Little Bundle of Sorrow

By Nicole Watts

Birth is made out to be the happiest time of your life. But what happens if you have a difficult pregnancy, a traumatic birth, your baby is fussy, or just won’t go to sleep? Are you meant to bond with your baby straight away?

Sometimes, the experience of being a new mum sucks. You’ve been sleep-deprived for weeks or months, and post-natal depression can creep up and take over. If you’ve found yourself struggling to cope, you’re not the only one. Other women have had similar thoughts and feelings to you, no matter how extreme they seem.

The women in this book have experienced postnatal depression and have come out the other side. Their stories will give you hope that there is a way out of the dark hole you are in.

You are not alone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Nov 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781398472358

Nicole Watts

Nicole Watts has a Bachelor of Psychology and a Bachelor of Arts. She has been on both sides of the mental health divide, having worked on projects in the mental health sector and having a long history of depression and anxiety herself. She spent fifteen years in the public service in a statistical role, writing around her work commitments. Her history with depression has included long stints in both public and private hospitals, multiple courses of electro-convulsive-therapy, and many cognitive and pharmacological treatments. Running and time in nature keep her grounded. She is kept alive by her family and friends, a fantastic treatment team, and a rescued blue heeler-staffy cross, who rescued her right back.

Book preview

About the Author

Nicole Watts has a Bachelor of Psychology and a Bachelor of Arts. She has been on both sides of the mental health divide, having worked on projects in the mental health sector and having a long history of depression and anxiety herself. She spent fifteen years in the public service in a statistical role, writing around her work commitments. Her history with depression has included long stints in both public and private hospitals, multiple courses of electro-convulsive-therapy, and many cognitive and pharmacological treatments. Running and time in nature keep her grounded. She is kept alive by her family and friends, a fantastic treatment team, and a rescued blue heeler-staffy cross, who rescued her right back.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all the women who bravely shared their stories with me. You have been so patient with the slow progress of this book. I now count many of you as dear friends. I’m so privileged to have spent time with you. You’re all amazing mothers.

Copyright Information ©

Nicole Watts 2023

The right of Nicole Watts to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of the author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398472341 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398472358 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

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Acknowledgement

To the grandparents, who selflessly implemented a three-night baby roster so that we could all sleep on a regular basis. Thank you for saving my sleep all through the years, and for your loving support of me and the monsters. You’ve stepped up into the parents’ role multiple times while I’ve been in hospital. I wouldn’t be here without you.

Introduction

When I found out I was pregnant with my first child, Sammy, I was excited and amazed. Excited that I was fulfilling my dream of having children. Amazed that it had happened so quickly, on our very first attempt.

Those wondrous feelings didn’t last long. During my pregnancy, everything that could go wrong, did. Body-wrenching morning sickness where I lost weight and was hospitalised. The threat of miscarriage, then later of Downs’ Syndrome. Excess weight gain. An amniocentesis. Basically, everything that you can think of as part of the normal ups and downs of pregnancy went wrong.

I didn’t notice it at the time, but my mood was slipping. Slipping down a slope into panic and despair. I have a long history of terrible depression, but am one of those who are classed as ‘high functioning’ between episodes. I had a long-term, stable, mentally challenging job. A mortgage, a special needs dog, and a loving relationship. In short, it was a good time to have children. I thought I was prepared for it.

I later learned that nothing can prepare you for the sheer shock of having a child. Your life is thrown into disarray the second that baby is born. How you are able to reconstruct it around your new baby is one of the factors in whether or not you will feel settled and successful in adjusting to the change of lifestyle. I have since learned that perfectionists like myself suffer the most when a baby is born. We find it too hard to let go of the control we previously had over our life.

Sammy turned out to be a sick child initially, and neither of us got any sleep. Ever. He screamed and cried all the time, and so did I. Within a few weeks, I had hit rock bottom. Sleeplessness is a form of torture for a reason. There were other factors complicating matters, like that my partner was fly-in, fly-out (FIFO), and I was basically a single mum from the time Sammy was 10 days old. All of this contrived to make me so unhappy that I wanted to end it all.

