PND - The Recovery and My Testimony

The support group was held at a church.  They also ran a toddler group and I decided - 'great I'll go there too'.  I found being at home just led me down to dark thoughts and being with others meant I couldn't dwell in them. 

At the toddler group I met Christians, but I didn't know it at the time. At the support group I met someone who was at my prenatal groups. I remember thinking 'why is she having a baby, she just seems so worried about everything especially getting her bathroom done'.  At the support group, the woman had completely changed.  She was calm and so in love with her new baby.  She was an amazing encouragement and I wondered what had changed.  She is 15 years older then me but we became friends.  I liked strong opinionated women and she was open about everything - she also happened to be a psychiatric nurse and a Christian.  It wasn't long before she told me about Jesus and reason for her hope.  I remember thinking 'great - first friend I make is a weirdo'  However what she said made sense and I became intrigued.  The toddler group announced they were going to hold an alpha course and it was a chance to find out all about Jesus and ask any questions.  I wanted to go along and find out more so I signed up.

I was so amazed about everything they were saying.  A father God that loves you.  That He loves you so much that He gave His one and only Son to die for you.  As far as I was concerned, I was worthless but I could understand love by how I felt for my son.  That no matter what my son did I would love him always and do whatever I could for him.  I was being told that this is how God felt for me.  I felt blown away by his love and grace.  It took a little while to get my head around this and my friend was great at answering any questions I had along with attending alpha.  I decided I wanted to become a Christian to accept God but felt a bit silly.  How do you really know? How do you know if its really true or is it just feel good words?  I felt a bit worried, as I had been so low, perhaps I was very vulnerable and this was one of those weird cult things? My friend explained a bit about faith and what it really meant.  I decided to go along and 'try' church.  I finally got the courage to go to a service.  It was really scary but thankfully I saw some friendly faces from the group.  Afterwards people were being prayed for, I asked what it was all about.  I decided that if God was real I would be touched as they were.  I think I was a bit cynical about it, but as I was being prayed for I felt the Holy Spirit fall upon me (even though I had never heard of it or had any idea what it is).  It was the most amazing sensation going through my whole body.  The empty hole was being filled.  There was nothing else like it and when I came to, I was lying on the floor.  I was completely amazed and knew it to be so real.  This was not a made up experience - this was real.  God and Jesus are real.  I felt like I had discovered Gold!

My family and husband were a bit worried when I came home beaming about it.  However, Jon was so worried I would get poorly again and could see whatever the 'church thing' was about it was changing me and helping me to come out of the darkness for good.  I could understand their worries.  We hear so much about cults, brain washing and religion preying on the vulnerable and sick.

Slowly I was beginning to hate myself less and enjoying life more.  I was seeing myself from a different angle and not from failure.  I did cleansing streams which looked back at my past and uncovered some of the thoughts I had, which led to the depression.  Slowly and patiently God revealed the thinking that needed to be changed.  He was able to restore me and take away the hatred I had for myself.  The medication helped me get to the place to deal with my issues.  God healed me from depression.

After I had come off the medication, I was able to cope with day to day life.  I now had a church family.  They are an amazing body of friends whom I can trust.  They are not perfect but help me to rely on God and point me towards Him.  In fact my friends not being perfect help assures me, how we can't do this on our own and how much we need God and we need Jesus.  Having God in my life meant I no longer had to live in fear and when those thoughts and anxieties came I just talked to Him, knowing that He is all powerful and He is for me.  My past issues did not magically disappear and God has slowly revealed more that needs to be corrected.  I have also done Freedom in Christ and was really blessed by this.  I am now at a place where I don't hate myself anymore.

PND - As a Non-Christain

Being a mum for the first time was so fantastic and I absolutely adored him.  However, 4 months after having B, I was diagnosed as having PND - Post Natal Depression.  I was really poorly with it.  I remember after giving birth, looking at the leaflet we were given about the signs of post-natal depression.  It was of a miserable looking woman, badly dressed who seemed very sorry for herself - that was not how I looked or thought I appeared.

