Robyn de Beer suffered with Postnatal Depression (PND) after the birth of her first child in 2006. This is her story as told to The Motherish.
I’ve got three children. My oldest is nine and then I’ve got a six-year-old and a three-year-old. I had bad postnatal depression with my first – with my nine-year-old son.
I didn’t really know what postnatal depression was to be honest. I had a perfectly normal pregnancy, everything was fine. I was excited about him coming along. He came a month early, so it was a little bit unexpected. My mum was out of the country on holiday, so she wasn’t there. I couldn’t get a hold of anybody except my husband.
Then my son got stuck. The cord was around his neck. I don’t know if that situation during birth led to my postnatal depression, I have no idea. I didn’t get that feeling of intense love that everyone says you have when your baby is born either. Everyone was like, “Oh it was love at first sight.” I didn’t get that at all, I just remember being exhausted, tired and confused.
I also had a terrible time breastfeeding him. I just couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t seem to feed him enough and he was feeding 24/7. I was so terrified to give him formula at this point because I just thought that was the worst thing you could do as a mother.
Ultimately, I just became more and more stressed and I felt like he didn’t love me. He’d be screaming and screaming and screaming and I’d be trying to soothe him and... nothing. My husband would walk in the room and pick him up and it’d be fine. It ended up getting to the point where he’d be crying and I’d be like, "Well you go get him, he doesn’t want me anyway." I started backing away from my role as a mother and that made it all even more difficult.