Being mentally unwell opens you up to all kinds of thoughts, not just suicide. There were times when I wanted to harm my baby, out of sheer anger and frustration. I thought that I would never recover. I thought that Sammy, and everyone else, would be better off without me.

I made a definite plan to kill myself, down to the time of day, and what I would do with Sammy beforehand. In my disordered mental state, I thought that this was the only logical answer to my problems. I could not see any other way out.

It was by sheer luck that someone, a child health nurse, discovered my plan. Within hours I was admitted to an Emergency ward, and within 24 hours of that, I was admitted to the states’ only hospital for mothers and new babies, the Mother and Baby Unit (MBU). I spent five weeks there, learning how to look after my baby and myself at the same time. Up until then, I thought it was impossible to do both.

Being admitted to the Unit was a revelation. I met Selena on my first night there, and what she said to me made me instantly like her. She said that she had only been there for a week, and in that time she had gotten sleep, changed her mind from jumping off the roof of her two-storey house, and even begun to bond with her baby. I was dumbfounded, but in a good way. Here was someone else who had been having the exact same thoughts as me. I wasn’t alone in this. I wasn’t crazy.

Throughout my history with depression, it is encounters such as this, with other sufferers, that has made the most impact on my getting well. Medication and psychotherapy are extremely important and I do not mean to undermine them; they are just as essential. But knowing that you are not alone in your thoughts and feelings is among the most powerful therapy there is.

When I am sick with depression, I am unable to do much at all. My cognitive symptoms are too bad for normal activities that involve planning, like shopping, or cooking, or even enjoying my favourite pastime, reading. The one thing I am able to do, is read a book on depression by Andrew Solomon, called The Noonday Demon.¹ If you haven’t read this, I urge you to go out and buy it. It is the best treatise on depression that I have ever read, and I have read a lot. Rather than being a self-help book, of which there are thousands, this is a book that just describes peoples’ experiences of depression. Each chapter has a theme: treatment, suicide, hope. Solomon interviewed hundreds of people for his book. It is exceptionally well-written and is interesting even for those who don’t suffer depression. When I am unwell, reading these stories is like being in a room of friends. It’s that feeling of not being alone.

One night, a month or two after finishing his book yet again, I sat bolt upright in bed. No one has done that for women with post-natal depression (PND), I realised. What a huge gap that is. I credit Solomons’ book with saving my life at times. Could I possibly do that for women with PND? Could I offer them the hope that I gained from The Noonday Demon?

I was still partially unwell when I began the journey of writing this book. Basically, I was functioning with the basics, but I had not returned to work. I wasn’t that well yet.

I began brainstorming ideas on what this book would look like. I set up some interview questions, and began calling people.

Initially, I interviewed my friends from the Unit. I refined my survey questions, then I advertised; calling for volunteers. In the local paper, through word of mouth. The response was astonishing.

So many women had been through PND. So many, like me, wanted to end it all. Some were forthcoming and willing, some got cold feet about revealing their thoughts and backed out at the last minute. But every woman in this book wants to help people like you. People who think that PND is a life sentence.

The women you will meet in this book have all had serious post-natal depression. I use the term post-natal instead of perinatal, as is the fashion now, as at the time I interviewed them, only post-natal depression was recognised. I think I’ve captured their thoughts during pregnancy well enough that it will be evident when they became unwell.

Each story stands alone, but there are some common themes, which I’ll explore later in the book. You will notice that I asked everyone what it was that got them through their depression. (Hint, most of the time, it wasn’t motherhood alone). There is such a breadth of suggestions there that I will let them speak for themselves. There is so much practical advice there. Put together, they make a powerful statement on the resilience and strength of women with PND. I am very proud to have met everyone in this book and to have heard their stories. The most important thing that I want you take away from this book is that you are not alone. No matter how awful your thoughts and feelings are, many others have felt the same way; I promise. We are part of a huge network of mothers who have overcome adversity to emerge on the other side as strong, resilient mothers.

Now it’s time for you to meet the women.

