then I got on crutches. So you can imagine being able to just walk around with your baby the first few months and hold him isn't something I could do because I couldn't actually lift.

And so  he stayed on the floor a lot of the time. My husband was working back then. He was a financial planner, so he was working  nine till eight and he was coming home late. So I was Pretty much on my, my own, you know, like my mom came for the first week and that was all good, but I knew I was going to be living in hell for the next few months.

And when I would go to the mental, uh, the mental, the maternal health nurse, they would just tell me that this was. Baby blues, which I didn't even read up about. I don't know how, but I didn't know. I'd read about the baby in the month to come, but I didn't read anything about me.  It wasn't baby blues. It was depression.

And so then they got me on depression, um, antidepressant tablets. And I just kept upping my dose. So I was on anti inflammatory. I was on antidepressants and They numbed me a little bit, but I just wasn't happy. I just didn't feel connected to my son. And now when I look back at four months, we left him here with my in laws, four months old, like, I can't believe that I did that.

I feel so much shame when I tell him that.  And when I look at a four month old and I think, how did I leave my son here with my in laws and not miss him while I was away? And we went to Bali and it was for us to reconnect. But what people need to understand going on a holiday and what I didn't understand at the time was going on a holiday wasn't going to change anything.

I was just running away. I needed to face my, you know, my problems when I, while I was here. But I thought, Oh, go on a holiday. You'll feel better. Have a break. Have a break. He was four months  and I was depressed when I was there. Nothing changed. I was depressed about my body. All I kept thinking about every question I asked anyone that had a child was, when will I get my body back?

When will I, when will it bounce back? When will my stomach go back? When will this go back? When will I lose weight? And then I struggled. With my husband at the time as well. It was, it was insane. We were so disconnected. I hated myself. How could I even expect him to love me when I could not even stand in myself? 

So we had that  as well. Um, our relationship was in dire straits and I just wasn't able to get out of the hall that I was in and then I was pressured to get back into work, you know, like you need to go back and work because.  My job was waiting for me as well. And I, and I really didn't want to do that, but I didn't want to be at home.

I really was lost. I was so, so, so lost. I come back, I still feel the same. Nothing's changed. I did things though, like with the mothers group, I went to the library and I took him places. He didn't go without. It was really just more about me and how I felt. And I was also disconnected. My parents lived an hour away because I'd moved to my husband's side.

So I had neighbors that I could lean on, which were amazing, but all of my close friends were not around me. So I made friends with new people, but really superficial connections, not my neighbors, but these others were like just really superficial connections. And it got in a bit of a bad rut of, you know, just gossiping and, you know, just negativity and just all of that rubbish that I would never, ever, ever, ever surround myself around now.

And, um,  I remember.  Hitting rock bottom when I got back to work, which I didn't want to do. And I was able to work online, um, and from home, which was amazing. And then I had to start working on the road, but it was still from home. So I didn't have to go into the office, but I just remember thinking I can't even do this, but again, I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I just knew that I didn't want to be in this position. 

So I was lost and I, and I needed help with like how to get out. I had no support. I had.  None of this work that I do now, I wish I knew someone like me, um, or the friends that I have now that could have held space for me and supported me and guided me, but there was none of that around. So I was just going through this.

You know, blindly until I don't even know how I got onto this doctor. I don't know how and who recommended, but it was a holistic GP in Richmond. And she got me onto listening to Byron Katie, and this was like 10 years ago. And then she got me listen to reading books and listen to podcasts, which I wasn't able to comprehend at the time.

And also planted the seed of, you don't have to stay in this job. And. You could live somewhere else. And she planted the seed basically. And that's what I started. I started getting into this work and then I found breath work and I just kept on going. And it wasn't until then that I realized  everything that I was  shameful for, ungrateful for, unhappy about.

Why me? Why is this happening to me? Like I was so stuck in the victimhood of what I was going through that I could not see. The lessons I couldn't see why it was happening to me. I couldn't understand. Even if you tried to show me, I wouldn't have been able to understand.  And it was happening for me because I didn't love myself  pre baby, right? 

What I loved was a version of me externally. It was all superficial. There was nothing internal about me. I held onto a lot of shameful stories about myself, a lot of guilt, a lot of things that I'd done in my past that I wasn't not proud of, That I didn't realize that this actually what made me and it's, I'm a human being and it was who I was at the time.

And I've been able to dismantle all those stories, but  for me now, especially today, I really, really feel like this was the rebirth of me having my son helped me. To discover myself, to truly discover myself. And this is a message to anyone who is, has experienced, experienced anything close to what I'm talking about. 

If anything resonates with you and this is new to you and you haven't done any of this work, or you haven't had anyone support you or guide you,  please reach out because I really would hate to see someone go through this like I did on your own,  not understanding that. It's actually happening for you. So if it hits and it resonates, please reach out.

I would love to support you.