Hello and welcome to my podcast, The Wellness Project with Des. On today’s episode I speak with Gemma Baxter about her battle with pre and post-natal depression.
I’m Desiree, a Mental Health Therapist that is passionate about helping people improve their mental health and live a healthy and fulfilled life. One way I do this is by interviewing experts in the field of mental health and wellness as well as those that have struggled with their mental health but have gained control over it and now live fulfilling lives. In this episode, we will hear from Gemma about her experience with a common type of depression that we need to spread more awareness of.
At 19 years old, Gemma was devastated when she was told she wouldn’t be able to have kids. She went through a grieving process and would become extremely jealous when it came to other people getting pregnant and having kids. After finding out that she would be unlikely to conceive, Gemma became pregnant after only 5 months of trying. This was years earlier than she had planned. She was shocked when she found out she was pregnant. She wasn’t ready or mentally prepared.
Within 3 months she was diagnosed with prenatal depression. She was having many intrusive thoughts. She felt out of control and like she wasn’t good enough, wasn’t capable enough. Between 8-12 weeks, she was feeling numb. Her husband noticed something was off but everyone was telling her these feelings were normal so she didn’t think to bring it up with her midwife at first.
Gemma was put in touch with a perinatal mental health team and had a good plan in place for her second pregnancy. She had a list of triggers that she, her midwife, and her husband were aware of. But she wasn’t able to be present or enjoy her time being pregnant due to the fear of falling unwell again. During her second pregnancy, she was also grieving her first pregnancy.
Pregnancy has a stereotype of being a beautiful and amazing experience but that isn’t always the case. More women need to speak out when they have a difficult time during pregnancy or don’t like being pregnant. We need more awareness of these issues to normalize the idea of pregnancy being difficult or unpleasant.
Listen to this episode to hear about Gemma’s experience with perinatal depression and how it was treated.