---

The Noonday Demon, Andrew Solomon, 2001.↩︎

My Story: ‘One Shock After Another’

Background to My Story

I had always been ambivalent about motherhood. While in high school, some of my close friends wanted nothing more than to get married as soon as possible and have three or four kids. Shortly after high school, some of them did just that. I’m not sure if young motherhood lived up to their adolescent fairy tales of handsome, supportive husbands and beautiful, angelic children; but one thing was for sure: they didn’t regret their choices.

Then there were the mums who’d been accidentally knocked up and dropped out of high school to become full-time parents. All of these women had one thing in common. They were completely in love with their children. Their countenances all changed after childbirth. There was a serenity about them, a look of utter absorption when they looked at their children, as if there were nothing else in the world. It seemed like motherhood was a club, one you could only understand after you had been initiated and joined.

I had other ideas about how I wanted to spend my twenties. Like a lot of young women today, I wanted a proper career, and an education from a reputable university. Life was full of possibilities, and I could become anything I wanted. Why would I sacrifice my dreams to become a mother, a job that seemed so time consuming and thankless? I pitied my young mum friends who were stuck at home caring for babies while I was out partying every weekend. I was having a ball. I hadn’t ruled out motherhood, I just couldn’t imagine it. I thought it would be something I would make a decision about later.

Sometimes, life makes choices for us. In my early twenties, I was finally diagnosed with endometriosis after an exploratory operation and years of crippling pain. Pregnancy is often recommended as a treatment, as the nine months without a cycle ‘starve’ the endometrial tissue and frequently reduce or stop the associated pain. Most women with endometriosis have a far better quality of life after having children.

I met my future husband when I was nineteen, although we did not marry till some years after that. Our relationship was volatile at best and there was lots of ‘on again, off again’ behaviour. I had several bouts of depression in my twenties and at one stage was referred to a private psychiatrist for treatment. As I sat there with my greasy hair and too-thin frame and told this shrink about my endo, he said ‘Well, you know pregnancy often cures endometriosis.’ I had just told him that I had split up with my partner yet again. His suggestion really upset me. What did he expect me to do, find a one-night-stand and get knocked up? I never went back to see him. I didn’t have much faith in psychiatrists and my depression was managed just by my GP.

After separating from my husband, I was single from the age of twenty-six, well into my thirties. The endometriosis worsened every year to the point that it controlled my life. I couldn’t make plans, as I never knew if I would be okay on the day. Several doctors over the years encouraged me to get pregnant to help the pain of the endo. Those doctors that were more reasonable, including my gentle GP, never suggested such radical action during my extended singledom. My gynaecologist was typical of the ‘get pregnant’ team: ‘Oh, you girls are so funny,’ she said. ‘In your twenties, when you should be having babies, you want the career, you want to travel; then you find out it’s too late.’

‘I have no husband,’ I replied. She didn’t seem to get the point.

The conclusion to all of this was that as a woman with endometriosis, I was encouraged to have children as soon as I could just in case I was infertile. Since it would help with the pain. These were valid reasons, but I wanted something more than that. I wanted a husband who loved me, and who I wanted to bring children into the world with. Having been single for so long, this seemed like an impossible dream. I wanted to want to have a child, not just be forced into it by circumstances. I was down and confused and conflicted. I was ambivalent and swayed between the desperation of thinking about pregnancy to reduce the pain, and feeling guilty that I had no real desire to have children for children’s sake. I felt like I had missed out on the motherhood gene.

The father of my children came into my life when I had all but given up hope on ever finding a someone. We had been together for only a year when my endometriosis went into overdrive. It was the worst it had ever been, and none of the conventional treatments were working. Even though I was on the pill, I could bleed at any time of the month and would be in bed for days crumpled up in a ball. My gynaecologist scheduled me in for surgery in several months’ time. She again gave me the dire warning that at 33, I should make haste in making babies while I still had the chance. There was no telling what the endometriosis had done internally until I had the operation, or if it would affect my fertility.

