You are not alone: how sharing my birth story might help us both

Honey and her husband had been trying for a baby for three years. After lots of investigations they found out they both had fertility issues and were eventually put on an IVF waiting list. A while later Honey could not believe she had fallen pregnant. She had a wonderful pregnancy without a single hiccup and got more and more excited to meet their baby every week. Life was good.

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My waters broke at 38 weeks, I went in the following day for an induction and 30 hours later I was in theatre. My baby was stuck with shoulder dystocia. It was an emergency forceps delivery and I managed to get a small glimpse of our daughter before she was rushed up to special care. Things went from bad to worse, when 24 hours later she stopped breathing. She was put on life support and transferred to a specialist NICU. We found out, after a whole host of investigations, that she had suffered a neonatal stroke due to the trauma she suffered at birth.

A rough start
For the first few weeks of her life I couldn’t hold my baby; I couldn’t feed my baby; I felt like we were in a living nightmare. We sat by her bedside listening to the beeps of all the machines waiting to hear some good news. Finally she was strong enough to breathe on her own and slowly but surely our brave girl got better and better. We were the lucky ones, we got to take her home when so many other parents couldn’t. Once home, I tried to breastfeed her, I got mastitis and failed, just like I had failed to give birth to her. I had failed to protect her and was so terrified of something happening to her again that I was scared to be alone with her. I was having flashbacks of the birth, of her in hospital, and of all the horrifying things that I had experienced. Nightmares were frequent and my anxiety was sky high. I was extremely hypervigilant around my daughter, but the worst thing was feeling so sad all the time. I genuinely believed that she and my husband would be better off without me.

“I was terribly isolated and found it hard not being able to talk face-to-face with anyone”

Journey to recovery
My daughter needed lots of after care and during one of her hospital appointments the Consultant asked if I needed any counselling; she explained that there was a specialist perinatal mental health team attached to the hospital that lots of women used, and that if I wanted to talk I could. I will always be grateful to her as this was the beginning of my journey to recovery. Covid hit when my daughter was 4 months old, I was terribly isolated and found it hard not being able to talk face-to-face with anyone. My husband is a key worker and so I was alone with my daughter most of the time. It was tough going, I honestly don’t know if I would have been able to get through that first year without help.

How trauma affects us
I had weekly (sometimes twice weekly) sessions with an incredibly kind, understanding, and caring specialist Perinatal Clinical Psychologist who helped me to understand why I was feeling this way. I was diagnosed with PTSD and had intensive therapy for 10 months. She helped me through a perineal operation that I needed due to the traumatic birth, and helped me build my confidence in being a mum. We talked through everything in detail and with her help I was able to accept what had happened. During our sessions she told me how common mental health problems were in pregnancy and in new mums. She explained how trauma affects us and why it was normal to feel this way, and said that talking to people is one of the best ways to recover which enabled me to open up with family members. The flashbacks became less frequent, along with the nightmares, and although there were triggers every day my therapist taught me ways to cope with anxiety attacks. It was a challenge but with time I started to feel much stronger and actually enjoyed spending time with my daughter.

“If I can help one single person to find the courage to speak up, then sharing my story is worth it”

Spreading the word
Our gorgeous girl is now 18 months old. She is amazing, cuddly, happy and makes us laugh every single day! I know how lucky I was to get the help I needed and want to encourage any women out there to ask for help. You are not alone. Let’s talk. If I can help one single person to find the courage to speak up, then sharing my story is worth it. I still have hard days and sad memories and of course I wish it hadn’t happened, but I’m able to cope with the tools I was given. I have a great quality of life, I feel extremely lucky to have such a supportive husband; I am doing some work within the perinatal mental health sector, using my experience to help spread the word that there is help available and this is incredibly rewarding. Life is good again!