Where my anxiety began - my first pregnancy
I believe i started suffering with anxiety after having my first child.
He was born on February 20th 2013 21:47 weighing a very healthy 9lb 9oz. He was born via c section due to being back to back and as i wasn't progressing, he was getting distressed and so the doctors decided he needed to come out.
A few nights stay in hospital and i was allowed to leave, i was now a mum to a beautiful baby boy!
At the time me and my partner lived in a flat on the second floor, with stairs in our flat also. Lets just say it was not a good idea strolling up those stairs as if i hadn't just had major surgery, the pain should have stopped me but i thought it was normal.
I don't believe the care that the nurses gave me during labour was particularly great, they were aware that i had SPD - Symphis Pubis Dysfunction but done certain things that are advised NOT to do with someone suffering with SPD. This resulted in me being bed ridden after having my son and suffering a hell of a lot of pain.
It was explained to me that Symphis Pubis Dysfunction is caused by a hormone that your body produces during pregnancy that softens the ligaments in your pelvis preparing you to give birth to your baby and is supposed to go back to normal once you have given birth. Mine did not and i ended up with a large gap at the front of my pelvis that took along time to return to normal. This left me in agonising pain when i would try to walk or move around in bed etc.
I remember spending that night in so much pain that to walk my partner had to physically lift my feet one by one from the floor and move them forward for me because the pain was unbearable for me to lift my foot/leg. I also struggled holding my son in my arms because of the extra weight it would put on me just made the pain worse.
After trying to walk with the help of my partner the evening before and failing miserably i succumbed to the excruciating pain and retreated back to bed where i didn't move from until the next morning when my midwife came to visit and do the usual checks on mum and baby.
I had told her that i hadn't been able to go to the toilet for almost 24 hours she asked me to get up and try again so i slid my legs out from under the duvet and slowly stood up. I couldn't move my legs the pain was too much, my midwife asked me to walk the length of the bed and i tried so hard but i just couldn't. I managed to take one step with the help again of my partner and by this time an ambulance had been called because apparently i should never have been allowed to leave the hospital in this state.
To cut a very long story short, after going back into hospital where me and my newborn son stayed for a further week, we were finally discharged, for the second time and we moved into my parents bungalow.
I was bed ridden for several months, my parents gave up their bedroom and bed so that i was more comfortable and they slept on the sofa in their living room that pulled out into a sofa bed. My partner took care of not only our son but me too which i could never thank him enough for. He made sure both myself and our son were washed and fed every day while going off to work every evening when my mum came home from her day job.
I had a physiotherapist visit to help me walk again and went from bed ridden, to using a zimmer frame if i needed to get to the toilet, to crutches, to walking perfectly back to normal with 0 pain.
Myself and my partner were able to move back into our flat and as quickly as i had resumed what i thought was going to be my normal life again, except now with a bouncing baby boy to raise, i quickly realized that i had postnatal depression. I had struggled all of those months not being able to walk, take care of my son, prepare bottles for him, bath him, hold him even, i assumed everything would be back to normal when i could walk pain free again but it had triggered PND. Once home in our flat i was too scared to leave again in case the pain returned in my legs, i was constantly fearful that we would be hit by a car if i took my son outside and often had thoughts of what i drowned him while bathing him.
What an awful mum i felt, for having these horrible thoughts and although i knew something wasn't quite right i didn't seek any kind of help.
Around this time my parents had moved away to somerset for work so i was alone a lot of the time with a newborn baby to care for and not really knowing what i was supposed to be doing, i felt safe to stay inside and not leave and when i returned to work when my maternity leave ended i felt like the old me again, before i became a mum.
Those first few months after having my son were a huge part of what made me the anxious person i am today. Everything i struggled with but didn't really speak about at the time, i became less confident and anxious, i cared a lot about what people thought of me all of a sudden, became very self conscious and although i returned to work, seeing friends and slipping back into old routines i just wasn't the same person i used to be.
