I had always seen myself with
children. You do that “chat” thing don’t you with your partner about how many
kids you think you’ll have and in my mind I was having 2-3. As easy as that!
The reality was quite different. I had wanted to start trying for a family
earlier than my hubby and by the time he was ready I was 30 and we just got on
and thought it would be easy to conceive. However the reality was that it took
us 3 years to conceive my first daughter and when we did, we were living in
France away from family and friends. We had decided that as we weren’t sure if
we could have kids, we needed to move on with our lives and so a decision was
made to move to Brittany. We had a lovely vision of rental holiday cottages and
organising inspirational courses in art, photography, yoga, Reiki but due to
factors which I won’t go into here, this reality did not happen.
When I initially moved to Brittany I
had what I’d term as “school class” French. It was rusty and pretty useless for
day to day interaction. Our neighbour did speak English but preferred not to use
it much so this made things hard at times. I tried my best to get to grips with
a house move, country move, new culture and new language but didn’t factor into
that the arrival of the news that after 3 months of being out there, I was at last
pregnant. At that time, my husband and I were surrounded by stress; family,
financial, personal. It was hard and the news of having conceived and the joy
this should have brought us both was overshadowed by the stress we found
ourselves under. Not a good start to pregnant life when you have tried so hard to
conceive your bundle of joy!
Photo Credit: Shutterstock |
It’s fair to say that we all feel somewhat apprehensive about our first pregnancy and rely quite heavily on the midwives, our GP etc to help us through this new adventure. For me this was all in French ! My Doctor only had a smattering of English, the midwives all spoke French and the only one who did have a fabulous level of English was my gynaecologist who did my scans. Having a gynaecologist is normal practice in France and ironically mine was called Dr Condominas! Tickled my sense of humour. They are still highly medicalised out in France and their approach is actually pretty invasive. I would go to my appointments with my French/English dictionary in hand and struggle to understand and be understood. All letters sent to me had to be translated into English before I had any idea of what they said. I had to sort out healthcare cover, find out my rights and it was exhausting on top of the normal ups and downs you experience on your pregnancy journey. I was also far away from close family and missed my Mum terribly. This impacted how I felt and with the outside stresses still looming over us I found my mood drop considerably. Everything was a struggle and I spent most of my time feeling anxious and fearful of what the birth would be like and how I would cope having made the decision to move abroad.
I had always wanted a home, water
birth with a doula but in rural France this was hard to come by. I was assigned
a local hospital and that was that. I was informed that the pain relief options
were an epidural or nothing and having come across many women who had ended up
with lots of back problems following epidurals, during my days as an Holistic
Therapist, I wasn’t keen to go
this route and also wanted to try my best to birth as naturally as possible. I’m
sure the French midwives thought they had some English nutter woman on
their hands ! But I was determined to try to get some of what I’d always envisaged
having. I found myself some Natal Hypnotherapy CDs to help me through the
pregnancy and birth and they really were helpful to me during that time. I
struggled through my weekly anti-natal classes with my hubby in tow - this was
not the norm in France as men are normally banned! But hubby was granted access
as I’d have struggled understanding everything if he’d not been there. We used
to come out of the hour classes absolutely exhausted and then try to piece
together what we’d both understood between us. Thank goodness I had a knowledge
of Anatomy and Physiology from my therapy days.
When the birth finally arrived it
didn’t quite go as I’d hoped. In France they have a 12 hour window and if
things haven’t progressed far enough they like to help it all along. My waters
were broken without any discussion of what was happening and the shock of this
was huge. I did birth her without any pain relief but I was given an episiotomy
without my permission and without any local anaesthetic. The shock of this unexpected procedure hit me hard. I felt
violated at my most vulnerable time. The language barrier should not have been a
factor in failing to ask my permission as the consultant in attendance spoke English
as did the leading midwife. In my mind I’d been failed by the system. The second
midwife also spent a good 5-10 mins pushing down on my stomach trying to push my baby girl out ! Traumatic it certainly was and I was bruised afterwards
and both emotionally and physically exhausted. I did get my wish to have her
placed onto me straight away and birthed the placenta naturally so they did
honour some of my wishes, but the anxiety around not being fully understood and
wondering from one minute to the next what was going on was at times
terrifying. I then had to endure 5 days in hospital (standard procedure in
France) surrounded by French midwives and staff in a very hot, unconditioned
single room and left for hours alone with my new bundle of joy when hubby wasn’t
able to be with me.
