* (PSYCHEDELIC MUSIC) Captions by Glenna Casalme www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2017 There's never been a time where women have had so much expectation on them. We're to be at 100% in the workforce; we're to be these fantastic mothers offering quality and quantity time to our children. When we have expectations from society, when we have the pressures of our modern world, there's gotta be a breaking point. We know that suicide is the leading cause of maternal deaths. (PENSIVE MUSIC) (BABY CRIES) Shh-shh-shh. (CONTINUES CRYING) (LAUGHS) I can barely remember who I was before I had children! I did have a career` I do have a career. I work in HR for a publishing company. (GURGLES) It's very glamorous and it's very fashion-orientated. Oh, you like that. When I was pregnant, I remember the last day of work, and I actually felt this huge sense of mourning that my working life would never ever be the same again. Having worked in a environment that I can control and being able to manage my own workload, my own schedule, the... complete chaos is something I struggle with daily. (CRIES) There's a lot of crying before she goes to sleep. Um... (CRIES) And... we tend to hold her, just because it means she stays asleep for at least 20 minutes. If we put her down, she's awake within five. Bailey, Jackson. Oh, I never felt like a mum; I felt like a robot... You want a drink? ...who was just a babysitter ` a long-term babysitter. But I never actually felt like a mother. And I had raised them on my own. Have you been watching Pokemon? I've had the most awesome role models, and I always thought I'd be one. And when it didn't happen, I couldn't figure it out. I just thought, 'What am I doing wrong?' Jackson, don't kick him under that table. If you're gonna get annoying... I will have all lunches made the night before. I will have breakfast set up, ready to go. Um, I'll have all the clothes laid out. We literally just have to jump in clothes, feed ourselves, chuck dishes in the sink and grab our bags and go. We'll put you in bed, eh? Just exhausted all the time. I'm just so tired. It's been about two and a half years since I slept through the night. I feel like I don't really get time with Paul. We always joke that we're flatmates, you know, because we're sleeping in separate rooms and separate beds. (BABBLES) That's it. It's not time for bouncing, buddy. It's time to lay down, OK, mate? I definitely miss him, you know, and I know he misses me, like, even though we live in the same house. (CHILD CRIES) Hunter. Hunter, what's wrong? You want your coffee here, babe? Yeah. (SQUEALS) We both work full-time, and then we get home from work and it's like, busy, busy, busy. D'you wanna come up with me? From a mental-health perspective, you can very easily lose a sense of yourself. Every woman who becomes a mother finds it difficult. It doesn't matter what's she's done of what she's used to or how much experience she's had with children. There's nothing that really completely prepares you for motherhood. (BAWLS, BABBLES) Are you gonna take him? For someone who is used to their own independence and they're used to being very, very stimulated, your world has become smaller. (CHILD CRIES) That adjustment can be really really hard. (ROUGH, UNSETTLING MUSIC) The 2017 mother, compared to a 1977 mother, which is when I was born, is, you know,... this busyness, and that we're doing all of these things because we have to do them. I'm sure my mother wouldn't have participated in any of that stuff that I might think we have to do. (WOMEN CHANT INDISTINCTLY) We had the women's liberation movement, and what really came about was choice ` that women had more choices. But I think what the mistake we make is thinking that that battle is over. Well, marriage is, as I've said, unpaid labour. I mean, no woman` It's a free household slave. We've still got differences in pay, inequality in the workforce. Welcome home, darling. Hi, honey. Coffee? Boy, I could use it. We've still got women who are not valued in the home. We have these choices, but we are expected to do it all, and expected to do it all really well. There's an assumption today that women take the lion's share of raising children. Um, fathers are definitely involved, but women are often expected to be the primary caregiver. My dad says to me all the time it takes a village a raise a child. And years and years ago, we had villages and we have people living next door to us, and neighbourhoods that really supported having children, and you didn't really need childcare, because everybody helped raise children. And there was lots of advice about how to do things and lots of people really close to you that could give you advice that hadn't done it that long ago. Um, and I don't think we really have that any more. My mum was saying to me that when we were young, my grandma lived right next door, and, you know, she definitely said neighbours would come over and help during the