47 | Rachel
“You don’t mean to, but you grieve what you thought you were going to experience, like the happy pregnancy and the excitement that other people get... I felt bad voicing those thoughts because I had friends that were going through trying-to-conceive journeys. And my thoughts were: ‘You should be appreciative. You’ve been able to get pregnant. You shouldn’t complain.’ So there was that element of feeling bad for feeling upset about it all.”
As a paramedic, Rachel spent many years supporting others through medical and mental health emergencies. And although she was trained to recognise the signs of mental ill health in others, it was something she never imagined she would experience herself - that is, until she fell pregnant.
Known for being someone who doesn’t cry, Rachel was unexpectedly confronted by crippling anxiety, an overwhelming sadness, uncontrollable sobbing, and a paralysing sense of hopelessness that didn’t go away until her daughter was born. For the ‘helper’ who usually looks after others, she was left feeling disoriented.
In this moving episode, Rachel speaks candidly about her lived experience with hyperemesis gravidarum and the antenatal depression and anxiety that overshadowed her pregnancy. Together, we explore:
the shame that can accompany perinatal mental ill health and how it delays recovery
the uphill battle many mothers face by constantly being told their symptoms are ‘normal’
why mental health care should not be limited to postpartum
the crucial role of our loved ones in recovery, and
how the right support can make all the difference.
Rachel’s story is a powerful reminder of the often-overlooked importance of mental health care during pregnancy. It’s a story about hope and finding light at the end of the tunnel. Above all, it’s a story about the power of sharing your experiences openly, asking for help, and advocating for yourself.
“I think there's so much focus on postnatal depression and anxiety and struggles. And my story, my journey, was very prenatal - so the pregnancy side of depression and anxiety - which I was I wasn't really prepared for.”
“So if I can help anyone that's struggling in pregnancy, I think I'll be very happy.”
“I have my daughter, so just one child at the moment, who has just turned two last week. She's a little, as they like to call, a little three-nager. She's very sassy - I'm loving this part.”
“My background is working in emergency services. So I'm a paramedic. I've been a paramedic for nearly seven years now. My partner is also a paramedic. He's just become an intensive care paramedic. So that's our life: the shift work. And it works for us. We love it.”
“So we come from just a family of three. We've got a dog and a very supportive family that have helped us thrive as a family.”
“I think the public would actually not be aware of how frequently we actually attend patients with mental health. I would say it's definitely increased, especially after COVID. But I would say as an ALS [Advanced Life Support] paramedic, we would probably go to mental health jobs between 30 to 40% of our caseload. And whether that's someone in a mental health crisis or maybe something a little bit more minor than that, because it's obviously a very much a spectrum for mental health. So we do we do tend to see a lot of it.”
“As paramedics, we don't really get too much education around what we actually need to do in the pre-hospital setting. I think you just learn as you go. And it's one of those things as you get better the more times you attend similar presentations and you get better at learning the right things to say and the right questions to ask. But you only really see the patient for a couple of hours. So you try and make a difference in that couple of hours, and then you don't see them again, and they go off into the health care system.”
“So when someone has hit their rock bottom, pretty much. That's where we come from as paramedics.”
“And in terms of any perinatal mental health, it's a little bit less likely to see that because most likely if you are seeing that, it's pretty serious. Most likely, it's when they have hit rock bottom and they're at a crisis where they need immediate help. So not as common, but when you see it, it's a very sad thing to see.”
“I just wasn’t prepared for what was going to come...”
“I've always wanted a family. Always saw myself being a mother and having kids. I come from a family of five, so two brothers who I've had a good relationship with, grew up obviously playing with my siblings. So I always wanted to have a family, and I had that timeline in my head of wanting to have kids by 30, but life happened and I've got busy.”
“But yeah, so I met Liam, and it was pretty quick before I had the conversation of, ‘I want to have kids. If you don't want to have kids, then we're probably not going to stay together because that is a big thing for me.’”
“So we had a conversation about trying and not being careful and the discussion around it could take six months, it could happen straight away, you just don't know. Luckily for us, horrible for other people, but luckily for us, it did happen straight away on the first go.”
“I took my pregnancy test probably way too early. I'm very impatient. I can't wait for anything. Of course. I was not going to wait for my period to come. It was a very early pregnancy test, and it was a very positive result.”