It was a tough time and I failed to
bond with my daughter. I knew I cared for her but I felt no “rush of love” for
her and just felt numb. I hoped this feeling would ease but it didn’t and then
the reality of not being able to get some space and recover hit me. It was all
about breastfeeding, looking after her, reading her cues, the pain from the
stitches. The list went on. I was emotionally numb, and started to become aggravated
by the external stresses that were still around us and that we had no control
over. I wasn’t afforded some time to actually enjoy my baby and the
rollercoaster continued on.
The short version is that due to the
language barrier my PND went undetected by the aftercare nurses. I went to
weekly weigh ins but wasn’t told of local groups I could go to. I was isolated
and alone except for my marvellous hubby who did his best to help me where he
could. I used to walk for about 1-2 hours every day just to stay sane. I would
often see no body on those walks but it was a time when I knew my baby girl
would sleep. She wasn’t a great sleeper and I was severely sleep deprived. I
don’t function well without sleep anyway so the level of sleep deprivation I
experienced literally crippled me. Hubby helped where possible but he started
to experience vertigo from the sleep deprivation and as his work was manual and
up & down ladders, I had to take the lion’s share of the night duties for
fear he’d injure himself during the day. We both battled on and it took me about
16 months before I finally bonded with my baby girl. It was around then that I
decided that I would only get better if I went back to the UK and after long
talks with my husband we set the wheels in motion to come back to the UK and
finally settled in the West Country.
Once back in the UK I went to see my
local GP who after asking me to complete the Depression Questionnaire told me I
was now on the lower end of what they termed PND but she’d like to put me on
anti-depressants as I’d been depressed for 2 years. I declined and said that as
many of the factors that had been causing my depression had now been removed, I wanted 3 months grace to see if I could sort things out and help myself through in a more natural way. I then looked into counselling which I initially
fought hard not to do, but I’m so glad I did it, as it was a major part in my
recovery giving me the permission to “feel” and not be judged. It was
marvellous. I also looked into my diet and changed this to an alkaline based
food diet with juicing. This had a profound effect on my mood and I’ll share
more about that in another post.
My journey then took me another 2
years before I can actually say I felt well again. It was a long, lonely
journey and one I wouldn’t wish to repeat. My husband and I didn’t plan any
more children after this experience as we just couldn’t risk me suffering PND
again. It had hit our relationship so hard that we weren’t prepared to risk it
again. However, the Universe had other ideas and my youngest snuck through the net and put paid to the idea of just one child! I’m
glad she did but feel saddened that once again I was cheated out of my babydom
with her as I had to deal with my mother’s fight with cancer and her death
not long after my youngest was born.
I have definitely had low mood during
the past 2 years since my little one’s birth. Hardly surprising really but it
hasn’t been PND which is what I feared more than anything. I now know the signs
and although family and friends are still 3 hours away, we have learnt to cope
without their support around us. Now that my youngest is 2 years old it is getting easier and the light
again shines brighter at the end of the dark tunnel. I see the possibilities
now of being able to work for myself again. It’s crucial to my own self worth to
be doing something other than being “Mum”. I love my girls with all my being
but this journey has taught me that getting the balance between being a parent
and time for you is a difficult one. Part of me has definitely died off over
the past 7 years and I’m hoping that part of me will return once more as the
path I’m walking gets easier.
So there you have it, part of my PND
journey. One thing
I’ve noticed is that although there are often a set of core similarities with
PND, the other life factors and stressors that can contribute to the illness
are varied from person to person. You can’t box it, give it a label and do a “one
size fits all” method. And it’s my opinion that you shouldn’t try to anyway. We
are all unique and maybe that’s why it is only someone who has walked this path
who can truly help another through their own darkness.
I’d love to know your thoughts, so
please do leave me a message. It makes me feel I’m not just chatting to myself!
Thanks for reading and next time I’ll aim to share with you what helped me on
my recovery out the other side.
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