day if she needed to have a nap, or even in the middle of the night. A lot of people had extended family closer, and I think maybe that helped a bit more, whereas now, we all live in our little houses and we don't really talk to the neighbours, apart from saying hello. (WORRYING MUSIC) My reason to go back to work was mainly financial. We've got a mortgage to pay. I had to go back to work. I definitely feel guilty for leaving the boys, but for me, I know that it's to give them a better life. I'm quite lucky that I'm able to be pretty flexible. So I start early; I start at 7. And then I leave at about 3, and then I go and pick up the boys, and then it's back home, rush, rush, rush, cos we do dinner, bath and everything else. (CHUCKLES) Work has probably been quite good, in terms of my mental health, to kind of just focus on different things rather than just the kids. Because I'm such a perfectionist, and I feel like everything has to be perfect, and it's very hard with kids to do that. I would cry pretty much every day on my way to work and on my way back home. It's still hard just to leave them for eight hours a day and not be with them. Every time I'd say to people, 'Oh, I'm back at work,' and they'd go, 'Oh, how old is Jack?' And I'd say 6 months, everyone always went, 'Oh, he's so young.' Almost makes you feel worse, cos you feel guilty enough as it is. And then when people say he's young, I kinda thought, 'Well, I know he's young, but, you know, it is what it is.' One of the biggest things is that guilt. When they're at work, they are thinking about their kids and what their kids are needing. When they're at home, they're thinking about their work responsibilities. And where these two conflicts happen is often things like when the children get sick; who takes care of the children during the school holidays. There's just so many situations where women are constantly in a position where they have to choose between children and work. It needs to be a shared thing. It needs to shared between the partners ` and preferably the wider family. (GASPS) Hello! Hello, mister. Hi. (COOS) Wow. Mwah! Yeah. Did you miss me? Were they all right today? Did they have their naps? Andrew was tired after we came back here and he went to sleep. Yeah. 'You don't wanna be judged or seen as not coping. 'And there's so much expectation on women to just be, like, superwomen. 'You've gotta be a good mum, but then you also have to have a clean house, 'and your kids have got to be well-behaved when you're out, 'and you've still gotta look presentable.' I always look at other mums, and everybody seems to be doing such a great job. You know, everyone's got kids that sleep well, and everyone makes their own baby food, and everyone seems to be having a great time ` lots of energy, doing fun things with their kids all the time, and going to work and, you know, keeping a great house, and find time to do baking. Then there's social media showing all these people. So at any case, you're sitting at the park ` I don't like going to the park ` and I'm scrolling through my Instagram and seeing mothers baking with their children or whilst they're having a green smoothie in their gym ` get out ` that they've just done. Like, (BLEEP) off. Like, no one's doing that. (MOODY GUITAR MUSIC) I know that a lot of people go, 'Ugh, what does she do all day,' to mums who are at home. There's so much work involved. Kids are so full on. They're just on all day. And there's also an expectation that you don't talk about it being hard. Everyone you talk to says, 'Oh, yeah, it's great.' Like, 'How are you enjoying it?' You know? Um, and if you say it's hard, then people say, 'Oh, you're really ungrateful,' you know. 'Lots of people can't have kids.' (BABBLES ANGRILY, CRIES) OK. Potatoes then. No? Can you show them how you eat all your dinner? I always feel that people judge. So even when people say, 'How are they sleeping,' I say, 'Not too bad,' when actually it's horrendous. They just put up this image of what we want to be. I do wish that we did do things like take photos of our messy house and the pile of washing that is like Mt Everest and actually that we're just far more honest. Because we're all experiencing those things. Even saying the words, 'I'm feeling like (BLEEP) about this today' or 'this week, and I'm feeling really bad.' And that's why blogging has been therapy to me, because I have been able to just blurt it out and have other people go, 'Oh, you're right. I'm not alone.' It's a very different generational time, and I think it's because we have all these expectations. There's so much literature; there's so much knowledge of, 'Studies have been done,' and, 'Let's look back on that. 