“We were both pretty shocked, even though we both very much wanted it and we'd had all those discussions and we were ready financially, ready age-wise, and ticked all those boxes. But we were very shocked. Happy, but shocked.”
“I think I was a week from turning 30, so I was pretty happy.”
“Mum warned me because she was sick with all three kids. She goes, ‘just beware, you might get really nauseous and vomit a lot. So I had that with all three of you.’”
“I just wasn't prepared for what was going to come.”
“Obviously, I had the knowledge around morning sickness and all the nasty symptoms that come along with pregnancy, but I was not prepared for my pregnancy journey.”
“You don’t mean to, but you grieve what you thought you were going to experience, like the happy pregnancy and the excitement that other people get...”
“It changed pretty much immediately.”
“The relentless physical symptoms that you experience with hyperemesis, your mood is going to be affected straight away because you're feeling so sick, you don't want to leave the house.”
“I'm such a active person. I love going to the gyms. I love seeing my friends. And I just wasn't able to do any of that.”
“I think it got to week seven. So it had only been a couple of weeks of the symptoms. But I called the Mercy Emergency Department because I just wasn't able to eat anything and I wasn't able to sip on water. And having that knowledge of severe dehydration, I called them and I just said, ‘I don't know what else to do. I don't know if this is going to be harmful for the pregnancy’ because I was also worried about miscarrying because I was just so depleted of everything.”
“I just remember talking to an older triage nurse on the phone, and I'd explained everything that had gone on the last couple of weeks. And she goes, ‘oh, honey, it sounds like you've got HG. I think you need to come in.’”
“So I just remember that conversation with her and going in, and that started the journey of weekly visits to the Mercy to get my fluid.”
“My mental health was definitely affected from there. Very flat, not to the point of later on when I got all my diagnoses, but just a different person. I had no energy, and I didn't want to do anything. I didn't want to go anywhere. It was pretty sad. It changes your life and the way that you live your life, your daily life. All the things that you get joy from, you can't do. So it's very hard to be happy.”
“I think as well, you don't mean to, but you grieve what you thought you were going to experience, like the happy pregnancy and the excitement that other people get. And then also as well, it makes you, well, for me, specifically, I felt bad voicing those thoughts because I had friends that were going through trying-to-conceive journeys.”
“And my thoughts were: ‘You should be appreciative. You've been able to get pregnant. You shouldn't complain.’ So there was that element of feeling bad for feeling upset about it all.”
“I’m going through some of the things that could be bothering me. I just said, ‘nothing. There’s nothing specific that I think of that’s making me feel this way. I can’t shake it. I don’t know what it is. It’s multiple things. It’s everything. Everything is just making me anxious...’”
“You have a regime that you follow for hyperemesis. So it includes multiple antiemetics. You've got your vitamins like B6 and ginger - which does not work. And then you've got other medications that can sometimes help, like Restavit and Phenergan. Restavit, I would say, would be the only medication that did give me some relief in the morning. But then you've got your side effects of being super drowsy throughout the day.”
”So some people I've heard that it does work for, but for me, it wasn't really doing that much. So physically, I continued to have all of my symptoms of vomiting and lethargy and not wanting to leave the house.”
“At this point, I'd actually gone off road from working as a paramedic to doing a very unstimulating role from home. So it was very boring. I'm used to using my head, and this was not that. So, yeah, definitely not improving on the physical symptoms.”
“I did have a lot of people saying that, ‘your symptoms, the nausea and vomiting, it's going to go away, you're going to feel better.’ So I was hanging on to that hope that I would get some relief. And I definitely didn't. The physical symptoms didn't really, not resolve, but they didn't improve until in the third trimester.”
“I can't remember when exactly the mental health side of things started to get worse. I would say in the second trimester, I started to have this significant feeling of anxiety for no reason.”
“I just remember I'd gone for a walk with my partner, and I'd never experienced any mental health before. I remember just saying to him, ‘I don't know why, I just feel so anxious. I just feel so anxious physically as well. I am getting palpitations. I'm feeling breathless for no reason.’”
