Perinatal Stories Australia

In this episode, I’m joined by Gemma - a recovering perfectionist, accredited social worker, perinatal counsellor, podcast host of @postpartumlikeaboss , and mum-of-two. From the moment she fell pregnant, Gemma experienced an immediate sense of identity loss and anxiety that lasted until postpartum. While the anxiety and unknowns disappeared after birth, the relentlessness and challenges of early...

When Sarah was discharged from the mother-and-baby psychiatric hospital, she felt both refreshed and proud. Her recovery from postpartum anxiety and OCD became a badge of honour. But that wasn’t the end of Sarah’s story with maternal mental ill health. Severe depression, a medication change, a presentation to the emergency department, and a second and third MBU admission filled pages of a book she...

We’re all familiar with the adage ‘healing isn’t linear’ but we don’t often talk about the way a non-linear recovery ambushes the way we see, and feel about, ourselves. This attack on her perceived sense of self is something Sarah was continuously forced to confront with every lapse that she encountered on her recovery from postpartum anxiety, OCD, and depression. Postpartum progressively broke do...

Monique’s birth may have been quick, but its complications and long-term impacts were anything but. From a 3rd degree tear, prolapse, severe postpartum haemorrhage, a full levator avulsion on the right and a partial levator avulsion on the left, a near death experience, and a stay in the ICU, she paints a picture of the pain from her birth trauma and postpartum PTSD as a ‘storm’ - one that she is...

As a psychologist, Gen was familiar with psychiatric wards, but with no history of mental ill health or any risk factors she certainly never expected to be on the ‘other side’ - admitted as a patient to an acute ward shortly after the birth of her son, Arlo. Following a relatively smooth pregnancy and delivery, Gen’s early postpartum was fraught with mastitis and the eventual development of sepsis...

With a history of anxiety and depression, Jess and her care team went into pregnancy with a plan to protect her mental health during postpartum. Unfortunately, serious and sudden medical diagnoses for her son, Jasper, immediately after birth meant Jess’s mental health was neglected amongst relentless surgeries, a two-month NICU admission, and full-time caretaking for a sick baby. The NICU experien...

Between a PCOS diagnosis, fertility struggles, and several rounds of IVF, it was not easy for Emma to bring her three boys into the world. Unfortunately, trying to conceive was only part of the mental and emotional battles she faced. Serious health complications in pregnancy, antenatal anxiety, guilt about not loving pregnancy, and a traumatic birth with her first son, only compounded the mental h...

When mum-of-two and mental health peer worker, Taegan, was first diagnosed with bipolar mood disorder, she didn’t believe motherhood and her mental illness would mix. So in the lead up to starting a family, Taegan spent years preparing, learning, getting second opinions, asking questions, and researching - everything she thought to best navigate motherhood with her diagnosis. After a manageable pr...

Like many mothers, Sarah from The Pesky Placenta Society struggled to decipher whether her pregnancy symptoms were ‘normal’ or something more sinister. But with a pre-existing chronic illness, Sarah also had to confront her complicated relationship with health anxiety. Unfortunately, the concerns she raised were proven to be more than ‘just anxiety’ when at 35 weeks pregnant, Sarah nearly died fro...

As Jade says, she has never shied away from sharing uncomfortable stories, and her story of bringing a baby earthside is no exception. While the birth of her daughter, River, seemingly gave her the ‘happy ending’ she so desperately wanted, her journey with uncomfortable stories did not end there. Instead of the new-born bubble she envisioned for so long, Jade had to walk on eggshells around her ba...

As someone who had never experienced mental ill health, the bubbly and outgoing Nikolina was confronted by the sudden onset of perinatal depression and anxiety within her first few weeks of motherhood. From crying for no reason to not being able to sleep, her PNDA symptoms hit very hard and very fast. Nikolina pushed through these symptoms for weeks, even using her son’s milestone photo cards as a...