'Well, you've been affected this way and that way, so let's try and right all our wrongs.' And it's just completely` We're in complete overwhelm. I've tried not to read any baby books when I had the girls, because every time I read them, you beat yourself up because you are meeting an expectation that's been set by someone in a book. You just` It's setting you up for failure. (BABY COOS) (GLOOMY PIANO MUSIC) Where are we gonna park today, Evie? (BABY CRIES) You don't know. I don't know either. Speaking to my mum about when they had children, they just weren't bombarded with the information. It wasn't around. So they weren't able to lie in bed at night, frantically googling, 'My child's not getting 18 hours of sleep a day, or, 'Is crying gonna make the cortisol levels go up 'to a point that they're gonna damage them permanently?' There's so much information out there. I know it terrifies me. (CHUCKLES) Can I have one of these? You want one of those? We'll have a look in a minute. And you're supposed to rub it on yourself so that it gets` Oh, so that it smells like them. It smells like you. And then it's supposed to be gender-neutral. Of course! (LAUGHTER) Oh, I see. It's like heartbeat. It is quite comforting, I have to say. Maybe I should sleep with it. (CHILD BABBLES) (TYPES ON KEYBOARD) We have spent so much money. We've just bought everything. I'm constantly googling things. I've bought sleep books and all these things that I've kind of tried, and nothing's really worked (CHUCKLES) for us. But I keep trying, and I keep saying, 'Ooh, we might try this,' or, 'We should try that,' or you know, because hopefully` I think that sleep is so important that you would kind of just spend any amount of money to get it. For me it's definitely made me think I'm not doing something right. Where do we get to here? Oh! Last night, I had about five hours, broken. That was a good night. And then it's the horrible feeling of knowing that you've got another night the next night and another night after that and another night after that. Brush your teeth. Good girl. (BABY CRIES) Sleep deprivation, to me, is like insanity. You just feel like you're walking on a knife's edge. It feels normal, and you're unable to see your way out of it. (UNSETTLING MUSIC) Sucks out your humour. It sucks out your energy. It can make the world seem a really bad place. What about Play-Doh? No Pl` Play-Doh. Play-Doh. You love Play-Doh. No! Come on. No! All the worst parts of motherhood, where I felt the worst about myself and that I'm failing in every way, is inevitably linked to lack of sleep. It's really (BLEEP), and it's really hard. Let's go. Come on. You know, some people go through a bad time where their kid changes its mind and doesn't sleep for two weeks. But when we're talking eight years, it's really` it can be really debilitating. If baby has got quite a difficult temperament, if she's experiencing sleep deprivation` and to a degree, all women will. But if that's prolonged and it's going on and on, all of those things just put her more at risk for post-natal depression and anxiety. # ...like a diamond in the sky. # (BROODING MUSIC) It was my mum. She had dropped off a pamphlet to me and said, 'Oh, I think you should just read this.' And I was like, 'OK.' And I thought it'd be like all the other thousand pamphlets I throw in the drawer and never look at. But I actually looked at it, and it was just this huge boom. Like, 'Oh my God, I'm all of that.' (EERIE MUSIC) I was so angry all the time, depressed. I just thought I was going crazy. I thought I was crazy for thinking I was crazy, so, you know, it was this revolving cycle inward loathing. It was a culmination of the financial, of the solo parent. I'd get to the point where I just couldn't leave my house. And I'd have to leave my house, because my son went to kindy. So I had to go to kindy to drop him off. And getting up in the morning to take him to kindy, some days would be the biggest effort ever. It would be like running a marathon ` to get out of bed, to show my face in public. I just didn't think I was worthy of even breathing. You'd think post-natal depression is a bad, severe place to go, and you don't ever wanna think that that's where you are. My experience with post-natal depression started when I was unwell after the labour of Evie. I just kept thinking that I just needed to get on with things; I just needed to get more sleep and everything would fix itself. I would sway between extreme highs, extreme lows. I don't think my husband knew which way I was coming or going. Friends of mine that had post-natal depression had a difficulty bonding with their baby. I never had that with Evie. I always (SNIFFLES)... Sorry. If anything, I looked at her and felt really sorry for her that she had me as a mum, (SOBS) and I loved her more because I just felt so sorry for her. But I never couldn't bond with her. I loved her to pieces. But I just felt sympathy for her, more than anything, (SOBS) that she had unfortunately been born to me and not somebody who could cope a lot better than I could. Sorry. (SOBS) Say, enrolled on a Sunday. I felt really guilty and I was thinking, 'What's wrong with me?' You know, 'Why don't I have these feelings that I should