B was a difficult baby but I did not resent him for it, I did not feel angry or cross at him at all.  However, I did feel an absolute hatred for myself.  I could not stand who I was or how I looked and I certainly did not feel I deserved such a precious gift of this perfect baby.  I had thought I would just fit back into my pre-pregnancy clothes and hated this disgusting fat body I was left with.  I thought that with motherhood I would be complete but I did not. I thought it would fill a hole that I felt had been empty my whole life.  Even though I filled it with good grades, promotions, fairytale wedding, nothing could even touch it. 

In hindsight, I had been depressed a long time before I was pregnant but I believed depression happened to 'other' people. I thought depression was for people who couldn't leave the house or were older, or who didn't like how their life had turned out and I thought PND was for people who didn't love their baby. I certainly had a lot of preconceptions of depressed people, PND and I had very strong expectations and ideals of parenting.

At this point I was not a christian, my friends did not have babies and were moving along in their lives doing what young people did.  My family was not around as we had moved away for university and jobs - I felt very alone.  It was at the point where the depression was also physical - walking up the stairs to our home felt like such a task, especially carrying our baby.  I didn't want to leave the house as the stairs were painful to manage, my body just ached.  At one point I was self harming and was in such confusion.  I wanted to live and see my precious baby grow but as the same time I could not stand myself.  I wasn't good enough to have this child.  After an argument with my husband, I was in self harm mode. Jon forced me to stop and seek help.  The following day I spoke to my health visitor and saw a doctor.  I was put on antidepressants and received some counselling from the health visitor for about 6 weeks until I was stable.

I felt ashamed telling family members and tried to explain my feelings of anxiety over their visits or going out but I just felt it made the situation worse. They took it personally - as though they had done something wrong.  They hadn't, I was just poorly and couldn't explain myself very well.  It was really difficult for all of us to understand.

When the medication brought me a level of stability.  I felt ready to fight it - I am a fighter and was not going to be brought down by this.  Although the feelings of hatred were still present, I felt I could overcome the depression with medication, exercise and going out meeting new people, regardless of how I was feeling.  A post-natal support group had started up at our doctors surgery and I decided to go along. I felt determined to get better.  I'll post about the recovery soon...

From 5 to 6

It took 4 months to conceive L, and it felt like 4 very long months.  We longed for another baby.  I was at the point of being obsessed with my cycle and looking on the net for different conceiving ideas.  We know our children are from God and He has the ultimate control over life.  We also knew that God had laid on our hearts to have another child.  I was impatient and just wanted to help the situation along... There are so many different suggestions to help you conceive and even gender swaying techniques online.  We decided to try the 'sperm meets egg plan' (not a gender swaying plan but a plan to help maximise your conception chances) I think it gave it us a renewed focus rather than dwelling on the failed previous attempts.  It was quite a commitment but we did get pregnant! After losing a child, I did feel really anxious about conceiving again but we had to keep praying and laying this down at the cross.

Early pregnancy was a real test of faith.  I was really scared of losing the baby.  I did 2 tests about a week apart and the line looked stronger on the second test which made me a little more confident.  We kept on praying.  Also a friend had said to me - "you're expecting a baby not a miscarriage" which really helped me.  After 9 weeks I felt a lot more relaxed.  We made sure we told some of our friends and family when we found out, and we made a point of enjoying this pregnancy.  Learning the lessons from last time, we wanted to give this life joy, however long he would be with us.  We purposefully did not find out the sex this time.  I was so thankful just to be pregnant, I really didn't care but at the same time I know I don't think very rationally when I'm pregnant and did not want my brain to 'overthink' and come up with incorrect conclusions! It was great to have the surprise and I really couldn't of cared if it was a boy or not.  It was great to experience this freedom - Thank-you God for your grace and our beautiful son!