“Liam just is, he’s the happiest, nothing fazes him - It's actually quite annoying! But I remember him just saying, ‘But why? What's bothering you?’ I'm going through some of the things that could be bothering me. I just said, ‘nothing. There's nothing specific that I think of that's making me feel this way. I can't shake it. I don't know what it is. It's multiple things. It's everything. Everything is just making me anxious.’”
“That's when it started.”
“So it definitely got worse. And it started off with the anxiety component and then went into depression later on. And I would say it was around the start of the second trimester.”
“I don’t know where the shame came from, but it took me a long time for me to actually voice my concerns and then to go and get help...”
“I remember multiple times just being like, ‘I don't understand why I'm feeling like this. I'm so anxious.’”
“I was so fixated on finding a cause that I could fix to make myself feel better. I remember Googling, I'd read somewhere that low iron could cause palpitations and breathlessness. In my head, I was like, ‘Yeah, I'm anaemic. I'm so anaemic,’ which I was, but I was like, ‘this is why I'm feeling the way that I am. It's because I'm not getting any nutrients. All I need to do is take iron supplements or get my iron infusion, and I'm going to feel better. I'm going to feel better mentally.’ So I was so fixated on that being the reason rather than maybe it's just my mental health.”
“I think a huge thing for me was I didn't want to label anything. I didn't want to say that I had anxiety or had depression because I don't know where it came from.”
“Obviously I empathise with people at work and I try and work with a lot of people that have mental health with no judgement.”
“But for me, for some reason, I had shame around telling people what I was experiencing and labelling it or going and getting further investigations or assessments that may be would have resulted in diagnosis because, yeah, I don't know where it came from.”
“I think because no one around, luckily enough, I haven't had anyone around me that has really experienced significant mental health. So I don't know where the shame came from, but it took me a long time for me to actually voice my concerns and then to go and get help, to start getting help.”
“My mum was the best person throughout this whole process. She was always there to listen. She was my rock throughout it all. Liam was great, but I just needed my mum. I would tell mum every single thought that I had with no shame, no shame at all, because it's unconditional love. I just knew that she's not going to judge me. And she was amazing.”
“It got to a point when mum said, ‘you need to speak to someone, You need to have a look and just go speak to someone. That's all you need to do. Go and have a chat. They might be able to give you some advice.’”
“So I found it very difficult to find someone that was available to speak immediately, because I wanted help straight away. I didn’t want to wait 2-3 weeks or a month for an appointment, because a month when you’re feeling that way is a very long time...”
“I started searching, searching some mental health clinicians, some psychologists. Everyone was booked up. So unfortunately, at the moment in health care, it is very hard to access your free sessions, as you would like to for mental health, because there's not enough clinicians to how many people require help.”
“So I found it very difficult to find someone that was available to speak immediately, because I wanted help straight away.”
“I didn't want to wait 2-3 weeks or a month for an appointment, because a month when you're feeling that way is a very long time.”
“Through Ambulance Victoria, they offer counselling and mental health services that are involved free of charge. So we're very lucky that we get the ability to access those services.”
“So I decided to access help through work. So it's called VACU, and it has a wide variety of different clinicians that access through Ambulance Victoria. And I went to a couple of different psychologists because everyone that listens would know you don't tend to click or it does take a couple of goes to find the right person that fits to feel comfortable speaking to.”
“There's nothing on the psychologist or the clinician. It's just, yeah, you just know when you have your first session, whether you're going to feel comfortable to dive deep and talk to them.”
“I was very lucky that I was able to access that. But unfortunately for me, it wasn't the thing that was going to help me, because, at this point, I found it very easy to talk to my mum, Liam, a couple of friends. I was able to talk about everything that I was feeling. That wasn't the issue for me. I just wanted the symptoms to go away.”
“I think I got to a point where I was so worried about myself that I was pretty much like, ‘okay, I'm happy to do anything, anything to make me feel better.’ I really wanted an immediate fix. So I started to fixate on having those appointments and had hoped that they would make me feel better, which, yeah, they unfortunately did not.”
“I'm very much a problem solver. If there's an issue, I want to be able to fix it. So, yeah, when it got to that point, I was very much like, ‘I'll have an appointment this day, appointment in two days with someone else.’ I didn't want to wait to to try the next thing.”
