‘We have gone through the mill and come out the other side fighting’
Following the traumatic births of both her sons, Emily suffered from postpartum psychosis, PTSD and OCD. Her experience got her deeply passionate about maternal mental health. She became a gentle sleep coach partly due to what she went through. She’s driven to support women in the postnatal period by providing them realistic expectations of infant sleep and how to spot the signs of postnatal illness. Emily writes in detail about the birth of her second son, which she considers to be cathartic and part of her healing journey.
TRIGGER WARNING: Please read this story with care. If you’re finding the content challenging, please give yourself permission to step away. If you need support click here, if you need urgent help click here.
Before I get to the birth of my second, for context I feel it is appropriate to briefly share the birth of my first. Arthur was born almost 6 years ago via an emergency caesarean. I was 42 weeks pregnant and told I could no longer refuse an induction due to the risk of stillbirth. I was 25 and petrified and agreed to an induction the following day. After 48 hours of stop-start and then intense contractions, my waters were popped and meconium was detected. Arthur was in distress and we were taken to theatre for an emergency section. I was shell-shocked. I had planned a lovely, calm, water birth (ha) and what I got was the total opposite. I felt out of control and let down. What came after was a year of severe anxiety, psychosis to the point of hallucinating that Arthur had died in his sleep and repeated nightmares. The effects of this are still felt today.
Could not let it stop me
Due to my mental health difficulties another baby wasn’t really an option for us, although I functioned well and was a happy mother, the thought of going through a similar birth experience and worrying for another human as much as I worried for Arthur felt impossible and terrifying. But in the end I decided that I simply could not let the experience I had with Arthur stop me from trying to complete our family, I knew that if we were lucky enough to get pregnant again, I would have to get some help, so we tried for our second baby and within a month, we fell pregnant, and I know how lucky that makes us.
“I found it hard to understand that I was absolutely, perfectly fine when he was well ”
A weight had lifted
I was very proactive in how I sought my help, I asked to be referred to a mental health midwife and a perinatal psychiatrist, I did anxiety workbooks and tried to work through my unresolved trauma, not just with Arthur’s birth but my extremely specific anxiety trigger, which was Arthur being unwell. When he was unwell, I would have panic attacks, I would not sleep and I would have very intrusive thoughts that would consume me until he was better. Then it was like nothing had ever happened. That is what I found too hard to understand: I was absolutely, perfectly fine when he was well. But I knew that another hard time during the delivery of my second child would only exasperate my mental health difficulties and I could not even entertain that being a possibility. The perinatal psychiatrist that I saw was quite simply, marvellous. She diagnosed me with OCD and PTSD from the birth of Arthur and his subsequent health issues. She really advocated for me and helped me get a caesarean booked in ahead of time, to calm my nerves and my anxiety and to help me feel more in control. I left that appointment and felt like a weight had been lifted.
To the hospital
Just 6 weeks later, I woke up at 4am to a very wet bed, I was 31 weeks pregnant, and my waters had gone. I was in shock, Arthur had to be coaxed out at 42 weeks, so a premature birth was never on the cards for me. I rang the hospital who told me to get to the hospital as soon as I could. It was then that they confirmed my waters had indeed gone and started me on steroid injections to help my baby’s lungs. I had very mild contractions that would stop and start so I was admitted onto a ward where I would be intermittently monitored. Contractions pretty much stopped, started, got more intense, died down a little and then ramped up some more with no pattern on any effect. I was eventually let home just for the evening to try and get some rest but again, woke at 3am the following morning with quite intense contractions so headed back to the hospital.
“I would feel like I was in full blown labour one hour and then have no pains at all”
Staying put
The plan was for me to be taken to theatre as soon as I was in established labour and for the baby to then be delivered by caesarean section, but because there were no signs of him coming yet, I was told to expect to be in this for the next 6 to 7 weeks until it was safe to deliver him, unless of course he decided to come before then. The contractions I experienced were bizarre, I would feel like I was in full blown labour one hour and then have no pains for a few hours before they then started again. I was given a magnesium sulphate drip and a scan to check on the baby’s water levels, it was at that scan that my baby was breech and that the risk of cord prolapse was now too high for me to go home and I needed to stay put until these contractions ramped up enough for him to be delivered.
