The newborn bubble... What's that?

Hold on to your hats, we're three blog posts in and things are starting to get deep. I'd already planned to do this and it seemed a great follow on to my labour and delivery story. I'll be talking candidly about post-natal mental health and my experience of those first few weeks with a brand new baby. I remember speaking to a friend of mine who was a few months behind me in her motherhood journey, I shared my feelings from that newborn stage with her and she was currently going through the exact same. She's since told me it was that conversation that made her open up to her partner about what she was going through and it made her realise that she wasn't alone. The initial days and weeks with a newborn can completely mess with your mind and it is ABSOLUTELY NOT something to be ashamed of. Lets get stuck in, shall we?

Perfect P on her first day at home

28 hours after giving birth, we were finally discharged from hospital. I still wasn't 100% confident with breastfeeding but she'd had a brilliant feed just before we left and I was feeling hopeful that in a few days we'd have it cracked. In hindsight I definitely think we should've stayed an extra night, but we were itching to get home to be a family and this was my 4th day in hospital, I really didn't fancy a 5th. We got home, placed Penelope down in the living room in her car seat and just looked at eachother and said, "now what?!"
Naturally, she'd done a poo, so we tackled her first 'at home' nappy change. Which went well. Kind of. Whilst nappy free she'd done a wee, all up her back, all over the mat and our living room carpet. I should've taken this as a sign for things to come really, but hey! We press on.
She was soon due a feed and from what I remember, it was pretty successful. That first night, however was when things really went south. I just couldn't get her on the boob properly (or so I thought) as you see, we'd had it ingrained in our minds that a '"good" feed was 20 minutes on each side but P wanted feeding little and often and only fed for 5 minutes at a time. I sat up with her, hand expressing in to her mouth, absolutely convinced I was going to starve her to death. Even after multiple midwives telling me we were doing absolutely perfectly and despite P only losing 2% of her birth weight at her first weigh in (which is incredible), this was something that absolutely consumed me and by day 3 I had thrown in the towel. I'm going to do a dedicated blog post about our breastfeeding journey but this is something I regret hugely, even now at 20 months on.

Poorly Mummy & jaundiced P

I was very lucky that Luke had booked 2 weeks holiday on top of his paternity leave, giving us 4 weeks to settle in to family life together. Let me tell you, it was far from settled. It wasn't the blissful newborn bubble that Instagram makes you think it is. It was brutal. Absolutely, completely and utterly, incomparably brutal.

The first 10 days were a blur of too many visitors, P being constipated from the switch to formula and Luke administering blood-thinning injections as I was still quite poorly post-birth. I lied to plenty of midwives when they asked how I was doing at appointments. "Oh you know, tired, but I'm okay, I'm loving being a mum!" I'd respond.
The reality was, I was as far from okay as I have ever been. I have an extensive history with depression & anxiety and by now my mental health was absolutely spiralling. I hated being a mum and worse, I hated Penelope. Despised her even. Christ, that's absolutely gut wrenching to say, but it's true. I didn't want to be around her, I didn't want to hold her, feed her, just being left in the same room on my own with her sent me in to all kinds of panic. I don't even think I changed her nappy for the first 4 weeks. Luke was struggling too and he was trying to keep himself afloat whilst holding us both together. For a while we literally lived in our bedroom, fuelling ourselves with Red Bull and pink iced ring doughnuts, binge watching The Simpsons or old episodes of Top Gear on Netflix. That was our 'safe space', a distraction from our own minds in between the feeding, burping and nappies. If I didn't have to think about being Mummy then I could pretend I wasn't one, right?

5 days old - 25th August 2018

About 2 weeks in I reached my lowest point: "I hope you die of SIDS tonight, I don't want you to wake up".
I wished my beautiful, perfect, precious 2 week old bundle dead. I couldn't do it, I wasn't cut out to be a mum, I just wanted all this to go away and my life to go back to how it was the previous year. I wanted HER to go away, she'd be better off without me anyway, right? I was the worst mum in the world. Or at least, I felt like the worst mum in the world. What if I just disappeared? Surely Luke and P wouldn't miss me anyway, P deserves a better mummy. Yet, I still lied to everyone around me, I was fine, isn't being a mum the best thing in the world ever ever ever? I didn't tell anyone, instead I bottled it all up, absolutely riddled with guilt and shame, terrified that somebody would find out and take my baby away from me. Wait, isn't that what I wanted?!

Well, wasn't that paragraph an absolute rollercoaster? I'm crying over here behind my laptop, absolutely heartbroken recalling those awful, awful feelings. I look at P now, as a toddler approaching 2 and I am so overwhelmed with love and pride, she is everything I could've dreamed of and more. I never did seek professional help for how I was feeling when she was tiny and I absolutely should have done. I wouldn't have been judged for being mentally unwell, I'd have been given support to overcome the cloud that was preventing me from being the best mummy I could. See, I never did get that 'newborn bubble', my mental health completely robbed me of it.

5 weeks old - 25th September 2018

So, how did I get through it? To tell you the truth, I don't really know. I just battled with my thoughts and somewhere, my maternal instincts kicked in to keep little P alive. Week 5 rolled around and Luke had to go back to work. I cried, clung on to him and begged him not to leave me with her but we did get in to a routine. I was on auto pilot, doing what I needed to do to get through the days until Luke came home. By week 6 things were improving and I was coming out of the other side. Eventually, I was having more good days than bad. By 6 months I can honestly say that I was enjoying being a mum.

At the time of writing this, Penelope is 20 months old and whilst I do still struggle with my mental health in general, those early thoughts and feelings are a distant memory. She is my little best friend and although she tests me and pushes me to my limits sometimes, I can can truly say I love being a mum, HER mum. It feels like she's been in our lives forever and I wouldn't change her for anything.

Just know, you're never alone and it CAN get better. If you are struggling, post-natal or otherwise, never be ashamed of admitting you need extra support. Reach out to someone you trust, my inbox is open to anyone and everyone who needs someone to talk to. I will also leave some links below to various mental health resources.

MIND
SAMARITANS
MENTAL HEALTH MATTERS
NHS MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES