top of page
OUR STORY
Hello, I'm Stef, founder of Brighter Skies
This campaign was born from my husband Andrew and I’s own experience following the birth of our first child, Harlan. Before I share our story, I want to offer a gentle warning: this isn’t an easy read. If you’re not in the right headspace to hear about perinatal mental health, including references to suicide, I completely understand, please feel free to scroll on by. But if you do choose to stay, thank you. Your support and understanding mean everything as we push for better care, stronger support and brighter skies ahead for families everywhere.
OUR PERINATAL EXPERIENCE
There are many emotions bubbling away right now as I share our story with you. One of the strongest is the feeling of being incredibly grateful, firstly, that I have the understanding of what happened to me after having our baby boy and secondly, that I am here to share it. As hopefully our story could give a new family hope, give them their survival guide.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? And looking back, I knew very quickly that something wasn’t right the moment I gave birth. Something just didn’t feel right within myself. Which probably leads us to the biggest piece of advice we could ever share; you know yourself better than anyone, so trust your gut.
Being a brand-new mum and still within the maternity ward, I thought ‘give yourself a break Stef, you’ve literally just given birth for the first time, I’m sure all this is very normal and it will pass’.
It didn’t pass.
And we now have the knowledge and understanding that my brain was ‘stuck’ in-between fight and flight mode following birth trauma from our 17 hour induction process. It sounds so simple now, but the following months would be the shittest and most terrifying time of our lives.
We can only speak from our experiences, and everyone’s journeys and illnesses will very look different. But we are hoping if any of this sounds familiar, for you or someone you know, it could open up questions and thoughts, giving you or your loved ones more confidence in reaching out and asking (or in some cases, pushing) for help.
Trust your gut.
Being stuck in birth trauma was missed by the Crisis Team who were the first professionals we saw at our home about a week after having Harlan. I will always remember saying to the doctor, “I think I have postnatal depression, as I don’t feel myself at all.” His reply was, “you let me worry about that, you’re just a very anxious new mum, you’re not suffering with PND”. Knowing what I know now, I wish I’d had the confidence to say: “no, I’m telling you, something is wrong here.”
By this stage me, Andrew and my parents didn’t have a clue what was going on and it was, excuse my French, fucking terrifying. I was shaking uncontrollably, not all of time but it would come in big waves. I could not sit still, I would be pacing around the house or my legs would just move without me even knowing when sat down. I couldn’t have a bath (and I love a good soak!), I couldn’t rest, I wasn’t sleeping at all and was given strong sleeping tablets to essentially knock me out, that would only work for a couple of hours before I was back up in the night, totally wired not knowing why.
It wasn’t pretty. I felt terrified, I couldn’t leave the house, I couldn’t be away from Andrew but then on the flip side, sometimes my head would want me to get my trainers on and head out the door or jump in the car. Fight or flight at its best, in high states of adrenaline.
As we understand it now, which is so massively important for us to be able to process any of this, my brain during birth thought subconsciously that I was going to die, and therefore some parts of it had now shut down from that moment. This left the front part of my brain, our ‘problem solving’ and ‘new’ part of the brain, left thinking it essentially had to ‘finish the job’ putting it very bluntly.
This led to new symptoms starting, I think the best way I can describe it is that everything just started to go dark. The joy in everything just started to slip away. I didn’t want to message friends or loved ones, I didn’t want to see anyone. I couldn’t stand any noise, things like music - which I normally loved. It was just so weird, but I just started not to care about anything which is the opposite of who I am as a person.
Other symptoms were not being able to concentrate or do any simple tasks, even deciding what to wear felt impossible - it was wild. I couldn’t feel anything, I was just numb and shut down. I was so low and lost really, and trying to navigate being a new mum. I remember desperately trying to feel for Harlan, I was still able to look after and care for him, but I couldn’t feel anything for my beautiful little boy - which left me feeling like I had just totally failed him.
By this stage the Crisis team had pushed for us to see the community perinatal team, but without them pushing for this, I’m genuinely not sure when we would have actually seen a professional in perinatal care as this is not routine.
Our wonderful midwife was with us throughout the whole process but essentially in her own time, as by rights we were out of the number of days’ care given post-birth and this now wasn’t within her skillset. Care-wise things were all over the place, I remember us being given the choice of what medication we wanted to try. By this stage, I couldn’t decide what I wanted for lunch never mind what would hopefully start to make me feel more like myself. We didn’t even know what was happening, or if medication was the best route. We really needed someone to take control and help us. The medication plan at that point still wasn’t showing any signs of improvement and we would be on weekly/two weekly appointments with the PT - this just all felt too late and we were right as my condition just spiralled radically from the initial trauma.
The days were never-ending and the nights even longer.
The darkness and isolation quickly started to become a daily battle of my brain wanting to end my life, as extreme as it sounds. It feels crazy saying this to you, as I can’t quite believe myself sometimes, but for example one minute I would be in our kitchen and the next thing I’m holding knives to my wrists or stomach. I appreciate that this is not an easy read but we wanted to share everything, as that way, if anyone reading this who has felt suicidal - there’s nothing you can say that will shock anyone, trust me. I’ve been to rock bottom; you are not alone.
On 28th October 2022, in a moment of desperation and wanting the noise to stop, I took an overdose on our bathroom floor. Rock fucking bottom indeed. While I’m not exactly proud of this, I wouldn’t go back and change it, as it was the start of me getting me back. Something I never thought would ever happen to be honest, my light had gone.
On 2nd November 2022, Andrew and I made the hardest decision for our little family - Harlan and I would go into Nottingham Mother and Baby Unit. That was a fun drive, I can tell you… dark and bucketing it down the whole way. I’m not sure to this day how Andrew had the strength to do it, but he did, and we were admitted that night to the unit that became mine and Harlan’s home for the next six weeks. The worst and best decision I’ve ever made. Within a week of the right course of treatment and care, you could see a difference and my recovery and rebuilding began. Eventually, my light came back.
I had to fight and dig so very deep.
I remember one day being sat on the floor at the end of the ward corridor looking out at the world going about its business, thinking why is this happening to us? And how the hell am I going to get through it? Feeling so unbelievably lost, scared shitless and heartbroken. I didn’t realise how much I could cry, but my goodness I sobbed.
My hardest battle to date.
We could write and write in much more detail, but for anyone keen to hear more, we are super happy to sit down and go through any parts of our journey and knowledge, if that would help you or someone you know who is struggling with their mental wellbeing after becoming a new parent. You are not alone and I know first-hand how bloody terrifying it is to think something isn’t right, never mind saying it out loud to someone and asking for help. Especially in a world of Instagram and the ‘perfect’ new baby vibes.
There are a lot of factors that led to our journey and we felt very strongly about Brighter Skies not being a ‘blame game’, because we can’t change the past, but we can 100% make sure we can make changes for the future. Our birth was a perfect storm of things going ‘wrong’ or being overlooked which led to the trauma being triggered and postnatal depression developing. This one story alone highlights the gaps in perinatal mental health care and resources throughout Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS trust.
Just as my dear husband, loved ones and the epic team at Notts MBU did for me, Brighter Skies will keep your light shining for you. Because no family deserves to be left in the dark.
bottom of page