After that appointment where the gynaecologist gave me the ‘now or never’ speech, I was very troubled. Tim and I were living together and committed to each other, but I did not think that one year together was time enough to make a decision about having children. We talked about the issue over the next few weeks. I was always reluctant to bring it up, but I felt that we needed to come to some kind of agreement about our future together. It felt like our future was rushing up to us unheeded and we were being forced into making decisions that should not be an issue for years to come. There was a great deal of conflict for me between wanting to finalise the issue of children once and for all, and just wanting to enjoy the natural progression of our relationship without placing all these caveats on it. I felt like my hands were tied.

We decided that we would try for children. Yes, it was not ideal that we were trying so early in our relationship, but we reasoned that these were our circumstances and we had to work with them. Our general conclusion was that we would try to conceive naturally for about a year, then we would look to IVF. I didn’t really want to go down the path of assisted reproduction, but I thought that after so long on the contraceptive pill and my history with endometriosis, we would likely need it. It never really crossed my mind that conception would be easy. I was prepared for a difficult time ahead.

Having gone off the pill, my endometriosis worsened yet again. I was having so much time off work I was worried about losing my job. One afternoon, lying crumpled in bed and clutching my heat pack and wishing deeply that there was any drug that would alleviate the pain, I said to Tim that I couldn’t handle this anymore. There was no way I could try to conceive naturally if this is what it was like being off the pill. My constant pain distressed him as well, and he agreed that assisted reproduction was necessary. We began looking at IVF clinics.

After several agonising months, it was time for my laparoscopy. Lesions of endometriosis were removed. I also had a dye test to check that my fallopian tubes were viable (they were), and a dilatation and curette to clean the inside of my uterus. Recovery from the operation was painful, but I welcomed this pain. It was bearable, and I knew it meant that I was healing. I wasn’t sure what my life would be like after the operation, but I knew there would be an improvement. I looked forward to a life where I could exercise, and plan outings in advance. I just wanted to be normal.

We had been haphazardly trying to conceive in the preceding months, but it was very hit and miss. Most of the time I was in too much pain to have sex. We enthusiastically jumped straight into it after the operation. It was so nice to be able to have sex when we wanted, rather than me continually turning Tim down from the pain. I still thought it would take some time to get pregnant, as there would be scar tissue where the lesions were burned off. All the circumstances pointed to it taking a long time to conceive.

As painful as my periods had been, they were always regular. I was several days late for my period after the operation, but reasoned that the operation had changed things a bit and I probably wouldn’t get back to normal for a few months. I had been feeling nauseous when I ate, so just on the off chance, I took a pregnancy test. It was negative, as I expected.

I developed an infection and started a course of antibiotics a few days later. I still didn’t have my period, so just in case, I took another pregnancy test. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon as I placed the stick on the bathroom vanity and waited for the indicator stripe to appear. Tim was in the bathroom as well and I told him he may as well leave; that I would call him if anything exciting happened. I was that sure I wasn’t pregnant. He wanted to stay though, so we both stared at the stick. There is something so final about a home pregnancy test. Even if you’re sure you’re not pregnant, you can’t look away while the test is developing. It seems like the longest two minutes of your life. So we looked. The little cross of pregnancy appeared.

I picked it up in wonder, and shook it around a few times (as if that would make a difference to the result). Neither of us knew what to do. We were both so shocked. We kind of smiled at each other, but it was a dumbfounded smile, half joy and half disbelief. We had succeeded on our very first go, the first month after the operation. No one gets pregnant that quickly I thought, not with my history, and not at 34. It was completely surreal.

I don’t know what plans we had had for that day, but they were all cancelled by those two blue lines. My first thought was of the antibiotics. We went to the chemist to find out if I could continue to take them. It was something to do, a task we could complete when we didn’t know what to do next. The pharmacist brought her medications book out. She read the passage and looked up at me sternly. ‘These should not be taken if you’re pregnant,’ she said. ‘You should stop them immediately.’ So I did. Now what?

We were driving back from the chemist in stunned silence when I asked Tim who we should tell, and when. We both thought that our parents should be told immediately, and maybe close family in a few days. I asked if perhaps we should go and tell my folks now, and he readily agreed.

‘Are you sure?’ I asked him.