I had learnt, from my careful eating, that I put on weight when pregnant regardless, so I decided I would eat what I liked and be happy this time round.  It was great.  I wanted to eat big fat juicy burgers - I even had a rustler - which is a disgusting processed microwaved burger but I really did enjoy it.  I loved feeling the baby move, getting bigger and getting new bits for the baby.  Although its uncomfortable and I was a little snappy with my closest I did enjoy it.  I signed up to the baby clubs and forums and decided to make the most of being pregnant.  We even did a cast of my tummy.  However, I did not enjoy being 10 days late!! I wanted to meet my baby and hold him in my arms, by the time I was due I had well and truly had enough.

The labour was really difficult.  It was 7 nearly 8 hours of intense labour pains (double contractions is what the midwife called them).  I wanted to have an epidural but they were too busy, in fact they shortly closed the maternity ward after I had left as over capacity.  My labour experience was not good this time round and I was pushed home within a few hours of giving birth, as no room.  I had nightmares every time I went to sleep for a week afterwards.  I also had an infection which they did not pick up on, which also led to a secondary infection.  However we were still joyous over our newborn.  He looked so small and helpless, it was great to have a baby back in the house.  I had missed this without even knowing it.

I did not recover from birth very quickly at all and felt I needed to, in order to do my job of being a wife and mother.  I thankfully had and accepted lots of help, in terms of meals being cooked, ironing, taking children to and from school.  My husband was a great support and I gave him a list of priorities -

1. Toilet kept clean and loo roll to be present

2. Food in the house

3. Clean clothes

4. Clean down kitchen sides so no bugs

When I was pregnant, I had made lots of meals that could be easily microwaved for dinners and written a list of contacts for help. I had to live in mess but it was ok as long as above was met, I was happy.  Although we don't have family around us, we are surrounded by our church family and they came together and helped us.  God has shown me not to be independent but dependant on him.  We were so blessed by his church and so grateful for all the support we received. Thank-you God for showering us with more of your love and grace!

After a couple of months, I had recovered from giving birth and was in the swing of being a mother of 4.  Its harder to maintain a routine when you have school aged children as you have to take them to and from school at certain times, throughout the week.  L has not been in such a rigid routine like the others but we have certainly enjoyed him and our other children, which was our top priority! 

Royal Fun

Well living in a house full of boys, watching the Royal wedding meant I had to plan it out...  The way to my boys hearts is their tummy! We woke up early and kept reminding them that we were watching history in the making! We made our own flags and decorated princely crowns.  Just before the actual wedding, the boys dressed up as princes and I dressed up as a princess (put on my wedding dress).  The boys were most interested in playing camps in my dress but I did get to watch it in peace - ish.  I loved it, beautiful ceremony, beautiful day.

After the wedding, we had a cream tea.  N loves cucumber sandwiches just like me, so it was nice to share in this with him whilst the others had jam.  The boys loved the scones with cream and jam.  Jon and I were able to talk to our sons about marriage and share with them our special day.  Its fun to create memories for our children and we hope they'll look back in years to come at this event fondly...

Failing Easter?

This year, Easter in our house did not go as I would have liked it.  Last year, each Sunday, from lent, we had family time with planned activities.  We spent time going over what happened to Jesus and why.  We celebrated Holy week and made a model of the tomb.  We took communion as a family, we enjoyed hot cross buns and talked about why we do what we do at Easter in remembrance.  Easter Sunday morning was a time of celebration and prayer.  We went to church, we did an Easter egg hunt, we prayed, had fun and watched a film about Easter together.  It felt good to celebrate as a family and use the gifts of planning God gave me for Him.

This year, lent came and went, and although I was thinking about Easter I didn't really make the time to do family activities.  I kept putting it off thinking I'll start it next week, or well its too late now we'll do it at Holy week.  I served at the kids holiday at our church the first week of Easter and then we went away for the second week as our boiler was being installed. I had thought about doing readings each morning with children during holy week.  This didn't happen, as it took a while to settle the children at Nanny's and Grandads whilst we were away.  Good Friday was spent travelling home and then it was bedtime.  Before I knew it Easter was here and I had a whole list of excuses as to why I was so busy and hadn't used this oppertunity to teach our children.  I would never dream of being so busy to miss Christmas, so what had happened? I still love Jesus...

