I was allowed permission by a very brave and absolutely amazing friend/mother , to post this. I want to thank her for sharing this as it took a lot for her to write this. To her I say, you are truly amazing and this will help so many people.xx
"I was so excited with my first pregnancy, terrified, but excited. I enjoyed being pregnant. I had no morning sickness, no cravings, nothing. My pregnancy was a breeze. The only 'out of the ordinary' thing was one time my urine was tested and my sugar levels were too high. I had a blood test done and it was perfectly normal.
I had to go to the hospital early one morning because i woke with abnormally large ankles and the swelling would not reduce. I was kept in and induced later that day. My 9lb6oz baby was born exactly 2 weeks late.
I had my perfect little family. They don't really prepare you for the 'when things go wrong' scenario. All during your pregnancy you are bombarded with images of the perfect family and the healthy baby and that is exactly how i expected it to be. the fact that it was very far from that threw me for a loop. There were little things to begin with, he wouldn't latch on - it took two days for him to do it - and they couldn't control his glucose levels, they were crazy up and down, his little heels were like bruised little pin cushions with all of the tests they did. On his second day i was delighted as he finally latched on. Later i was trying to get him down for the night but he kept screaming his little lungs out every time I lay him down but when i picked him up he was sound. Eventually the nurse took him to the nursery to let me sleep. I was feeling pretty useless and overly tired. I was woken the next day at 5am by the pediatrician telling me my son was now in SCBU with a chest infection. Over the next few days i witnessed him slowly getting better and his breathing easing until on the Wednesday morning he was back in a cot and i could hold him again.
I was elated but absolutely terrified. I was so scared of caring for him in case i did it all wrong but there was this other feeling. I'm not quite sure how to describe it, only that it was there, under and in everything. I could feel this anxiety in the pit of my stomach and tensing every muscle. There was no one thing i was anxious about, it was just everything.
I had been let out of the hospital and on the Wednesday evening my ex-partner and i made our way to the hospital to see our son. We had no phone call, no prior warning to what we would find when we got there. We walked into the SCBU, right past the nurses station and walked in to find our son back in an incubator with wires and tubes everywhere and a clear plastic dome over his head. I couldn't breathe. I wanted to rip it all off of him and run. What were they doing to him??? I ended up in this little room with nurses blah blahing in my ear about pneumonia and heart abnormalities. All i could think was that i couldn't breath and that i couldn't understand a word this woman was saying until she said one thing...do you want your son baptised? I freaked out! I was convinced she was telling me he was going to die. She went back to her blah. He was transferred to Dublin from Galway the next day.
I did what i always do when my brain can't cope, i went into auto-pilot. I listened, i watched, i sat, i stood, i read, i barely slept, i barely ate. The next few weeks were a blur of nurses and doctors, injections, blood taking and cleaning out his lungs (which is horrendous to witness). Words and numbers, ratios and percentages, blah blah blah...HYPERTROPHIC CARDIOMYOPATHY.
That's what he had, the words were longer than him. He seemed so small to contain something so large. Then the other bombshell, not only did he have that it was MY FAULT. His pediatric cardiologist (who was the only one in the rep. of Ireland at that time) told me it was 'your fault' his words. They will stay with me til the day i die. 'Your blood sugar was too high during your pregnancy and that most probably caused it. I think you were borderline diabetic' OMG! I caused it. My fault! MINE! My anxiety monster loved this, it was great at making me feel inadequate. I was so upset after this i was sobbing in his room. A nurse came in and asked me what was wrong. I told her that we were told he may be getting home on Wednesday but it had been delayed and all i really wanted was just to take my baby home. She went crazy at me, telling me i had a very sick little boy and how dare i take him home, he wasn't in the heart ward for no reason. I was devastated! The ward sister came in and i explained that i wasn't actually going to take him out but just that i wanted to be like every other new mum and be home with my new baby. I was told later the nurse was reprimanded for her behavior, but it all added to my feelings of not doing anything right.
I tried to ignore all those words going round in my head, i tried so hard not to listen. We were incredibly lucky. A short time after he was diagnosed the cardiologist tested him again. He told me that the walls of the left ventrical had thinned. It was only like 0.0000000005 of a whatever but the fact that it had thinned confirmed that his condition would slowly get better. After my son was allowed home i cried all of the time. Not in front of others just when i was alone. My son had to be fed every three hours and he had medicine to take for his heart. I was told to sleep when the baby did but how can you sleep when you have to wake every three hours? I couldn't rest, i couldn't relax enough to. I wouldn't give in, i wouldn't admit that i was a bad mum and couldn't cope. All the focus had to be on my son and he needed me to carry on and fix everything, cos after all, this was my fault. My PND was never formally diagnosed by a doctor. I don't know if that was down to the Irish Health system and their lack of awareness or my outstanding ablity to hide everything lol. I was very much alone with my first child, my ex worked all the hours, i was in another country, no family near, no friends. It was a different story with my second. We had moved, still in Ireland but a different place. My neighbors were wonderful and they would pop in for a chat and a cup of tea, it wasn't much but it was normality and a time where i could let someone else take charge (which she was all too keen to do!) It was lovely having that little bit of a break. My second child began my healing process. He showed me that they could be enjoyed and were not just there to fret over. I always felt relaxed with my youngest son, even now he relaxes me just by his presence. But on the same note, i have to fight my anxiousness with my eldest every single day. A remnant of a traumatic experience. So i don't think PND really leaves you, the effects you have are too deeply rooted to just stop. At the time i just thought it was my way of dealing with things, the striving to be great at everything, the tears, the anxiety and the autopilot. Hindsight can be a marvelous thing, it allows you to see things you once couldn't. I can't say do this to beat PND or do that, it is absolutely unique to every single person that suffers from it. The only thing i would say is this....you can fight it, you can take it on full force and win back your self" Anon
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