‘Yep,’ he said. ‘It will make it more real.’

So we went to my parents. Tim waltzed in the front door and said to my mum, ‘Hello grandma!’

Mum looked puzzled for a second, then her face lit up. ‘What?’ she said, ‘What did you just say?’ She jumped up and down so much while she was hugging Tim I was worried she would do herself an injury. She was so excited. Tim told his parents the same day and they called me later, also very happy, although it would be their sixth grandchild.

How did I feel at the time? Mostly it was a mix of wonder and shock. I was excited about the prospect of finally having a baby, but I was also amazed that it had happened so quickly. I truly couldn’t believe it. I was so disbelieving that I took another three home pregnancy tests before I got the official test results back from the doctor. Of course, they were all positive.

Pregnancy

I had researched the topic enough that I already knew what I should do during pregnancy in terms of my health and that of our little foetus. The next day, Sunday, we went out to look at a few houses, as it was quite apparent that my little three-by-one was not going to accommodate our growing family. I was very tired after only looking at two houses and we stopped to eat at a cafe. It was here that I realised how restricted my diet would be. As a semi-vegetarian, it’s very difficult to eat out when you’re pregnant. All the salads were out as we couldn’t guarantee they were fresh. Eggs Florentine were out on account of the runny egg. The pies and frittatas were off limits as I doubted they had been cooked that day. I ended up having a lacklustre soup that I didn’t really want. I was still tired and hungry at the end of it.

So began pregnancy. I was simultaneously hungry, nauseous, and exhausted all the time. The morning sickness hit me hard and I lost weight in the first few weeks of pregnancy. In a couple of weeks I stopped vomiting, but the nausea continued unabated. It was constant, there was no relief from it. I tried all the natural remedies; ginger tea, homeopathic morning sickness tablets, acupressure; but none of it made any difference. I steadfastly powered through it without my usual medication, until it got the better of me and I visited the doctor. She told me that the anti-emetic Maxolon was fine, which I had been avoiding for weeks, to my detriment. I worked out a regime where I would take several Maxolon to get me through the workday, then Phenergan at night so I could get to sleep. It was more medication than I wanted to be on, but the doctor assured me it was fine.

Under her direction, I also reduced the dosage of my antidepressant from 45 milligrams to 15. I had been well for years, and there was no conclusive data about Avanza and pregnancy as it was a relatively new drug, so I thought it best to play it safe. I was a bit nervous for myself about reducing my dose, but it was important to me to look after my baby. I had been wanting to reduce the Avanza anyway due to its’ side effects of weight gain and excessive sleepiness. It seemed like pregnancy was the impetus I needed.

Once the vomiting stopped, I began putting on weight at an alarming rate. Although I didn’t want to tell my bosses at work yet, there was no denying my bump. I was showing within the first few weeks of pregnancy. I was still nauseated all the time but I was also very very hungry. I hated eating, but I couldn’t seem to get enough food. I was exhausted, and spent my weekends sleeping. Some days at work I was so tired that I stayed there hours longer than I wanted to, because I couldn’t face the 10-minute walk to the train station. I would walk in the door at night and collapse on the couch. If Tim was home, he would make me something to eat; if he wasn’t, I often just crawled straight into bed with just a piece of toast, or nothing at all. I felt guilty because I knew I needed to exercise, but I just didn’t have the energy. Work was extremely busy as usual and I felt guilty about working long hours when I knew I needed to rest. This was not how I had imagined pregnancy to be. I was stressed and tired all the time and I just wanted to get back to normal.

I was lying in bed one night, exhausted, and feeling the weight of my seven-week belly against the bed. I thought, I am already too big, I can’t do this. At my current rate of growth there won’t be enough room for the baby, I can’t keep growing, I am too heavy. I suddenly became terrified that there was another human being growing inside me. I became removed from the idea of growing a baby and could only see it as a parasitic organism sucking the life out of me. I thought, there is this thing inside me growing every second, and I can’t stop it. It’s going to get bigger every day and take over my body. I began sweating and my heart began to race and within minutes I was having a full-blown panic attack. I got out of bed and began pacing around the house, completely distraught at having this thing grow inside of me and not being able to get it out. It seemed so crazy, so alien, to have another human being growing in my tummy.