“I definitely recognised that it was at a point where I needed more help than whatever I was doing at the time.”
“So that's when we thought, okay, maybe I need to link in with the mental health team at the hospital at the Mercy and have a discussion around medication because talking wasn't making me feel any better.”
“It was very scary for me and scary for the people around me to see me like that because I was a completely different person to what I was pre-pregnancy... I was just so stuck. And for me, there was no light at the end of the tunnel. I didn’t think that I was going to feel better...”
“I think the depression had definitely started to kick in. All those symptoms of major depression were definitely there. And I don't know if that was a result of the combination of the medication that I was taking, like the Restavit, but wanting to sleep in until 11 or 12, not wanting to get out of bed, just wanting to nap all the time.”
“I was having periods where I would just cry for no reason. And I'm not a cryer. If you ask any of my friends, I am not one to cry in movies. I don't get emotional for no reason. And I would just cry. I was walking one time with my mum just sobbing. I don't even know why. I was like to mum. ‘I don't know why I'm so sad.’”
“I remember dropping off Liam to the train station because he was going out for dinner. I just cried the whole way home. And I was like, ‘why am I so sad?’ I had the anxiety still there, but I just felt this sense of just so, so sad. And nothing was bringing me joy, which was just horrible.”
“And I felt so bad for that. The simple things that I would normally do, like walking the dog - I didn't want to do any of it. It all just seemed like a really, really big task. Cooking, didn't want to cook, didn't want to do any simple tasks that you would normally do every day. They just felt like the biggest effort.”
“The main thing that I felt was fear because I didn't know what was going on. And after going through 30 years of life of never experiencing a negative, ongoing emotion, I was just very fearful because in my head, I was just so stuck. And for me, there was no light at the end of the tunnel. I didn't think that I was going to feel better.”
“For me, there wasn’t many thoughts about the pregnancy. ‘It was more, I'm not going to feel better at the end of this pregnancy. This is just lifelong for me now. This is just the way that I'm going to feel.’”
“So it was very scary for me and scary for the people around me to see me like that because I was a completely different person to what I was pre-pregnancy.”
“I had a couple of friends around me that were on Sertraline for anxiety, and specifically one of my very good friends, she was like, ‘just have a discussion. You might benefit from it as well.’ And I think that made me feel a lot better and a lot more comfortable about asking to link in with the mental health team at the Mercy.”
“It was unfortunate because I wasn't through the midwife program through the Mercy, so I'm through the obstetrician clinic, which was also probably, I wouldn't say it was good for someone that was going through hyperemesis or some struggle throughout pregnancy because you have different people every single appointment.”
“So there's not that continuity of care. And I don't think there's that recognition of: if someone's struggling or any red flags, they're not going to recognise that.”
“So I think the fact that I had to link myself in with the mental health team, despite probably showing many signs that I was experiencing mental health throughout my appointments. I think it's just, you have your 15 minute appointment, you get in, they measure you, they ask if everything's okay, and then you're out after 15 minutes.”
“So for someone that maybe didn't want to seek help, it's very, very hard in the public system.”
“I tried to advocate more for myself because I had mentioned it a couple of times in the previous appointments that I wasn’t feeling great and I was feeling super stressed and anxious, and it was just brushed off as, ‘It’s okay, you’ll be fine. It’s what happens in pregnancy...’”
“I tried to advocate more for myself because I had mentioned it a couple of times in the previous appointments that I wasn't feeling great and I was feeling super stressed and anxious, and it was just brushed off as, ‘It's okay, you'll be fine. It's what happens in pregnancy.’”
“It was during COVID, so your partners weren't able to come to appointments with you. Because if Liam was there, he definitely would have advocated for me. But yeah, having to go alone, you have to build up the courage to push back and voice your concerns and say you're not happy if nothing is going to be done about your concerns.”
“I think I actually had an appointment with a midwife at this point, and I'd mentioned it to her.”
“I advocated for myself, which is what I try to say to patients, advocate for yourself if you're concerned or parents with children, advocate for your kids. So I remember just saying to her, ‘I do not feel right. I'm scared. I don't feel right. I am having horrible thoughts that I can't move past in my head. I am crying all the time. I don't want to get out of bed. I need to do something. Nothing's working at the moment. I need help.’”
