By Debra Russell at Roar Birthing
Debra is a Doula and Hypnobirthing Instructor, and a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
and Postnatal Anxiety survivor. Story told in her own words.
“I can’t actually remember a time when I didn’t suffer from anxiety. Perhaps in primary school. In my teens and early twenties it was pretty bad. After a long, lonely struggle I eventually sought help and was placed on medication, and there I stayed for a really long time.“
Anxiety and pregnancy
Fast forward many years and I was 35 and pregnant with my first baby. The pregnancy was studded with episodes of acute worry (mostly about losing the baby), but if you asked me to sum up how I felt as the birth approached I’d say excited! I hadn’t done a huge amount of preparation (very naive of me when I look back now), I’d grown up with a strong narrative that birth is natural and I’m more than capable (I can thank my Mother and Grandmother for that, who had 9 babies between them!), and I knew I was physically fit and strong.
Despite this self-belief, I was still very much of the opinion that birth ought to happen in hospital where there are professionals trained to deal with the myriad of things that can go wrong. At the time of my first daughter’s birth I had worked in the NHS for five years.
As a Senior Emergency Medical Technician with the Ambulance Service I was highly trained & experienced, and trusted the system that I was part of. I had witnessed many births, worked alongside maternity staff countless times, and felt comfortable with being under their care. I was happy to hand over responsibility for mine and my baby’s wellbeing to them, and had no concept of how this would leave me feeling afterwards.
Anxiety was a part of my life.
As well as my baseline anxiety, I had experienced PTSD following a series of traumatic incidents I’d encountered at work, and I’d been having talking therapy when I found out I was pregnant. Despite all of this, there was no link in my mind between the trauma I’d suffered in my work and my status as a mum-to-be. I had become super skilled at compartmentalising, and so I cracked on with being pregnant!
My birth prep consisted of getting all the ‘things’, the free NHS antenatal sessions and watching One Born Every Minute! I told myself I would just follow my body, go with the flow, and let the professionals look after me. So when, at 36 weeks pregnant, my waters burst while I was painting the nursery, I headed into the hospital with a hastily-packed hospital bag and no plan for what lay ahead.
The birth itself was, on paper, fairly textbook.
I was triaged, placed on the ward where I laboured alone for a few hours, and then moved to the Delivery Suite & reunited with my husband around midnight when the contractions became more intense. Once there I swayed and moaned for a few hours, and pushed my baby girl out at four o’clock in the morning.
The whole thing lasted 13 hours and I didn’t need anything stronger than gas & air. Ruby was given some help with her breathing to begin with, then after about 20 minutes she was given to me and BAM, I was a Mum! A pretty decent birth, right? I mean, most expectant mums would take that if they were offered it, so it took me a really long time to link the anxiety I experienced over the following months to the birth itself.
I realise now when I look back that I had been analysing my birth from a very objective perspective. It was short, straightforward and not particularly painful. What did I have to feel anxious about? The big shift came when I realised that it was how I had FELT during the birth that I was struggling to process, not the timeline of events. This realisation was huge, and has underscored so many changes in my life – not only how I tackled and overcame the postnatal anxiety and how I prepared for my second birth, but it was the impetus behind a complete career change and informs the work I do with expectant families every day.
What was life like as a new mum with postnatal anxiety?
Well, my life felt like a total contradiction. I had everything I’d ever dreamed of, but I felt wretched. I loved my little girl so much it felt like a physical ache, but I was absolutely terrified of her. I was more tired than I even knew was possible, but I couldn’t allow myself to sleep in case something terrible happened while I wasn’t watching. I was drowning under the weight of responsibility of keeping her alive, but I couldn’t allow myself to hand over to anyone else long enough to take a break.
After a while the anxiety itself became another source of stress – ‘if I stop worrying about everything that could go wrong, even for a minute, that’s when something will happen’. Writing or talking about it now, which I often do, it sounds perfectly obvious that I was suffering from acute anxiety, but at the time this entire experience was hidden. I didn’t talk to anyone about how I felt, not even my husband. Maybe because I’d spent my entire anxious life coping independently, maybe because I didn’t recognise it as anything other than my standard neuroses, and probably also because I was so deep in it, I simply couldn’t think objectively.
At 5 weeks, Ruby was admitted to hospital.
And if the postnatal anxiety wasn’t already bad enough, at 5 weeks old Ruby developed bronchiolitis and had to be admitted to hospital for breathing support. For a week I lived in a 3 hourly cycle of: express milk, watch her like a hawk, and get an hour or two of sleep while my husband sat with her. It was utterly brutal, and when we all went home after a week, my anxiety spiralled. That’s when the intrusive thoughts, as I now know them to be, kicked in. I vividly remember being in my kitchen with Ruby in the stretchy wrap on my front, and I was prepping vegetables for dinner.
‘I can’t be trusted. I shouldn’t have a baby’
Holding the knife, I was suddenly overwhelmed by a vision of what would happen if I stabbed her. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t want to harm her, that was the absolute last thing I wanted, but my mind kept showing me the most awful images of what might happen if I did. I threw the knife across the worktop and ran to the front room.
What the hell was wrong with me? Why on earth was I picturing myself killing my precious baby? I can’t be trusted. I shouldn’t have a baby. I’m a danger to her. What would my husband think if he ever knew? My god, what would the health visitor say? They’ll take her away from me! She already thinks I’m incompetent, I can’t even get breastfeeding right, I can’t remember how long she slept last night, I haven’t left the house in days. She must never find out. From now on I’ll just have to put Ruby in her rocker and shut the kitchen door when I’m prepping food.
Another vision that was a little harder to avoid was picturing myself throwing her down the stairs every time I walked along the landing. Or just letting go as I carried her downstairs. I began closing my eyes as I walked between our bedroom and the staircase, shuffling down the stairs on my bum or putting her in the sling for every trip up or down the stairs. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I was terrified of the power of my own mind. If I can think these hideous thoughts, what’s to say I won’t be overcome by the urge to act on them? It was debilitating, and avoiding situations where the thoughts could sneak up on me began to dominate my days.
Foggy memory of the early days
When I look back to the first six months of Ruby’s life it’s hard to find the detail. It all feels kind of foggy, and without looking at photos to jog my memory I struggle to recall much of it. I think that’s what makes me the most sad about my experience with postnatal anxiety – living through it and learning to overcome it has been the launchpad for an awful lot of personal growth, but it hurts to know that I have this void in my memory of her early life.
At around the six month mark I slowly started to realise how much time I was spending trying to avoid certain situations and how little I was actually enjoying daily life. Bit by bit I opened up to my husband about how I was feeling, and then started to bring trusted friends into the fold, although I didn’t tell anyone about the awful thoughts that filled my mind (I was still convinced my child would be taken away from me if people knew what a psycho I was). My gang of antenatal class mum friends was more valuable than I can ever explain during the first months and years of parenthood, and still now they are my closest confidantes. I did some reading around postnatal anxiety and after a while I felt strong enough to visit my GP.
Anxiety medication in the postnatal period
He suggested an increase in the dose of my anxiety medication, and in the belief that all my symptoms were due to imbalances in my brain chemistry, I agreed. And it worked – over the following weeks and months I felt the anxiety subside and the intrusive thoughts become less frequent. As my existence became less and less dominated by the fear of something terrible happening to Ruby, I slowly started to enjoy being a mum. Albeit a pretty highly-strung one!
I always had a certain level of anxiety, but became better at recognising the times where it was unreasonable and I needed to stop it escalating. For example, both my Mum and my Mother-in- law wanted to help out a bit more – I forced myself to allow them to take her for periods of time, with the caveat that my husband or I were the only ones to drive her anywhere, and I insisted both the grandmothers and my husband all take a paediatric first aid course.
I also had a tricky relationship with the sensor pad under her cot mattress – having it on overnight gave me enough confidence to allow myself to sleep properly, but I weaned myself off using it for nap time while I was awake. Ruby was three by the time I eventually broke up with it!
I wasn’t losing my mind.
One day I found an article in my beloved Gurgle magazine (anyone remember that?) all about intrusive thoughts. Wait a minute, these horrible, debilitating thought patterns that have plagued me for months are an actual thing? A normal, common, non-psychopathic thing??!! My world shifted on its axis as I realised I wasn’t losing my mind, and more than that, I wasn’t a ticking time bomb about to harm my precious girl. It spoke about the power of our imagination and how these thoughts were a transient representation of our deepest fears, and in no way predictors of behaviour. That article was a real moment on my journey; it kick-started a thirst to find out as much as I could about what makes my brain tick.
There was no overnight cure, but for the first time I began to understand that what I was experiencing was a normal reaction to a series of traumatic events, and more than that, there were things I could do (other than just masking the symptoms with medication) to begin to change the thought patterns my brain was so used to, although it would be a long time before I tackled them properly.
I’d reached a place where I could live with my baseline anxiety, and shortly after Ruby’s first birthday I returned to work with the Ambulance Service. People often think that because of my job I’d be good at dealing with a poorly child, but it was always the times when Ruby became unwell that I struggled the most. Something as simple as a high temperature or an episode of vomiting was enough to trigger an anxiety attack.
The intrusive thoughts would come back with a vengeance, but now instead of envisioning myself harming Ruby I would spiral into a worst case scenario vision; thoughts of doing CPR on my own child or seeing her in Intensive Care flooding my mind. I found it impossible to trust my own judgement, and as a result would seek advice from anyone I could get hold of whenever she was unwell. On more than one occasion I called my manager at work to run her list of symptoms by them and check if they warranted a trip to hospital!
Pregnant again after postnatal anxiety
Two and a half years after having Ruby I found out I was pregnant again. I’d come a long way in terms of understanding my anxiety and appreciating it as a mental health issue that was not my fault, and early on I asked to be referred to the Perinatal Mental Health Team. I was really frightened of having a relapse and decided to be proactive about it. I began fortnightly sessions with the team – one or two of them would come to my home and we’d sit and chat about anything and everything I was feeling.
We’d discuss my history, how my pregnancy was going, anything I’d been struggling with, and they’d explain to me the science behind my symptoms. They were the first ones to actually diagnose me with Postnatal Anxiety and also Perinatal OCD. The labels might sound scary to an outsider, but to be honest it was a huge relief to hear that I wasn’t abnormal, just a normal person who has had an undesirable reaction to a series of negative experiences. Alongside my sessions with them I really jumped into birth preparation. I read books, listened to podcasts, joined online groups, watched so many birth videos and took a Hypnobirthing course.
Hypnobirthing was utterly life changing for me.
I began to understand the psychology of giving birth, the role of our hormones and the importance of the environment, and it gave me a whole new appreciation for the power of the female body! I was starting to remove my medical lens and see birth as a completely normal everyday bodily function, instead of a potential emergency that needs medical management, as I’d been taught to believe through my work. I reached new levels of confidence in my ability to give birth, and devised a birth plan that reflected my desire for autonomy. It was a world away from the uninformed, naive version of me that walked into the maternity unit 3 years before.
And the birth was a world away too; objectively it played out very similarly to Ruby’s, but the way I felt while birthing Eliza was incredible – informed, calm, in control, and so damn powerful! My second postpartum period felt entirely different to my first. Despite the crazy hormones and killer sleep deprivation I felt relaxed and confident. Breastfeeding was so much smoother, and I reached out for help as soon as I felt something wasn’t quite right. Sleep came easier too, I had learned what was biologically normal, surrendered to Eliza’s schedule (or lack of), and co-slept when we needed to.
At 7 weeks old Eliza was also hospitalised with bronchiolitis.
She was far more poorly than Ruby had been, and at times I thought I might lose her. It was like groundhog day, pumping, watching, praying, snatching sleep. My anxiety was off the charts, but how could it not be? A perfectly normal reaction to a terrifying situation, this time I found self- compassion instead of tying myself up in knots of shame.
Eliza recovered, and I feel proud that I went through that experience without relapsing into postnatal anxiety. Even the global pandemic that landed a couple of weeks later didn’t derail me from my groove as a confident second time Mum. The months and years that have followed have been all about personal growth. Returning to the Ambulance Service as a mum of two at the height of the pandemic was incredibly stressful.
I struggled through for a year, but the inescapable trauma that goes hand in hand with that role was keeping me stuck in permanent fight or flight mode. I knew what was possible when anxiety didn’t rule my life, but I couldn’t continue to evolve if I stayed in that job. Before I left I had another course of trauma therapy, and this is where I really began to tap into the emotional injuries I was carrying.
As a mother, a daughter, a sister, a wife and within my career, I have always been highly attuned to people’s emotional experiences, yet I had given no acknowledgement to my own; the worry of giving birth to a preemie, the coercion I experienced during my labour, the fear at being told her heart rate was abnormal and I needed to push her out NOW, the people rushing into the room as the red button was pressed, being told she’s not breathing properly, feeling abandoned on the postnatal ward still shellshocked from the birth, the pressure to give formula because she was too small and sleepy to breastfeed properly.
I had never been given the tools.
Revisiting Ruby’s birth and early health issues helped me see that I had never been given the tools to process the emotional aspects of my experiences; they were always with me under the surface, that fear for her life a constant shadow. It was deep and painful work, but I started to get to know that fear – it’s amazing how befriending our fears can dissolve their power.
Healing trauma is lifelong work, and every day I learn more and deepen my connection to my true authentic self. Now I have so many tools to draw on; breathwork, journaling, somatics, tapping, meditation and more. The best thing about all these tools is how easy they are, there’s no equipment needed except your own body.
So where am I now?
My girls are now seven and four, and I feel the strongest I’ve ever felt. The shifts I’ve made since the peak of my postnatal anxiety continue to evolve, and I honestly don’t even recognise the person I was back then. Discovering the transformative power of Hypnobirthing and everything that has rippled out from that decision to take radical responsibility has led me here to birth work.
In 2022 I founded Roar Birthing, where I offer Birth & Postnatal Doula support and Hypnobirthing to people who want to step into their autonomy. I am passionate about working with families who have suffered birth trauma and want to prepare for a different, more empowered experience. I know that even the most straightforward birth can cause trauma if your emotional needs are not met, and also that the most complicated births can be incredibly positive when you have the right support, and that is what I am here to provide.
Debra is a Doula and Hypnobirthing Instructor, and a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Postnatal Anxiety survivor. You can read more about what she has to offer here: https://www.roarbirthing.com/
