My story of perinatal mental health

I want to start by acknowledging that birth trauma covers a wide range of experiences. My own journey with birth trauma includes medical complications, but I understand and appreciate that even when everything goes medically right or well, people can still experience birth trauma. Much of my birth trauma is not about the medical aspect of my experience, but rather the support and reactions of the people around me. Let me share my story.

On March 9, 2022, around 5 a.m., my water broke, and I went into labor with my first full-term pregnancy. After 39 hours of labor, my baby was born, but it wasn’t at all the moment I had been picturing for the past nine months. Nothing like what I had seen in the movies. He was placed on my chest for a quick wipe-down, but instead of a screaming, wriggling little alien creature, he was a silent, lifeless blob of flesh and bone. I remember craning my neck to try and get a better look at him in hopes of seeing some sign of life as I screamed, “why isn’t he crying?” But before I had the chance, he was whisked away, with my husband in tow. Meanwhile, I remained in bed where doctors and nurses completed the regular post-partum tasks and delivered treatment for the infection I developed from my water breaking so long before delivery.

The baby was successfully resuscitated and brought to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Save for a quick, five-minute visit where I got to peer into my baby’s incubator while a nurse with poor bedside manner listed off all his health concerns, I was separated from him for eight hours, and over the next two days, regularly had to run back and forth from the postpartum unit where I was receiving care to the NICU where my baby was recovering.

After five days in the hospital, we were finally able to take our healthy baby home. The doctor who delivered him continued to check in on us for a couple of weeks to make sure I wasn’t showing signs of postpartum depression. She didn’t think I was, and she was right. But something was wrong.

Four months after my son was born, a friend gave birth to her baby at the same hospital and posted a photo on social media of her leaving the postpartum unit. The photo showed a tired but happy couple, beaming with excitement, an infant bundled in a car seat with a hand from both mom and dad tightly grasped around the handle, pointing the baby towards the camera with pride. The background showed the familiar caramel-painted walls with industrial fluorescent lights bordering the ceiling and big bright yellow bins for clinical waste in clear view. Seeing the photo brought a wave of conflicting feelings and memories that I had a difficult time getting out of my head. Soon after this, a friend mentioned she knew a therapist who specializes in birth trauma. I had never heard of birth trauma before, and when I started reading about it, I finally felt like I found an answer to why I couldn’t let go of my birth experience.

I started therapy and began sharing my story more broadly, beyond the people closest to me. Many pregnant individuals often hear that people enjoy sharing their birth trauma stories. I was determined not to be this attention-seeking person I had been warned of. Therapy has helped me understand how much our culture minimizes perinatal mental health and how we shame birthing people into keeping their pain to themselves.

At the end of the calendar year, my Instagram feed was filled with posts of 2022 recaps, and I decided this was as good an opportunity as any to share that the best moment of my year and entire life was also the scariest. I shared how complicated it feels to be so grateful and still so angry. I did hesitate because the audience I am privileged enough to have on Instagram follow me for sewing inspiration, and aside from a handful of posts about my personal life, I typically only post about sewing projects. But I was overwhelmed by the response. More than 700 people engaged with the post, either to show their support for perinatal mental health or share their story. People from across Nova Scotia and all over the world, across generations, wrote to tell me their story. I was heartbroken to hear how many women have tried to bury their pain for years, even decades. It was then that I felt like I needed to do something more. Opening myself up to my community and sharing my story made me feel less alone. Perinatal mental health often feels isolating, like you’re the only person struggling with something that should be celebrated. In reality, we know that this isn’t true when 45 percent of people describe their birth experience as traumatic. This social media post started a conversation I want to continue. People deserve to have their voices heard, and we have much to learn about perinatal mental health.