“And she put the referral in for the Mercy Mental Health team. And that's when that started.”
“So I think it would have been about a week or so, and you have your appointment with the psychiatrist. And from that first appointment, that's where I got my diagnosis, which for me, I actually felt some relief. I don't know why, especially because prior to that, I had the feelings of shame of getting a diagnosis of depression or anxiety. But I actually felt relief.”
“And I went and told my family, I told Liam's family, and they were all pretty upset by it, but probably knew it was coming, the major depression and anxiety. And I was pretty much immediately put on Sertraline. So for me, I think having a plan in place gave me a bit of hope that I was going to be trying something that works for so many other people. So maybe it would work for me.”
“You can read up on, which I did, read up on people's experience with taking Sertraline for anxiety and depression. But it just resonates a lot more from someone that you know very well, like a good friend or family. I also probably annoyed my friend a lot during the process. But you can sometimes experience some nasty side effects with the medications. And just having someone there to be able to talk to or talk through it all was great.”
“Her saying to me, ‘It's okay. That happened to me as well. It only lasted for a week. You'll get through it. I promise.’ Yeah, being able to talk to her about it all was good because I did, yeah, definitely did experience the nasty side effects that came along with starting Sertraline.”
“So unfortunately, with a lot of antidepressants or mood stabilisers or any medications like that, you might experience an increase in your mental health symptoms, which I definitely did the anxiety side of things. I definitely felt more anxious in the first couple of weeks of taking the Sertraline.”
“I had the tremors that you get and also the insomnia as well. Being awake during the middle of the night didn't really help with the tiredness of the HG. So yeah, definitely did experience the nasty side effects and pretty immediately, I'd say within a day or two of taking the Sertraline. But then they started to get better. It started to get better after a couple of weeks, all the nasty side effects, and it started to kick in.”
“I did feel a bit numb. You do feel that, unfortunately, with those type medications, but I didn't have the overwhelming anxiety and the overwhelming depression where I would just cry all the time. So it numbed me just to be able to reason with myself and reason with the thoughts that I was having and move through them, move through the thoughts in my head rather than just be stuck.”
”Numbing some of the really intense symptoms is exactly what I needed to be able to engage in some of my other coping mechanisms. And also just to be able to get out and do things. It gave me the ability to not feel so upset or so anxious to leave the house. So I was able to go and start seeing my friends again and start going out on walks because I didn't have that feeling of just wanting to stay on the couch and I did not want to leave the house.”
“So, yeah, it definitely is like a bit of trial and error as well. So finding the right dose as well. So I did start off at a smaller dose and I had to increase. I think I started off at maybe 25, I can’t remember if it was milligrams or micrograms, but I ended up on 100 by the end. And that is where I was happy.”
“I was happy at 100 because I feel like that was the most effective dose for me. And my friend did say that. She did say, ‘just be prepared that you might start to feel better for a bit, and then your symptoms might creep back up. And that just means that you've got to increase your dose again.’ So it's very much a trial and error of different types of medications, but also different doses as well. And that's why you need to have your reviews with the mental health team.”
“It just decreased the severity of the symptoms or the intensity of the symptoms that I was experiencing. But I didn't have any hope that things were going to be completely better or back to normal - which is Isn't really always the right way to put it - back to a ‘new normal’ until Millie was born.”
“So mine was definitely placenta-driven and having that knowledge now of looking back and being like, ‘wow, that was coming from the placenta.’ And in this case, there was a lot of pregnancy hormones that were changing the chemistry in my brain. I didn't see the light at the end of the until I gave birth to her.”
“I was very open to the need to have to go into the mother-and-baby unit...”
“Initially, I had I think it was about a 50 year old male that did my initial assessment. And we just, yeah, we did not click. I couldn't relate to him. So when I got, they'd done a new rotation, I had a younger female. There was a mum that stepped into his role as my psychiatrist, and I was a lot happier with her because I just felt more comfortable. I felt like she could relate to me in some ways.”
“I felt a lot more comfortable to talk about my emotions with her because it's not just the medication side. It's obviously talking about your emotions and everything else that's going on. So I was very happy that I got a change of clinician throughout the last, pretty much the last trimester of my pregnancy.”