I was desperate to get the foetus out of me. I cried all the time, as I knew I didn’t want an abortion after all I had been through and all the planning and work to get here, but I simply could not bear the thought of carrying a growing organism inside my belly. Tim rang me the day after the panic attack when I was in full fear mode and crying, and I told him I couldn’t have it in me. I was not brave enough to say the word ‘abortion,’ but that is what I meant. He threatened to come home, and rang my parents—something which made me very angry. My mum rang me and I pretended that everything was fine. That became the pattern for a long time.

For the next few weeks, I coped by ignoring it. That is the only way I can describe it. I just did my thing, caved to the fatigue and nausea as needed, but refused to think about it. I shut down my mind from considering the implications. The clothes, the shopping, the prams, the birth. All of it. I resolutely refused to look at any of it. When my mind did drift to the baby, I would panic again and force myself to think of something else. It was the only way I could get through.

The weeks trickled by so slowly. I wanted time to speed up, to get the thing out. One Saturday morning, I was doing the dishes before getting ready to go to a lunch for Father’s Day. I got a cramp and within a few minutes, I had to leave the dishes and go lie down with a heat pack. It wasn’t a bad cramp compared to what I had with the endometriosis, but it was enough to distract me. I went to the lunch feeling not quite right but didn’t think too much of it.

The next morning, I went to the toilet and saw blood in the toilet bowl. It wasn’t spotting, but a proper bleed. Even worse, there were bits of tissue in the toilet. I can only describe it as looking like picked scabs. It was on the sheets and my clothes as well. The cramping was still there, and worsening. Without trying to alarm Tim too much, I said that we needed to go to hospital. I didn’t tell him at the time, but I hadn’t had any morning sickness for two days. Combined with the cramping and bleeding, I was almost certain I was miscarrying.

Women with endometriosis who are able to conceive naturally are at a greater risk of miscarriage due to the presence of scar tissue on the reproductive organs. As we drove to the hospital, me in tears and Tim speeding as best he could without endangering us, I tried to accept that I might be miscarrying and that that was to expected from the endometriosis. I was upset, but not surprised. Suddenly faced with the prospect of losing my baby, I desperately wanted to hang on to her. I pleaded with my body the whole way there to keep holding her in, my little one. I had never wanted anything more in my life. I thought it was already too late. I was only nine weeks.

I was led into a cubicle at the hospital quite quickly. I had an intern do my initial examination and she said that if I was miscarrying, there was nothing that could stop it, and that it wasn’t my fault. I’m sure they’re trained to say this in an effort to reassure mothers that there’s nothing they could have done to prevent a miscarriage, but it made me feel totally helpless. It felt like she was confirming the inevitable. I felt like I was already grieving for the loss of my little one.

A very painful internal examination revealed that my cervix was still closed, which they said was a good sign. I had to have a scan to rule out an ectopic pregnancy. Although I probably wasn’t miscarrying, an ectopic pregnancy would have been just as bad. An ectopic pregnancy is one where the developing embryo implants in the fallopian tubes instead of the uterus. The embryo is considered ‘not viable’ as it endangers the mother and must be removed. Part or all of the fallopian tubes are often removed as well. An ectopic pregnancy would be just as bad as a natural miscarriage.

As it was a Sunday, and Father’s Day at that, the doctor told me that I may not be able to have an ultrasound today. I was even more frightened at this. I had come to hospital specifically as I knew they would be able to give me a scan and tell me what was happening. How could I possibly wait through another 24 hours? I had to know now. I couldn’t contemplate having to wait a whole extra day to find out if my baby was okay.

After more waiting, I was told that I could have a scan today after all. I was relieved to hear this, but it was still several agonising hours away. I had brought a book but there was no way I could read, I was too upset to focus on anything else. Tim and I sat there on the bed, holding hands and taking turns in quietly crying. Tim was so distraught that I couldn’t even look at him. Despite what the doctors said, I felt responsible for this