While you’re pregnant, you never really imagine the prospect of your little one being whisked away to NICU. I never did. My pregnancy was relatively ok and I didn’t for a second entertain the idea. Saajan ended up staying in NICU for four nights due to low blood sugar. I was so confused by the diagnosis, coupled with my baby not physically being with me, it was my lowest of low time.
Below, fellow NICU mum, Vicki, talks about her journey as a NICU mum, her baby being born with an unexpected heart condition and the impact it had on her mental health.
When I found out I was pregnant with my eldest, I enjoyed 9 months of preparing the nursery, rubbing cream in my growing bump and wondering what he would look like.
I was determined to right all of the wrongs of my past with being the best mother I could be.
After a good birth, I met my son 8 hours later and 12 hours after that I was facing the worst time of my life.
My son was born with an undiagnosed heart condition and was fighting for his life in need of surgery.
For 9 days I watched as someone took care of my son, I was present and functioning but it was as though I was watching someone else go through this.
Very early on (whilst in hospital) I began to deteriorate mentally. I began to skip meals and abuse the pills I was on.
In the first year of Elijah’s life that steadily got worse. There is no support system on offer when you have a baby in NICU.
You adjust to NICU life and then if your lucky to be discharged your sent home and expected to get on with your life as if it never happened.
But it did.
The flashbacks, nightmares were too much, and we still had a surgery to get through, 18 months after Elijah’s birth I was diagnosed with PTSD.
The whole of Elijah’s first year I was spent spiralling and hiding what I was doing to everyone.
I became lost, I hide away not wanting to be the mother of the ill baby.
Surgery was three years ago now, and Elijah is a healthy and happy little boy.
The NICU flashbacks came back when I fell pregnant a second time and began to fear it would happen all over again. That we had to go through everything a second time. I didn’t think I was strong enough to do it again and as a result didn’t enjoy my pregnancy. Once again I was depressed but too scared to tell anyone as it was supposed to be a happy time right?
Ante natal depression is something we don’t routinely discuss.
Harlow was born after a very quick 50 minute labour and I spent so much time comparing the two experiences I developed post natal depression.
It is the most depressed I have ever been, and I was suicidal at numerous points. I got help very early on but the pills masked over it for a while it is only now 10 months on and in therapy I am facing all of the issues head on now.
Once that should have been dealt with and fixed all those years ago in NICU.
This is why I am launching a campaign for demand change and funding for a dedicated system to be out into ever NICU ward for better mental health care for NICU parents. For them to be assessed and have follow up care after discharge. To avoid like so many of us to still have to face these issues years down the line.
I began my blog when Elijah was 18 months old as a way to process what I had been through and have openly confessed to all of my mental health struggles in hope the more we talk, raise awareness the more we can normalize mental health issues.
For months, even years I was ashamed to go get help. Fearful they would take my children away and I let it fester worried I was a bad mother, that I wasn’t normal.
I spent three years constantly living in NICU in my head, never processing it, never dealing with it and letting it affect so much of my life when I should have been enjoying the fairy tale of motherhood I had first dreamt about.
I won’t get that time back and it is hard to reflect on the times I was so low I thought my family, my boys would be better off without me. But in sharing my story, and in launching the campaign I hope that it means that others may not have to go through what we did, as they will have the access, knowledge and confidence to help.
Vicki Cockerill is a NICU/ CHD Mum of two boys, a freelance blogger and social media adviser, Co-Founder of #knackeredandNorwich social club and maternal mental health advocate.
