From birth story to pnd

Continuing on from a previous blog, once Harrison had finally arrived into the world I was a happy mummy peacock except when Harrison was 9 hours old me and a midwife had noticed that he was turning blue and seemed to be struggling to breath. He was rushed to scbu ( special care baby unit ) for observation. As I had, had a section I had to stay on the post natal ward with all other new mummy's and there new babies as you can imagine it was a tough night.

To cut another long story short Harrison was diagnosed with suspected meningitis and after being transferred to and from a specialist hospital due to a near fatal cardiac arrest our little man finally came home at 13 days old and we could finally be a family.

Now you would think once I had finally got my baby home and he was happy and healthy I would be fine but I struggled to bond with him, I felt like everything I did was wrong and Harrison would be better off without me. I am lucky to come from a close an supportive family and seeing me struggling my mum came to stay and help out, which I was grateful for.

The only problems was once my mum left I was lost again and one night I stood by the back door after letting the dog out looking up at the sky and thought I wouldn't care If I died in my sleep and i had it in my head no one would miss me or care I was gone.

When Harrison was 5 weeks old my mum persuaded me to go to the doctor and share how I was feeling, so feeling the lowest I've ever felt I did just that. I sat there pouring my heart out explaining Harrison birth and how I've felt since he was born. She just said that I had post natal depression here's a prescription and told me princess Diana had suffered with it. That was it no advise no explanation what it was just some happy pills and sent on my way.

Still uneducated about about Pnd I sat at home and thought to myself how can some one like me have Pnd. What have I got to be down about. I'm a happy go lucky person always smiling and singing, I'm lucky to have an amazing husband and definitely lucky that I had my baby boy especially what the outcome could have been. Harrison was the perfect baby sleeping 14hours a night in his own cot and was so content always smiling so why did i feel this way i just couldn't understand.

As the weeks and months went on I carried on taking my medication and just trying to get on with life taking harrison to mother and baby activities and groups but inside i felt selfish and guilty for having Pnd. I had my up days and down days But still couldn't shake the feeling properly so I thought I needed a change so I decided to go back to work. I had planned to take the whole 12months off originally but thought I needed to get back to normality.... What ever that was so when Harrison was 9months old I returned to work and also decide I take myself off the happy pills.... Both big mistakes on my part.

For the first few months of retuning back to work I felt fine a bit more like me but than I started slipping again, I became ill with a bad chest infection and work was getting on top of me. I decided not to tell anyone and thought I could just get on with life and bury it deep. I threw myself in to Harrison 1st Christmas and 1st birthday.

  In the new year we recieved some bad news about my husbands auntie and that is when everything got too much and one day at work my manager sat me down and told me she was worried about me, that I wasn't myself and that she though I needed help and after a conversation with other members of staff they agreed too. That night I went home upset and mortified I thought I was hiding it well but when I went and spoke to my hubby he said the same as my manager. I knew than that I needed help and I felt ashamed of myself for letting it get so bad that it started effecting others.

The next day I went to the doctors and told her all about how I was feeling, I seen a different doctor than last time and she seemed to want to know the details more. She asked me to list what I thought was wrong.
•Not wanting to get out of bed and would be happy to not move all day.
•Going to bed early 7pm some nights
Always being tired
•Lack of concentration more noticeable when reading and watching tv.
• no appetite
•feeling guilty about everything
•feeling anxious
•crying all the time and being over emotional
•feeling like my son and hubby would be best off without me - I will add though I never consider ending it myself it was more not caring weather I lived or died.
•I felt like I was disappointing everyone.
•lack of pride in the house I just couldn't be bothered with the washing, housework, even my appearance I just didn't feel like I had the energy.
The doctor looked at me and said you have depression, before she had a chance to explain I went on a rant about how selfish I was to have depression and I didn't have any right to have it I had a great life and that's when she stopped me and explained to me exactly what depression was and like I mentioned in a previous blog she gave me the best example that completely hit home and helped put it all in content. She said would I blame someone with diabetes for not producing enough insulin which my answer was no obviously its not there fault its just something that there body lacks and she said so why are you blaming yourself for not producing enough cortezones ( not sure how you spell It but in other words happy hormones) and that definitely helped lift some weight off and said in a way i could understand. I still had a long way to go but it made sense that way. She did put me on happy pills but also referred me for counselling and booked me in for follow up appointments to talk about my progress and how to move forward. For the 1st time in over 12 months I felt like my dark cloud was about to be lifted.