“And the team is great because you not only have them during your pregnancy, but they will follow you for 12 months postpartum, which I didn't need. But if you are struggling throughout that period, they will stay with you and they will support you 12 months postpartum after having the baby, which is really good to have that continuity of that team.”
“So you've got the psychiatrist and then the mental health nurses. So I had a range of different mental health nurses that would come and go. But I stayed with that one psychiatrist throughout the whole time. And it was a range of face-to-face appointments and Telehealth, which was really good because sometimes I didn't want to go to hospital for my appointment. I was very happy to do a telehealth video conference with her from home if I was feeling unwell.”
“It was good to have that variety because sometimes the mission of going to hospital for that appointment and also afterwards as well, because I'd always maybe feel a little bit more upset after an appointment to have to then get home. It was nice to just be at home after having a review.”
“One of Liam's mum's best friends, she actually works in the mother-and-baby unit [MBU] in the Mercy. I'd met with her multiple times throughout the pregnancy, and she was wonderful. She was really good because she obviously had that specific expertise in the exact area of perinatal mental health. And she was great. She just simplified it for me.”
“She goes, ‘If you struggle when you have the baby, whatever, you just come with me in the mother-and-baby unit and we'll sort it out. It'll be no big issue, no big issue. We'll just deal with it when it comes.’”
“So for me, going into the I had that of, ‘if I do struggle, that's okay. We'll just go for a stay in the mother-and-baby unit and I'll be with her and she'll be able to help me.’”
“And as you said, people that experience mental health in the prenatal are more likely to experience postnatal, especially if it's untreated. But I was expecting for it to carry on. So for me, I was expecting to have ongoing support with the mental health team, but also I was very open to the need to have to go into the mother-and-baby unit.”
“Just knowing that you have options, because some people maybe don't have that in certain areas. So I was very happy that there was one [an MBU] and there was one close by, and there was someone that I knew that worked there. So yeah, very, very, very lucky.”
“I remember messaging my mum and being like, ‘I feel happy. This is so weird.’ - because I hadn’t felt happy for seven, eight months, it was so long. And excited. Excited as well. I had feelings of, ‘Oh, my God, I’m excited to introduce Millie to my family,’ whereas prior, I hadn’t really thought much about Millie. I hadn’t connected with her. The fact that she was here and I was excited and happy, it was a really nice feeling...”
“I definitely have a very chilled personality, not a type-A personality. So for me, my birth plan was no birth plan. I was going into this with ‘whatever happens, happens. I'll try everything until that doesn't work anymore, and then I'll move on to the next thing.’”
“So I didn't really have any anxiety about the actual birth because I wasn't really thinking about it. For me, I was just completely ignorant. Just that will happen when it will happen, and I'll deal with it then. I'm not going to think about it.”
“I think I was 39 plus 5. I went into spontaneous labour at home and laboured at home for a little while. I used my TENS machine, had my bath, did all that stuff, which was actually quite good, and got to a point where I had to go into the Mercy because I just wasn't coping at home anymore with the contractions being so close together. We're lucky that we're only 10 minutes away from hospital, so it's a very quick drive. Had my epidural, used the gas, used all the fun stuff.”
“So for me, the labour was actually, it It wasn't a horrible experience for me.”
“It was quite a quick experience when I look back and when I tell friends, the thing that I can say to them is that it was quick. It was one day. It just happened so quickly. I ended up having a, well, not an emergency c-section, but a category two, so leading into an emergency C-section.”
“I think at the 23-hour mark, we both decided, ‘yes, this is not working. I'm having failure to progress and staying at eight centimetres dilated for 12 hours.’”
“So at that point, the doctor said, ‘did you want to do the C-section now or did you want to keep trying?’ And I just was over it. I was tired and just ready for it to be over. So we had a C-section after 23-ish hours. And I was happy that I had the C-section because she was a very big baby. And pretty much what they said when they pulled her out was ‘you were going to have a lot of difficulty birthing her because she was nearly 4. 3 kilos.’ We always joke about it now that she sucked all the nutrients and all of my weight from me. She was a very healthy, chubby baby.”