I learnt more about Gods grace! We still celebrated Easter and it was good!  We had fun at Kids holiday club and had a fantastic week away.  (I went with the boys as Jon had to work and be here for the plumber).  We really needed the break and the kids loved being with family.  When we got home, we talked about Jesus and the cross.  We shared hot cross buns on Saturday instead and named it Sad Saturday as we talked about what had happened.  Easter Sunday we woke up and shared a lovely breakfast together.  We read the bible and prayed together.  We went to church and listened to a great sermon on Easter.  It was refreshing and just what I needed to hear.  Easter is a new beginning.  We still had our Easter egg hunt and the children enjoyed watching a film, whilst eating their eggs.  It wasn't all about chocolate and not quite as focused on Jesus as I would of liked. 

Its not our traditions that will bring our children to Jesus but God alone who saves.  This year we had to rely not on the rituals we created but rely on Gods grace, to teach our children.  I am thankful for the freedom I have in Christ.  I am thankful I do not need to feel or remain guilty in 'not doing things properly'.  I do not have to feel ashamed I failed to plan out Easter. I am thankful I can confess, repent of my sin and be forgiven.  I am thankful for new beginnings! Next year I plan to plan it out as Easter is important to us.  Jesus died on the cross for my sins, defeated death and rose to life.  This is worth the time and effort in creating traditions for my family in remembrance.  It is not by our works we are saved, we know this, but we want to bring honour to God and direct our children to Jesus, not just by our words but how we live out our faith.  

Our Heavenly Child

We had decided 3 was it for us, but slowly over time God revealed to us his plan and softened our hearts.  I remember thinking well not until J is a lot older.  I did not want to repeat just fitting in a baby into our lives but wanted to enjoy our next child.  That was when we were given a 'gift'. At the time, we thought of it more as an accident as we weren't planning on having another child yet.  We were both in shock and I felt almost embarrassed by it.  I am, after all, a grown woman, how can this happen?  Last time I viewed it straight away as a gift because we had wanted a baby at that time.  This time I am ashamed to admit, we did not see it like that, straight away.

I was in denial to begin with and then I felt really awful.  I remember being so tired and feeling sick at the weirdest times of day.  I felt different compared to previous pregnancies.  After a few more weeks, we begun to feel excited about the birth of number 4.  I just accepted that this pregnancy I was going to feel very tired and sick.  I had signed up to the pregnancy emails, planning our new addition in our heads.  I remember booking my midwife appointment and feeling why on earth had I been in denial, this is so great.  We had only told one close friend at the time as we needed time to get our heads around it all.  We wanted to be further along before we told everyone as that's what we had always done.  We were looking forward to being parents again.

At 8 1/2 weeks I started bleeding and we lost our baby at 9weeks. We were devastated.  I couldn't believe how much I needed to grieve for a baby that had never been.  It did not make logical sense.  However, our baby was very real to us and was a great loss.  I would look at my other children and feel so sad about what I had missed out on. I regretted not sharing the amazing news of being pregnant and not enjoying every moment of our precious child's life, even though it existed just in my womb.  I felt guilty for my initial feelings of our baby being an accident rather than thinking of a gift.  Also sadness that I still believed I was in control rather than God over the matter of having children. 

I needed support from friends and family, so we had to tell them of our sadness and never of the joy.  I just wanted to be back to normal and had no comprehension of how tired I would feel and that my body would need time physically to get over this.  I wanted not to feel sad over this but it took at least 3 months just to initially grieve.

I like to think that God loved our child so much, He wanted it back straight away and that its SO loved.  I still think about our child that is not here on Earth, but time has helped it become less painful to think back.  I still feel emotional around the time we lost our baby and when it was due.  My friend had a baby, around the time mine would have been due so seeing her baby does make me wonder what mine would of been like now.