He was born on February 20th 2013 21:47 weighing a very healthy 9lb 9oz. He was born via c section due to being back to back and as i wasn't progressing, he was getting distressed and so the doctors decided he needed to come out.
A few nights stay in hospital and i was allowed to leave, i was now a mum to a beautiful baby boy!
At the time me and my partner lived in a flat on the second floor, with stairs in our flat also. Lets just say it was not a good idea strolling up those stairs as if i hadn't just had major surgery, the pain should have stopped me but i thought it was normal.
I don't believe the care that the nurses gave me during labour was particularly great, they were aware that i had SPD - Symphis Pubis Dysfunction but done certain things that are advised NOT to do with someone suffering with SPD. This resulted in me being bed ridden after having my son and suffering a hell of a lot of pain.
It was explained to me that Symphis Pubis Dysfunction is caused by a hormone that your body produces during pregnancy that softens the ligaments in your pelvis preparing you to give birth to your baby and is supposed to go back to normal once you have given birth. Mine did not and i ended up with a large gap at the front of my pelvis that took along time to return to normal. This left me in agonising pain when i would try to walk or move around in bed etc.
I remember spending that night in so much pain that to walk my partner had to physically lift my feet one by one from the floor and move them forward for me because the pain was unbearable for me to lift my foot/leg. I also struggled holding my son in my arms because of the extra weight it would put on me just made the pain worse.
After trying to walk with the help of my partner the evening before and failing miserably i succumbed to the excruciating pain and retreated back to bed where i didn't move from until the next morning when my midwife came to visit and do the usual checks on mum and baby.
I had told her that i hadn't been able to go to the toilet for almost 24 hours she asked me to get up and try again so i slid my legs out from under the duvet and slowly stood up. I couldn't move my legs the pain was too much, my midwife asked me to walk the length of the bed and i tried so hard but i just couldn't. I managed to take one step with the help again of my partner and by this time an ambulance had been called because apparently i should never have been allowed to leave the hospital in this state.
To cut a very long story short, after going back into hospital where me and my newborn son stayed for a further week, we were finally discharged, for the second time and we moved into my parents bungalow.
I was bed ridden for several months, my parents gave up their bedroom and bed so that i was more comfortable and they slept on the sofa in their living room that pulled out into a sofa bed. My partner took care of not only our son but me too which i could never thank him enough for. He made sure both myself and our son were washed and fed every day while going off to work every evening when my mum came home from her day job.
I had a physiotherapist visit to help me walk again and went from bed ridden, to using a zimmer frame if i needed to get to the toilet, to crutches, to walking perfectly back to normal with 0 pain.
Myself and my partner were able to move back into our flat and as quickly as i had resumed what i thought was going to be my normal life again, except now with a bouncing baby boy to raise, i quickly realized that i had postnatal depression. I had struggled all of those months not being able to walk, take care of my son, prepare bottles for him, bath him, hold him even, i assumed everything would be back to normal when i could walk pain free again but it had triggered PND. Once home in our flat i was too scared to leave again in case the pain returned in my legs, i was constantly fearful that we would be hit by a car if i took my son outside and often had thoughts of what i drowned him while bathing him.
What an awful mum i felt, for having these horrible thoughts and although i knew something wasn't quite right i didn't seek any kind of help.
Around this time my parents had moved away to somerset for work so i was alone a lot of the time with a newborn baby to care for and not really knowing what i was supposed to be doing, i felt safe to stay inside and not leave and when i returned to work when my maternity leave ended i felt like the old me again, before i became a mum.
Those first few months after having my son were a huge part of what made me the anxious person i am today. Everything i struggled with but didn't really speak about at the time, i became less confident and anxious, i cared a lot about what people thought of me all of a sudden, became very self conscious and although i returned to work, seeing friends and slipping back into old routines i just wasn't the same person i used to be.
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