This past April, in Australia, I went out to dinner with some new girl friends. Our conversation that night became quite intimate and over the course of dinner I learned of one friend’s struggle with pregnancy depression. She shared, so eloquently, her struggle and journey to get support during her recent pregnancy. For the first time I found someone who I could open up to about my own experience with pregnancy depression. While I had spoken about it with close friends and family, this was the first time I could speak to someone who could completely relate. Her vivid accounts of her depression brought back memories of my own, and we found comfort in knowing that we weren’t alone with those struggles.
She drove me home that night and we discussed how pregnancy depression is so rarely spoken about – how it seems to be taboo – to be sad during what should be such a happy time of your life. I promised her that I would work up the courage to write about it. I’ve decided to share my personal experiences here to normalise something that, I’ve now learned, is not uncommon but is still rarely discussed.
I was 23 when I became pregnant with Easton. I was young, carefree and madly in love with Michael. I felt incredibly lucky to have found someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, to be starting a family and becoming a mother–a role that felt so natural to me having grown up with lots of younger siblings. I could not have been happier or more excited for what was to come.
And then, within weeks of becoming pregnant, I started having thoughts and feelings I had never experienced before. A wave of anxiety took hold of me, tightening its grip over my mind. For the first time in my life I could not control the thoughts that entered my head or shake the darkness out of my mind. I started thinking about death and how everyone I know will die some day. I obsessed about my grandparents and how they were getting older and how their lives would soon end. I couldn’t pass elderly people, even strangers, without feeling a tightening in my heart and tears welling up in my eyes. I thought about my own life and the new life I was creating. I thought about the generations of people who came before us and how there would be generations to come after us – the world so enormous and life so insignificant. I became so obsessed with these dark thoughts that I wasn’t able to find joy in the everyday life I was living. To add to this, I started feeling incredibly guilty – worried my thoughts would have a negative impact on my baby. I fretted that I was ruining the joy of pregnancy for both Michael and myself.
I soon started worrying about Michael, obsessing about something terrible happening to him. I cried when he left for work every day with terrible, tragic scenarios playing out in my head. I tried to speak to Michael about it but I couldn’t even begin to explain it, and he couldn’t possibly understand. I wished I could play my thoughts on a projector for him, so that he could reassure me and tell me how silly they were.
A friend once told me that depression is a bit like staring at the sun. You know it’s not good for you. You know it will burn your eyes. But you can’t look away. The anxiety I experienced during pregnancy was exactly like this – I had thoughts running through my head that made me incredibly sad and worried, and yet I couldn’t turn away from them.
I remember towards the end of pregnancy, I was sitting with Michael on a train up to Edinburgh. We were headed to Scotland for a fun work retreat with Michael’s colleagues. I was 35 weeks pregnant, so close to meeting our baby. I sat on the train, staring out at the English countryside quickly passing us by… and I started to panic. What was wrong with me? Why was I feeling this way? What if these feelings never went away? Or even worse, what if they got worse once the baby is born? I was aware of postpartum depression and worried that I might be affected by it. How could I be a decent mother if I was so sad and so emotionally unstable? Tears rolled down my cheeks as I stared out of that train, trying my hardest to pull myself together – trying to focus on something else, to think happy thoughts, to stop staring at the sun!
Five weeks later Easton was born on a sunny June day, right on time. After a long labour he arrived quickly and beautifully, and his perfect tiny body was placed on my chest. Instantly, almost unbelievably, as if my mind had been simultaneously purged of its negative thoughts as I pushed my baby out, my mind returned to normal. Thoughts, both happy and sad, would come and go in the same normal, healthy way they did before I became pregnant. I felt joy like I’ve never felt in my life and, of course, immense relief to have control over my thoughts again. It is a testament to the power of hormones that a switch inside your mind can be triggered on with pregnancy and immediately switched off at pregnancy’s end.
When I was pregnant with Easton I did not know that depression or anxiety could take place during pregnancy. I had heard about postpartum depression, but nobody had ever spoken about antenatal depression. I didn’t even think to look it up at the time. I just thought there was something wrong with me. And being a young, expectant mother in a new city, I didn’t have many friends to share my feelings with.
I experienced anxiety again when I became pregnant with Quin, but while I was affected with dark thoughts and feelings similar to those in my first pregnancy, I thankfully had the perspective and experience to assure myself that they were transient– that it would all go away when my baby was born. This basic understanding helped me to manage my depression during those nine months and again with Quin’s birth, my mind and emotional state returned to normal as soon as he was born. Again, I was awed by the power of hormones and gained a deeper understanding and sympathy for those who suffer from postpartum depression or depression of any kind.
One week after speaking with my friend about her antenatal depression, I had a conversation with another friend who said her sister had also suffered severe depression during her pregnancy. It seemed the more I mentioned it, the more common I found it to be. I hope this post will start a conversation about a topic seldom discussed. Please share your thoughts and tell us if you’ve ever experienced depression before, during or after pregnancy and what helped you through this difficult time. As with so many aspects of the parenting journey, it is invaluable to learn from the experiences of other mothers and support each other along the way.
Courtney x
The image above was found on Pinterest, from an article here.
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