Life became extremely lonely when my first child was born and my anxiety was really bad. I was anxious all the time, as I didn’t know whether what I was doing with my baby was right or wrong. I was panicking over small things and felt extremely alone, as none of my friends had had babies, so no one really understood what I was going through.
I had the support of my husband, but when he went to work, my anxiety would really kick in and I didn't know what to do. I couldn’t deal with my little girl screaming. My mind would go blank and I would have to put my daughter down and I felt bad doing this.
I had no one to turn to or ask without feeling judged. I felt like a bad mum because of all the emotions I was feeling. I felt bad that I couldn’t deal with my daughter and her crying.
My daughter was born prematurely at 35 weeks and we had an extremely tough and emotional three weeks in the neonatal unit with difficulties with my daughter feeding and intense worry that she was going to be okay. I think that the trauma of this made me disconnect and I didn’t bond with my daughter. I really felt low and emotional – and I just had no energy to look after myself, let alone this tiny human being I had just given birth to.