In my early 20s, I scheduled an appointment with my gynaecologist under the pretense of knowing that one day, I desperately wanted to have a baby. It was a sit-down appointment where I was assured that due to my age, my fertility would not be in question. Nevertheless, I was also offered an internal ultrasound as a precaution. Instinctively, I felt compelled to say yes, even though it was going to cost me an additional few hundred dollars.
This intuition served me very well.
I remember the exact moment my stomach dropped.
"Oh," the gynaecologist said. "You have a heart shaped uterus."
A bicornuate uterus was the technical term for the malformation, she told me. But the impact that this malformation would have on my fertility seemed unclear, though.
I could tell my gynaecologist was trying to offer reassurance as a I grappled with the news — the very organ I had hoped with every fibre of my being would one day carry a baby, was malformed. But the malformation was quite severe. In fact, there was even a question that it may be a septate uterus, due to the very large septum of tissue that separated my uterus into two sections.
"With a malformation like this, you may not be able to carry a baby to full term," my gynaecologist explained.
In that moment, I felt like my hopes and dreams for my future were crushed. But when I debriefed with my beautiful sister — a nurse at the Royal Childrens Hospital — a glimmer of hope returned.
"You can still carry and deliver a baby, even if it isn't to full term," she said. It was that positivity that encouraged me to press forward, trying not to let my diagnosis impact my dreams.
At 27, I fell pregnant with my husband on our very first try. All the early scans and check ups were perfectly normal. However, I suffered a bleed at 12 weeks pregnant and landed in the emergency department of our local hospital. It was midnight on a Saturday night — a very bleak affair — and there was no one on shift who specialised in pregnancies or ultrasounds. Nevertheless, the nurses performed an ultrasound and assured me that my baby's heartbeat was strong.
A few days later, I had a follow up appointment with my obstetrician, who prescribed progesterone pessaries, a drug inserted vaginally to lower the chance of having a pre-term birth. I left with instructions to use them until I was 34 weeks pregnant.
At 34 weeks, I stopped using them, and my waters broke five days later as I was returning home from a K-mart baby haul trip with a friend.
Everything happened really quickly after that, but I was able to harness a sense of peace and control amidst the chaos. I knew my baby was being born early, but had I not received my bicornuate uterus diagnosis early, my birth experience could have been completely different, and far more stressful.
My contractions started incredibly mild, but were very frequent. I remember thinking how easy it was. I was in active labour for only three hours. I had asked for the epidural and not long after receiving it, I was ready to start pushing. I pushed for 50 minutes and with that, my little boy was born. He cried, and in that moment I had completely forgotten that he was even premature. He looked so perfect, so healthy.
We had a few moments of skin to skin contact, but the midwife quickly whisked him away to be assessed by the pediatrician. While my baby was being assessed, my obstetrician informed me that my placenta was stuck and that I needed to go into immediate surgery for a manual removal. I was wheeled into surgery 15 minutes after giving birth, which meant we were separated for a few hours.
When we were reunited, I was wheeled into the special care nursery in a hospital bed. My baby was in an incubator, hooked up to a nasal gastric tube. It was at this moment, I realised the gravity of having a premature baby. Suddenly, I felt like I was on the nurses' schedule, instructed to follow their orders instead of my instincts. I struggled with this.
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I was discharged a few days later, but my baby had to remain in hospital. I spent all day by my baby's bedside, but I was not allowed to stay overnight. It was this experience of being separated from my newborn baby, I think, that first promped my post-partum anxiety — a diagnosis I received six months later, when I was admitted to my local Mother and Family Unit by my maternal health nurse, who identified that I was struggling.
I had longed for this baby all my life, and had him almost against the odds. But motherhood wasn't what I had imagined it to be. My newborn was incredibly unsettled.
For the first six months, I could not get my baby to stop crying, to feed properly, or to sleep. I knew something wasn't right. Still, in all of the doctors appointments and maternal child health appointments, I was told, "You know, babies cry. It's normal".
But they weren't there to see me breastfeeding my baby twice every three hours because the first feed would inevitably be vomited back up. The mental and physical toll of feeding him twice at every feed, not knowing what the right thing to do was, and not feeling supported by medical professionals, was starting to consume me. On top of that, my baby wasn't sleeping — and neither was I, of course. They say sleep deprivation is a form of torture. And it really is.
At six months old, my baby was diagnosed with reflux, and I walked through the doors of a psychiatric facility for mothers.
I was broken, a shell of myself. I was ashamed to be there, and I told no one but my husband and my mother that I was going — and I swore them both to secrecy. I was at no risk of harming my baby, and I never had any intrusive thoughts about hurting myself, either. But I didn't think I could carry on with the same routine. Immediately, I was prescribed diazapam and melotonin, and the nurses took my baby overnight so that I could catch up on sleep.
In hospital, I received psychiatric care and psychology sessions that involved intensive cognitive behavioural therapy. When I was discharged a few weeks later, I walked out of those doors with a renewed sense of hope. I had the energy to begin sleep training my baby, and at eight months old, he started sleeping through the night.
I was able to pick myself back up, and now, I advocate for all mothers to ask for this help if they are struggling. I even made a friend during my stay — another young mum who was a patient. It started to feel like a mothers group camp, and I started to feel supported.
I don't know if I would have made it had I not self-admitted to this facility. I don't know if all mothers even know that these facilities exist. They exist in gated communities, behind double security doors, but they are havens for struggling mothers. You dont have to justify your struggle either. If you feel like you aren't coping, ask for help from these services.
My stay at the Mother and Family Unit changed the course of my motherhood journey. I recieved support and care that my GPs and maternal child health nurses weren't able to provide.
If you are struggling as a mother, know that you are not a failure. If you receive care from a facility like this, know that it is normal to want to leave every second of the day for 24 hours straight. If you need help, ask for it. You are so strong.
Feature image: Getty.