feel towards my baby?' In my mind, I thought I hadn't bonded with him. For me, the big moment was when Hunter said, 'Mummy's angry. Mummy's crying again.' And I thought, 'Oh my goodness. I must be crying and getting angry a lot if Hunter's saying that I'm crying again. So that's when I went to my midwife, and she said, 'You've got post-natal depression.' I didn't wanna talk to anyone about it, and Vaughan said to me, 'No, why don't you just talk to some of your friends?' And I did, and then I was surprised at how many friends of mine who have babies also said that they had post-natal depression, and I never would've picked it. I can look back on it now and think I was actually doing a great job, but I just` it's that sympathy for her that I felt that I find difficult to remember, (SNIFFLES) cos it was so hard on myself, basically. (SNIFFLES) The worst part for me was that they weren't babies any more. You know, Bailey was coming up 3; Jackson's coming up 2, and that was my huge reflection, you know? 'This has almost gone on for three years and I haven't had any sort of help. 'I haven't had any sort of recognition of what I'm going through.' (SOLEMN MUSIC) The biggest risk of untreated antenatal, or post-natal depression is suicide. In fact, it's the leading cause of maternal deaths. Early intervention is the best way of dealing with any mental illness. There are better outcomes for everyone. The sooner we can deal with it, the quicker people recover, and that obviously reduces the impact it has on everybody. I went and saw the same doctor who put me on antidepressants. And within, I would say, a month, I was... back to an even better version of myself, probably. I was just on an even keel and felt that I could make rational decisions, and things didn't bother me so much. The crying didn't, kind of, pierce me as much as it did. (KNOCK ON DOOR) And then after six months, I came off the antidepressants slowly, and I've never looked back. Hello! Hi! Hi. Hi. Nice to meet you. I'm Angela. Nice to meet you. Lovely to meet you. Come on in. Christina. Thank you. This is Evie, and this is Ophelia. Hello, Evie. Come on through. Breastfeeding. You're breastfeeding? How is that going? Is that OK? It went very very badly with Evie, and it's going marginally better with this one. I'm not sure how much longer we will` Well, I will persist, because that's my personality. But I don't know how much she's getting, and the weight gains are fine but not great, you know. Yeah. So, just one thing to remember with breastfeeding ` there's this real push that breast is best ` and a lot of mothers can feel a real pressure around that. Yup. But what I always say is actually, your mental health comes first. Mm. So sometimes when we have difficulty breastfeeding, it can push us` Absolutely. ...into... Yeah. ...that depression. Yeah, that's one of the things I've let myself be OK with. What has changed in your mindset about that? I've definitely worked out now that I need more time on my own, and I am able to talk myself out of situations where I'm feeling a little bit overwhelmed. Yeah. Knowing what my triggers are and knowing how to talk myself out of them. Yeah. I think I've just let go of perfection, and I don't strive to be the best mum in the world. I just strive to be a good mum. Mm. And that's... And that's enough. Yeah. That's enough. Yeah, exactly. And I think I've realised that. Angela has learned some amazing wisdom. It's what's right for our family that's gonna get us through ` that's the best for us. 'I've just gotta do whatever it takes to get us through this. 'And if that means that I don't breastfeed or I do breastfeed, 'or I have a dummy for the baby, pacifier, whatever, or I don't,' you know, just whatever it takes. (CARS DRIVE PAST) (BEEPING) Hello! Hi! (MAN SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY) Good. How are you? One of the things that really helps me that Maternal Mental Health suggested was to accept help. (CHUCKLES) You know? Cos I was trying to do it all on my own. That's Emma. So no one's too overtired? No. Perfect. Well, Jack is yawning. Yeah, yeah, good. I own Baby Sleep Consultant New Zealand. We go and help mums around the country who need help with their baby's or toddler's sleep. I think sleep consultants fit in because they help you with a routine and just help you know that you're making the right decision. I'm so tired, that sometimes it gets to the evening and I just wanna, you know, go to sleep rather than play with them. Yeah. Definitely can't function on a couple of hours' sleep, especially when you're doing a job and you're getting paid to do a job. You've kinda gotta do the best job that you can, and it makes it a lot harder when you're tired. Ideally, we would like to just get back into our own room and or own bed. There's a demand for it because of the way our culture has evolved. Demands on parents have increased. Mothers are expected to go back to work, and there's not as much support. So we're gonna take the cot down cos we're gonna move Jack's cot into big room, and you're big enough to have your very own room. What do you think? Sound good? (BABY CRIES) (SPEAKS SOFTLY, GENTLY) (CONTINUES CRYING) Shh. Shh. Settle down. 