Struggling to know exactly
I am not too sure of the timeline of events at this stage but some days later at around 11pm on 26 June I was starting to experience quite strong and regular contractions, these did not feel like they had before, and I knew that things were starting to progress. I buzzed for a midwife and she gave me some co-codamol (paracetamol and codeine) and a birthing ball and told me to ring my husband for some support. Because of the stop-start nature of my labour over the last few days I needed to be sure before I rung him to come down and wake my 3-year-old up in the process if nothing was going to come of it, again. At around 1am I was contracting every 3 minutes and I was taken down to delivery, at this point I was expecting to be gowned up and taken to a theatre to have my baby but instead I was put on a monitor and my husband arrived. As my waters had gone almost a week before they were tentative about checking how dilated I was, but I started to get a little bit fractious and demanded someone did. My obstetric team was in theatre with an emergency, so a trainee registrar came to check my cervix who told me that I was only 2 centimetres dilated but struggled to know exactly as it was ‘tucked away’. I knew this wasn’t correct due to the pain I was in but at the same time I though ‘well I’ll be taken to theatre for a section when they think the time is right’ and to trust that, and naively, I did.
“People were rushing and shouting: I was terrified”
Panic
At 6:30am I was ‘wailing’ and in ‘a lot of distress’ according to my notes, yet the obstetric team could not be bleeped as they were still in theatre. Because of that I could not be prescribed anything stronger than diamorphine for the pain and that was not touching the sides. My obstetrician came out of theatre, and apparently only came in to check me because she could hear me screaming. I was 10 centimetres and I will never forget the look on her face, it was sheer panic, she was hurrying the anaesthetist along when he was giving me my options for pain relief and she kept saying: “Baby’s bum can be felt we need to get her into theatre 1.” I was taken in and a cannula was put into my hand, I then felt my body involuntarily pushing. At that point I screamed that he was coming and that is when people started to shout “GA!”. There were a lot of people rushing and shouting. I was absolutely terrified. I remember a man putting some pressure on my throat with his fist and telling me to relax, I had no idea what he was doing and started to panic. A female doctor then took over and held the pressure on my throat, but I still don’t know why they did that but after speaking to other women who went through similar they told me they were under the impression it was to intubate for the general anaesthetic.
The birth of Henry George
My notes say that at 7:01am I was taken to theatre, 07:05am the decision for a general anaesthetic was made, 07:10am knife to skin, 07:12am my baby boy, Henry George was born, weighing 4lb 7oz but blue and floppy, with no respiratory effort. He was also born with a thick, crusty like vernix all over his body. He was resuscitated and taken to the NICU where he remained stable. He had an X-ray at just 5 hours old, even before anyone had held him, I find that really upsetting. I eventually met him when I was stable enough to, at around 5pm that evening. I was wheeled into NICU and it was then I saw there was something wrong with his skin. Although this was suspected right away at birth, no one came to tell us that, so we were left, to walk into NICU with a team of doctors around Henry’s incubator. We were also told that he had 4 soft markers for Down syndrome, a one palm crease, a flat bridge of his nose and low set ears and thick neck folds. These tests would come back negative and a lot of these ‘markers’ were caused by how Henry’s skin had shed in the womb and then stuck to his skin manipulating some of his features. Henry spent 3 weeks in NICU and was later diagnosed with ichthyosis of prematurity, an incredibly rare genetic skin condition. Due to genetic testing we were able to identify that both my husband and I had passed on a faulty FATP4 gene to him. I wish I could tell you that is where the trauma ends, but unfortunately it does not. Once Henry was diagnosed it became apparent that he was suffering with silent reflux and would have repeated sleep apnoea’s. He once did not come back round from one and I had to resuscitate him on my living room floor. We spent most of his first year in hospital, in and out with various things: sepsis, chest infections caused by aspirations due to his reflux and many other ailments, scary blood tests, a CT scan and an endoscopy.
“The effects of what happened have been felt by all our family”
Special boy
I am pleased to say now though, that he is a healthy, happy little boy. He has asthma and is on preventive medication for that, his skin will always be a little different to other peoples. We are almost two years on from his birth and I think I am only now at the stage of processing it. I am in touch with the hospital, I am having counselling and I also have a private birth debrief booked. Henry and his birth have changed my life. I believe I was given to Henry and Henry was given to me. We are a little team and along with his big brother and my supportive husband we really have gone through the mill and come out the other side fighting. The effects of what happened to Henry have been felt by all our family and he is a very special little boy.
If you feel you’re in need of support for the birth of you child, or something you went through during pregnancy or beyond, please take a look at our Find Support page here.