“I had a great experience. All of my midwives were lovely. I had three of them because the labour was so long that I had three shifts, and they were beautiful. They were so supportive. And I think because they read up on your history and they know that you're linked in with the mental health team, they were great. They were very reassuring. Yeah, they were wonderful. I can't fault them or any of the people that we dealt with.”
“And my team for my c-section, also wonderful. It was all lovely. We looked back on the whole experience and I was very lucky that I didn't really have any birth trauma, but I look back on and say that I was happy with the outcome. I did everything that I could, and that was just the way that she was going to be born.”
“So yeah, my mental health in terms of that day was actually okay. I think I was just so focused on trying to get through labour and trying to get through birth that I didn't really have a moment to have anxiety or depression throughout that day.”
“I'd had my C-section again in COVID time. Liam got kicked out pretty much as soon as we got up to the ward, which was probably the only negative part of my birth was having to say goodbye to him when I'd only just given birth to her and not knowing what to do and not having someone there to work it out with. That was probably the most difficult part.”
“So we got up onto the ward. It was the middle of the night and pretty much just tried to work out feeding and had a bit of a rest. And it was crazy. That morning I didn't have the physical symptoms of anxiety and depression. It was so weird. I can't explain it.”
“And I know that for some people, it definitely doesn't happen that way. With hyperemesis, I know that for some people, it does continue. And just with general postpartum depression and anxiety, I know that that's not the same way. But for me, it was immediate. It was immediate!”
“I was able to eat the disgusting hospital food. Like a bread roll with some butter. I remember being like, ‘This is delicious.’ Probably very stale, but it was so good.”
“I remember feeling happy. I remember messaging my mum and being like, ‘I feel happy. This is so weird.’ - because I hadn't felt happy for seven, eight months, it was so long. And excited. Excited as well. I had feelings of, ‘Oh, my God, I'm excited to introduce Millie to my family,’ whereas prior, I hadn't really thought much about Millie. I hadn't connected with her.”
“The fact that she was here and I was excited and happy, it was a really nice feeling.”
“So pretty much gave birth to her. Had to have my two-day stay in the Mercy post the C-section. I wasn't able to have visitors because of COVID, which also a part of the negative part of going through public at that time, was not being able to have my mum meet my daughter and just having Liam in. But at that point, I was so tired. I just soaked up having naps and having baby cuddles and trying to navigate breastfeeding and all the things that come with being a first-time mum.”
“I definitely had that fear of ‘what happens if the symptoms come back? What happens if this is just the postpartum happy bubble that I’m experiencing?’”
“I had a lot of things happen after giving birth to Millie. So I was very unlucky, but my grandma passed away two days after having Millie, and I was very close with my grandma. So it was very hard because you have a wild mix of emotions after having a baby.”
“So it was a very wild time for the first couple of weeks, obviously. Getting home and planning the funeral and yeah, trying to be excited about having a new baby in the family, but also having to check on my dad and my family. Like I said, I was very close with her.”
“But I would say, looking back, I had bits of my old self that I was so happy to have back that I didn't have during pregnancy. I was unable to care for anyone else during my pregnancy because I was just so focused on myself, which is just not me. And yeah, I think noticing improvements in my mental health post, being able to be there for my dad, I was very happy that I was able to have space for him because I wouldn't have during my pregnancy.”
“So yeah, I wouldn't say that everything was completely back to normal because you can't be back to normal after going through something like that. I stayed linked in with the mental health team and stayed on my medications after having Millie for about three or four months because I was so scared of going back to where I was before.”
“I definitely had that fear of ‘what happens if the symptoms come back? What happens if this is just the postpartum happy bubble that I'm experiencing?’”
“And I was very, yeah, very eager to stay on the routine that I was following. With the Sertraline and with the reviews with the mental health team.”
“So, yeah, my mental health. It was hard to be so sad because you're having multiple visitors, like friends and family, and it's a happy time. So yeah, it was definitely a lot better.”
“I just remember listening to these podcasts and they were really helpful for me because I think if you listen to someone's experience and see that they've been able to get better and move past a negative time of their life, I think it definitely does help.”
“But I do feel like there's always a lot of focus on the postpartum side of things rather than the pre-part. So I just want to tell people that it does sometimes get better. And if you do seek help, you are going to get better if you put things in place to help your mental health. It's just the same as a physical illness.”