'It's been two nights now since Emma's come and set up a little routine for us.' 'It's been amazing now that we're sleeping in the same bed again. It almost felt strange and quite new.' But it was really nice. It was nice to actually be able to go to bed together and just cuddle and talk. I kind of feel like I'm married again. (LAUGHS) (BABBLES) All right. Bye. Can you kiss Mummy goodbye? Kiss. If I could go back in time from now, to go back 10 years and just, say, give myself a good slap-around and go, 'You actually do know what you're doing. Trust yourself. 'Listen to your instinct.' Allowing yourself to have the confidence to step up to people and say, 'We're gonna do this this way,' whether that's wearing your baby in a sling all the time because you wanna do that, or co-sleeping or... whatever! Just, if it's working for you guys, do it and be confident in that and just tell everyone, politely... You know? (CHUCKLES) Going to counselling taught me to be OK with me, to acknowledge that I am a good parent and to let go of all those negative stigma that I've built for myself and then break down that real bad wall that I had built up, and to just be able to see my kids for who they were and love them and appreciate them. But I had to acknowledge everything. I had to openly say I love my kids, I love who they are, I love myself, I'm worthy ` all those types of things, you know? That's what counselling did. It was a long time. It was almost two and a half years. And you can't go through that level of counselling without changing as a person. And it changed me, but it changed me in the best way. It set me up to accept life and be OK with life and be OK with who I am. Being a mum now is more pleasurable. It's fun. I enjoy taking them to their things, whereas it was a chore. It was just one of those things you had to do. But I enjoy getting up and making breakfast and all the mundane things you don't think about. (BABY SHRIEKS) That's what I enjoy. One of the most powerful lessons I learned as a mother, and as a woman who experienced post-natal depression, was that the more I looked after myself, the better I was at being a mother to my child. (THOUGHTFUL MUSIC) So, I'm just gonna go for a quick run while my mother-in-law's here to look after the boys, which is just nice, cos it gives me a little bit of time to myself, and a bit of a break, and gives the boys a chance to spend some time with their nana. (PENSIVE MUSIC) Once I started accepting help from other people and learnt some coping strategies ` the simple things like breathing and taking time for myself ` I started running again. Mum would look after the boys a couple of times a week, and just those kind of little things just really made a big difference. (REFLECTIVE MUSIC) We need to change our expectations of mothers, make sure that we` those expectations are realistic. We need to make sure that there's equality in our relationships so that parenting is shared and not down to one person, or even two people. We need a government who is addressing the gaps ` and those gaps are delayed diagnosis ` so we need to be identifying mothers; we need to be screening for depression or anxiety. We need to be providing them with a service that they can access that is holistic and funded ` so that cost is not a barrier to them being well. It's OK to not feel OK, and you should ask for help, and you need to talk, and you need to laugh, and you need to just let it all hang out, because it is the hardest, (BLEEP)est-paying job you'll ever do, but it is the most rewarding, hands down. (CRICKETS CHIRP) Well, it's 8.30 at night now. We will make dinner and quickly go to bed and hope that we get a few hours' sleep. Ah. Good girl. Just the back. There. Nice and clean. We understand from` with Evie that these early days are really just kind of 'batten the hatches' and ` sounds really awful ` but just get through it. You'd find yourself kind of wishing the days and weeks away cos you know it gets a bit easier when they're in a routine of some sort. We just need to eat, watch a bit of telly, got to bed, and hopefully it goes the same with the next day. (BABY BABBLES) Good morning. Good morning, Jack. Mmm. 'I still feel like now I'm still kind of in remission, I guess, you know, 'cos I still have days when I'm so tired, that I feel exhausted and feel like I can't cope. 'But I kind of know that it's not forever, and I've kind of got a few more strategies to cope.' 'And now if I do feel like that, I've got friends and family and people to talk to for that support.' Almost giving myself a pep talk, like, you know, 'You've got this. You can do this.' Captions by Glenna Casalme. www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2017