Three weeks into my third pregnancy, in the summer of 2022, my husband, Jon, and our two children, Sidney and Remy, went on holiday to France for the summer. I felt crap. I was tired and really sick. So sick, in fact, that when we got back to the UK I wound up in hospital. They kept me in overnight because I\u2019d been vomiting nonstop for about 12 hours. For the next few weeks I couldn\u2019t keep any food down. Eventually the vomiting stopped but all I could do was sit in bed and eat croissants; I was repulsed by everything else. <\/p>\n
That was just the beginning. After our holiday I went from feeling a bit down and tired to constantly exhausted \u2014 and so, so miserable. I didn\u2019t want to get out of bed. I felt as if I\u2019d lost my personality. I cried every single day and I looked dreadful. I look back at pictures of that time now and I\u2019m dead behind the eyes. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s difficult to feel like that when your job \u2014 like mine \u2014 is all about meeting people and presenting your best self to the world. Not to mention that I felt like I should be grateful \u2014 that as I was lucky to be pregnant, I was doing something wrong by feeling so awful.<\/p>\n
Soon, every day was just about getting through it. I didn\u2019t want to see anyone. Anything that came up for work that I needed to do, I\u2019d do \u2014 but afterwards I\u2019d just get into bed with my children, cuddle them and eat more croissants.<\/p>\n
These feelings were so alien to me: normally I\u2019m such an optimist and a grafter, and I refuse to let anything get me down. This was the first time I didn\u2019t have a solution to one of my problems. <\/p>\n
It also took me by surprise because I had a straightforward pregnancy with my first child. Pregnancy number two was during Covid so it\u2019s a bit harder to measure: I only ever really saw anyone in the medical profession when I had a scan. But I certainly hadn\u2019t felt like this. I took vitamins and did all the things women are supposed to do. But the heaviness followed me everywhere.<\/p>\n
This wasn\u2019t just a bad pregnancy \u2014 in fact I had antenatal depression. I knew about postnatal depression, of course \u2014 one of the first questions they ask you after you have given birth is: \u201cHow do you feel?\u201d But I learnt that you can also get depression when you are pregnant. And that\u2019s what I had.<\/p>\n
Postnatal depression<\/a> can be difficult to diagnose because some mood changes \u2014 such as feeling tired or irritable, especially when you already have small children \u2014 are normal in pregnancy. But with antenatal depression you feel sad, low and tearful a lot of the time; you lose interest in other people and the world around you; you don\u2019t want to eat, or you eat more than usual; and you have all sorts of negative thoughts. If it\u2019s not treated it can get worse and lead to postnatal depression.<\/p>\n
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