“There’s not that shame anymore. I’m very open about talking about my experience to anyone that wants to listen because, yeah, I don’t have that shame anymore now that I’ve been through it...”
“I think it's very hard. The mental health system in general, it needs a lot of improvement. Anyone that it’s in it knows how busy it is, how under-resourced it is. And I think as well, especially if you're electing to go through a public system, a public health care system, I think you need to advocate for yourself or have someone else there to advocate for you.”
“Yeah, I think it's just the inability to recognise mental health struggles that I would say happened to me. So maybe just, I don't know, if you can, maybe taking your partner with you to your appointments so that they can voice their concerns. It's so hard.”
“I think now doing this and we've finally started to have discussions around baby number 2, which we definitely haven't prior to a couple of months ago. We thought of just, yeah, having something like this to look back on, I think, is really helpful to see that it's temporary, it's not forever.”
“Having the insight now after enough time, I think going into the whole experience, I'm hoping, you obviously can't predict, but I'm hoping that it does make the experience a little bit better. And I think planning as well is a huge thing. So planning of when you do try and have more kids after experiencing this. Engaging a lot earlier. I'd like to think this time around I would engage a lot earlier and I would just go on medications a lot earlier.”
“There's not that shame anymore. I'm very open about talking about my experience to anyone that wants to listen because, yeah, I don't have that shame anymore now that I've been through it. And I'm happy again. Like I said, in my mind, I'm like, ‘it's temporary.’ I have that insight of, it's temporary. If it is one of those things that it is ongoing or you do have intermittent struggles, I know that I can deal with it and I've got things that I can put in place that will help.”
“You can experience mental health challenges and depression and anxiety, but you can also, later on experience a lot of happiness...”
“It's okay to not enjoy pregnancy and postpartum as well. So if you've got a couple of friends that are struggling at the moment, it's okay to complain. It doesn't mean that you're not appreciative of being pregnant or having a baby.”
“Just voice anything that you're concerned about because your family, they're not going to judge you, your friends are not going to judge you, and they're not going to get annoyed by you, voicing negative experiences or emotions.”
“I think to just do it nice and early and don't leave it because it does get worse. And if you can try and work on it earlier on, I think you're going to be able to get better.”
“And yeah, it's just, I just say it's the best thing ever, having a baby. It's despite the struggles and despite horrible pregnancy, it's so worth it. It's so worth it. And yeah, I think that's pretty much all the advice.”
“And advocate for yourself. Yeah, you have to. You really have to because our population is so big now in the health care systems, they just can't keep up. So you just really have to advocate for your well-being and for your family's well-being.”
“I didn't have any bond with Millie during pregnancy because I was so hyper-focused on my journey and how I was feeling. But we have the best bond ever now. She's my best friend. And yeah, it's the best thing ever. So you can experience mental health challenges and depression and anxiety, but you can also, later on experience a lot of happiness.”
“I just I want to say thank you. Thanks so much for having me on the podcast. I'll continue to listen to all your episodes because it's so great to hear other people's journeys and stories and how they got through it all. And I think, yeah, baby number two or pregnancy number two, if it all goes ahead, I think being able to look back on this. And I've written out little notes for our podcast, being able to look back on this and give myself hope that if I am going through the same situation again, that I will get through it and I'll be happy again.”
“That's all I wanted was just if someone was listening and they were struggling during their pregnancy to just, to help them and know that they will get better.”
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Episode Sponsor
This episode of Perinatal Stories Australia is proudly sponsored by Mums Matter Psychology—because your mental health matters.
Frances and her expert team of psychologists, social workers, and occupational therapists are passionate about providing affordable, high-quality mental health care for pregnant women and parents with children up to 4 years old.
Through Medicare bulk-billed therapy sessions—up to 20 at no cost to you—they make support accessible to everyone. If you’re in Victoria, visit one of their welcoming clinic locations. Outside Victoria? Their nationwide Telehealth services bring care to your fingertips.
Mums Matter Psychology also offers a range of online therapy groups and webinars, providing additional ways to access support and connect with others on a similar journey.
Ready to take the next step? Visit mumsmatterpsychology.com to learn more and book your appointment today.