When we had grieved for our loss and my body had returned back to normal, we conceived L.  It was such joy, although very scary but we made sure we shared the news with our families etc and everyone who supports us so whatever happened with our child, we would have memories of sharing the joy.  God certainly restores and I did cherish being pregnant with L, we are so thankful for him and for the chance to being parents again.

Life with 5

I had J in a routine straightaway.  I needed to, as there was 19months between J and N, and 3years 11months between J and B.  It was easy to implement as had just done it with N and had the experience of multitasking with 2 children.  However, it was very tiring and the birth took a bit longer to recover.  It was about 6 weeks before I felt like myself again. 

We had an established routine that was working well for our family.  Without routine, it would have been chaos and not enough time for everyone.  The children had rest/sleep and eating patterns that I strictly followed.  They also had a strict bedtime and wake-up time.  I enjoy being organised and during this time I could plan all these details.  

We were living in a small house.  Plus side was it meant housework did not take up a lot of time however we were beginning to outgrow it.  When J was about 6 weeks, we sold and bought a renovation project in one day.  We then moved in 6 weeks later.  We prayed about the move and everything went through quickly.  It was exciting designing and planning how we wanted our family home to be.  Looking back though I feel we were to quick to make these decisions. 

There were and still are many times that I think God is this really the right decision? did we really hear from you or was it us being too enthusiastic and rushing in?  We had both always wanted to buy a house and do it up.  When we were students we had part time jobs in a diy store together which had taught us about decorating and building.  Our smaller house needed completely re-decorating, which we did together and really enjoyed.  However our new house was a much bigger project and needed lots of work and money (which we soon ran out of).

Time passed so quickly.  I had to be out most of the time, due to all the work that was being done.  We weren't really enjoying life with our new precious baby but just surviving through it.  The house project took up all our spare time.  Evenings and weekends were spent discussing or preparing for the next stage.  I found I did not enjoy the groups or going out as much with 3 children when there was no alternative.   It was so hard to keep an eye on all of them and to try and hold a conversation with another adult seemed impossible. I longed to be able to let the children play with their own toys and just relax in my own home.  I still stuck to our routine of sleep and eating to keep order for the children but it was hard.  It is sad as I don't remember that much of J being a baby.  In some ways I wish we had purchased a 'ready' house and enjoyed our family time instead.  If we had though, I would of missed out on more of Gods teaching and leading. 

After a year of renovating, we could actually 'live' in our house.  We took some time off from house jobs.  The house was not completed and is not still.  I really felt God saying to me that there is more to a home than just functional rooms, all looking good.  It was time to put Jesus in our home.  I don't mean fancy paintings or statues but looking at exactly what a home is and what it means to us. We want Jesus to be the centre of our lives and that includes our home.  So far life had been about material possessions and getting the space right.  God was teaching us - this is not His way.  We started to open our house up more and have people over.  I found that really hard, as I just like things as they should be and felt our house was incomplete but I am learning to be patient (not proud) and that it really doesn't matter.  We were learning to be thankful for what we have and we have so much!

I remember being given a word that Gods work in me, was like our house.  That as we went through each room restoring it to its original purpose, God was doing that to me.  I have had such healing and restoration from God but I will post more on that story later....

Back to life as 5, J was a great toddler and I made every effort to enjoy him and enjoy toddler hood.  Our new house has a big playroom so all the children can play together. It was a lot less stressful and easier to keep my eye on all of them and to meet their different needs, in our own house.  I think this is why I enjoyed J's toddler hood as I could finally relax!  The house is a blessing as now we have a great space for our children and their friends (as well as ours) to entertain in.  We could now make it into our home!

Lots of my original friends from having B had moved onto the next phase.  By this I mean, as they gained more freedom from playschool etc, it was easier to get back to work and be something other than 'mummy'.  As I was still in this phase, and a new baby in tow, I knew it would be a while before I had any time to myself again.  I did feel sad but God blessed me and met with me in this. After my third child, with all the lessons God had taught me, God started to reveal his calling to me...