Bao's story

I wasn’t exactly looking forward to my baby’s birth, but I didn’t really think about it too much. I knew there would be pain, of course, but apart from that we weren’t particularly worried as we trusted that the hospital would know what to do.

Looking back, maybe I pushed any negative thoughts away and tried to ignore the possibility that something could go wrong.

At around 40 weeks I was getting uncomfortable but there was still no sign of the baby coming. My husband and I drove to the hospital for what we thought was just another regular check, expecting to be home later that day.

They started doing some tests, and then they kind of hesitated, because they found something that suggested I was losing fluid, and that the baby was coming and we needed to get things moving. So I was admitted to the hospital – lucky we had our bags packed and ready in the car because we’d been told that the baby could come at any time.

We got a room overnight and my husband could stay. I wasn’t dilated at all, so they inserted a balloon catheter, which was meant to manually open things up. I couldn’t sleep with the balloon in me so I was awake all of that first night.

The next afternoon they found zero dilation and we were back to square one. I felt cheated of time – instead of being home where I might have been somewhat comfortable, I had spent the past 24 hours waiting in a hospital bed. We eventually got moved into a birthing suite, and they started the IV hormone induction. That was meant to get the labour started. But I found out later that that doesn’t really work unless your waters have broken, and mine hadn’t at that stage, so they proceeded to manually break my waters. We trusted that it worked.

However, I was in more and more pain with inconsistent contractions, and it took half the night before the next doctor came along, who took one look and said my waters hadn’t broken. So they had to do it again, and this time, I actually felt it happen. This was day two, I was already exhausted, and for the second time we were back to square one. It was becoming very difficult, not just for me but for my husband too who had to watch it all unfold (at least I got a bed! He had to sleep on the floor).

Things felt out of our control.

We had never pictured any of these things happening, so it’s not like we were prepared in advance to make these kinds of decisions. It was like, what alternative do I have?

Looking back, I feel like we were very naïve going into things, and that just made us feel like we had to trust in the doctors and the system and go along with it. We just felt very overwhelmed and carried along by everything that was happening.

After the birth we were in hospital for a week to recover from the whole birthing process – and I think in some ways I still haven’t recovered, I feel fatigued a lot of the time. Our son needed frequent medical attention with IV medications because of an infection at the time of birth. I was so exhausted and couldn’t even keep my eyes open to watch the IV drip being inserted into his little body; I was just slumped in my wheelchair. I felt guilty not being able to do anything for him.

I was constantly teary in the week after birth, but at that time there were so many other things to deal with, it was like, there’s no time to sit around and mope, there are so many things to be done. I was just getting used to the idea of having this baby, this little human to look after.

After we got home, I distinctly remember when the child and maternal health nurse came and visited me. It was her second visit, maybe two weeks after the birth. She was focussed on checking the health of the baby, while I just burst into tears. She gave me time to stop crying, she wasn’t cold or anything, but I don’t remember her doing much to address my mental health, apart from suggesting I could talk to my GP. It’s a shame they don’t focus more on maternal mental health, in addition to prioritising the child.

A couple of weeks later I started Googling what I was feeling, then I found the number for PANDA and gave the Helpline a call. That was a really important first step. With their support over the next few months, I found a new local GP who cared for my mental health and recommended a psychologist, and from there I started feeling better. I had this happy, healthy son, his coming into the world was traumatic, but we had got through it. I gradually started feeling like I was getting things back under control and feeling confident about making decisions again. It took a while though.

Looking back, I think I felt quite a bit of shame about what happened with the birth, and not knowing more going in. Why didn’t I question the whole process more? I started to unpack these feelings on my first visit to my psychologist. Even just telling your story helps, just talking it through. It’s a bit like grief I suppose. First comes denial, the anger and depression, and then with time there is acceptance.

My psychologist recommended a book that explored similar birthing stories, and I just devoured it. It made me realise that things could actually have been worse. And coming to the realisation that I wasn’t the only person to go through something like this was really helpful. Just knowing that the birth I had wasn’t that unusual. Other mums had been through birth trauma too.

I know now that it’s something that could happen to anybody. And what happened wasn’t a reflection on me, and it didn’t have to affect my relationship with my son. I could compartmentalise that experience as something that happened, and it didn’t need to influence how I felt about myself or being a mum.

Now, having had another child, working from home, and the uncertainty of the COVID pandemic, I have put mental health support at the top of my priority list. Fortunately I have not required medical support, but I have sought community support such as leaning on neighbours and my siblings for short bouts of babysitting, reinvigorating and developing new connections with other parents in our bubble (from kinder, daycare, the local playground), and with motivation from my husband we have put in place a timetable of sorts where we alternate our family, work and play duties. It is not super strict, but it continually reminds us to put time aside for the things that regularly fill our bucket and seek opportunities to give each other more time (e.g. when there is an impending deadline).

I would like any parent reading my story who might be struggling to know that these struggles are not forever.