As a self-confessed ‘flaming extrovert’, Lauren struggled with the isolating and all-consuming eat-play-sleep-bathe-repeat cycle of early motherhood. By six months postpartum, the newborn ‘love bubbles’ that she felt so intensely after both of her births became overshadowed by the onset of postpartum depression. From IVF, miscarriage, severe pregnancy health complications, to two traumatic births,...

"When Helen, a midwife and academic, describes her mental health in pregnancy and postpartum, she uses the word ‘blindsided’. Despite her expertise, Helen was confronted by post-traumatic stress disorder following two traumatic pregnancies, a NICU admission, baby loss, grief, and the continued uncertainties of IVF. As a health clinician, she was also staggered by the prevalence and general lack of...

In this episode, I welcome Jade who shares her ongoing journey with mental ill health - a journey which is both three years old but new at the same time. After the birth of her son and the subsequent sleep deprivation, Jade’s mental health declined and she was (mis)diagnosed with postpartum depression. Despite proactively and consistently seeking support from several psychologists and trying multi...

Like everything else in her life, Jess had many plans for motherhood. As planned, she fell pregnant after completing her psychologist registration. But from the moment Jess saw the positive result on the pregnancy test, she was surprised that her once positive outlook was overshadowed by an all-consuming sense of dread and anxiety. Despite sharing this openly with her care providers, her severe an...

As a public health researcher and implementation scientist who thought highly of her “ability to get shit done” Lisa assumed motherhood would be easy - especially compared to her prior achievements with study, work, and life. To her surprise though, Lisa struggled with the transition to motherhood. From a gestational diabetes diagnosis, birthing a small baby, a NICU admission, and breastfeeding pa...

At 18 weeks pregnant, Aimee suffered the unimaginable - her waters ruptured and for the next 20 weeks she lived every day on bed rest in uncertainty about whether her baby would actually survive. To the surprise of every doctor, Aimee’s waters resealed and at 38 weeks, Evie, a healthy baby girl, was born. But her relief and joy vanished when suddenly she felt like she was living the worst case sce...

When Ella reflects on motherhood, she talks about two things: firstly, the dream of motherhood that she’d had her whole life, and secondly, the nightmare that she was confronted with when she actually became a mother. Between not feeling the immediate bond to her daughter, the inability to communicate her feelings with anyone in her family, her husband working long hours, and the realisation that...

A successful economist and accomplished career woman, Kathryn from MotherUp has always been the quintessential high achiever who needed certainty and control over every aspect of her life. Although, of course, when she had her little girl Liv, Kathryn learnt the hard way that perfectionism and motherhood do not mix. She assumed the anxiety she felt during pregnancy would be alleviated when her dau...

For Tegan, mental ill health was nothing new. So naturally, a happy and mentally healthy pregnancy and postpartum with her first daughter, Addie, took everyone by surprise - including Tegan! It was only after baby number two, Amelia, that Tegan was reacquainted with anxiety and OCD. Unfortunately, it was far from a happy reunion. After weeks of being dismissed by medical professionals and the hosp...

I spent most of my life imagining motherhood. I couldn't imagine anything else - not a career, not travel, not study - just motherhood. What I didn't imagine, however, was a breakdown that sent me to a psychiatric hospital only days after my son's birth. I’d never felt so scared or alone in my life. I’d never felt so ashamed. But to my surprise, I was far more scared to be discharged than I was to...

With a long history of anxiety, I had every intention of not letting anxiety get in the way of birth and parenting. In fact, I spent most of my pregnancy doing everything I thought was ‘right’ to plan and protect my mental health in postpartum. Unfortunately, I was so focused on postpartum that I couldn’t see the anxiety escalating throughout my pregnancy. Welcome to Perinatal Stories Australia. I...

Welcome to Perinatal Stories Australia, a podcast holding space for the untold stories of maternal mental illness in Australia. By sharing the lived experiences of struggle and healing, I hope this podcast reduces stigma, informs listeners about supports available, and inspires those on their own journey. No medical advice provided.   FOLLOW the podcast on Instagram and Facebook @perinatalstoriesa...