out of the darkness : katrina hutchens, 28

By On · 7 Comments · In babies, family, interviews, mama says, relationships

I always assumed that having post-natal depression meant you had thoughts about harming your baby or having bad feelings towards your child. I had neither of those thoughts. I also thought that post-natal depression happened immediately after having a baby. Mine crept up months into motherhood.

I had always been a very happy, positive, easy-going person. At first all I knew was that I didn’t feel like, myself; I felt flat, I felt like this wasn’t me. Everyone warns about the baby blues, which can occur a few days after giving birth as your milk comes in. For me the abundance of tears, the high emotions and overwhelming feelings of the day-three-blues were nothing like the depression; my feelings were so dark that it was obviously something else.

When I had my first child I didn’t know enough about post-natal depression to recognize it. When it happened again after my second I was more aware and more prepared but that didn’t really make it any easier.

The symptoms I had were being irritable, anxious, resentful and ‘quick to anger’. I would pick arguments with my husband, my loving, oh so patient husband. There were times when I felt out of control. I would say things then think, this isn’t me, who is this monster? this horrible person? I couldn’t control the way I felt, my mood or my emotions. I felt guilty and inadequate but above all, I just felt flat. Not happy, not overly sad, just mediocre.

I hadn’t experienced depression or any mental illness before post-natal depression, so I personally couldn’t tell the difference, but you can read about the differences in this Baby Center article. I would say that the title isn’t the important part to focus on. A woman’s hormones are so completely different after childbearing and during breastfeeding that it is no wonder post-natal depression is as common as it is. It’s more common than we even know due to many people being reluctant to talk about it.

For a long time after I started to feel bad I thought I was just sleep deprived. When I spoke to a GP about how I felt she suggested post-natal depression might be the cause. I completed a questionnaire similar to the Edinburgh Post-Natal Depression Scale on Beyond Blue and that’s how I got diagnosed. After that we were able to start treating it.

The depression was at its worst when my first-born was around five months-old.  Then it started to subside when I stopped breastfeeding — my body and hormones had a chance to balance out again. With my second child it started much earlier and had a lot to do with getting little sleep and running around after a 20 month-old in addition to adjusting to the needs of a newborn. My youngest is now 10 months and I’m feeling 95 percent well. I knew I was getting better when there were finally more good days than bad.

My husband held all the pieces together and was the glue that kept us tight as a family unit. The depression put an enormous stress on my marriage. I was giving all my attention and energy to the kids and none to him. To tell the whole truth would be to say that without him, I may not have survived. And my children; the love they have for me is so pure and unconditional it breaks my heart and gives me strength.

My path to wellness has included weekly meetings with a psychologist. Just being in a free, non-critical place to talk openly about anything at all was healing. Being an organized type, I find a routine really helps. Many people frown upon the word ‘routine’ when it comes to babies, so if you would prefer, I can call it an ‘organized pattern’. Knowing what is coming next means I can prepare, and be organized to avoid added chaos or pressure. I chose not to go on antidepressants whilst breastfeeding — many mothers do and I hold no judgment whatsoever – but it wasn’t for me.

There can be nothing lonelier or scarier than not feeling yourself and not feeling in control. If you find yourself with post-natal depression take time to find out what works for you. There are scales and levels of depression, so everyone’s experience will be different. For me, talking to my husband as well as a professional was important. Keeping things in balance is important: being busy, but also knowing when to rest. I meet with other mums in a social setting and being part of a fantastic mothers group has helped me immensely. I also make sure I get plenty of exercise. More recently I have channelled my energy into creative projects and started sewing and learning new skills like photography.

Journalling is one of the main coping mechanisms I use.  Being able to reflect on the days allows me to see when there are more good days than bad, or vice versa. I find journalling to be extremely powerful: it is admitting truth and it can bring clarity. It helps being able to recognise that ‘hey, I am having loads of bad days, perhaps I should talk to someone about it’.

It’s also important to give up the guilt. Being unwell is not a weakness of character! Do not let someone tell you ‘it’s nothing, everyone feels like that,’ if you feel it is something. You know yourself better than anyone else. Listen to yourself – there is no shame in asking for help.

My family and friends will be finding out about my post-natal depression now, if/when they read these words. Hiding how I really felt was a skill I had mastered. I don’t want my family or friends to be upset that I kept this from them. I hope they understand. Even now I feel reluctant to share my experience; I feel fearful of other people’s reactions. However one of the things my husband and I have discussed many times is how lonely someone with a mental illness can feel.

The stigma society puts on those suffering is completely unjustified. It is for this reason that I am starting to slowly open up about it. I do not want pity. I do not want people to see me as being ill. I fear judgment and it scares me deep to my soul that anyone may think of me as an unfit or unloving mother.

It is only now, on the flipside of the darkness that is post-natal depression that I feel courageous and strong enough to talk about it with others. It is easier to talk about something you’ve had, rather than something you’ve got. I survived. We survived.

Katrina Hutchens blogs at Capturing Moments.

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if we ran into each other on the street

By On · 4 Comments · In blog, children

If we happened to run into each other on the street this is what you would most likely see: a woman with dishevelled hair and an unbecoming stoop rummaging for baby wipes or a tissue or her keys, while her baby sat  in the pram and her preschooler sang loudly or told her what his latest make-believe story was and which character he would be and which character she would be and what they would do. And if you stopped to talk he’d probably tell you what character you could be too. Hi.

And you can be the princess! Her almost four-month old feminist sensibilities are shocked. Simply shocked.

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urban combing

By On · 1 Comment · In blog, sydney


At the end of my street there is a service station. On the bare concrete slab that slopes away from the bowsers towards the footpath I often see random articles standing alone. Once, a single Marc Jacobs pump. Today, a tiny lizard made out of shiny beads, glinting in the Sydney rain.

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time travellers part two

By On · 2 Comments · In asia, blog, children, family, family backpacking, personal, relationships, travel

Imagine one of the worst fights you’ve ever had with your significant other:  the aftermath, before you’ve properly made-up, that horrible tension that festers under the surface sprinkling fear into even the most unremarkable of exchanges. This was how Mark and I spent the most part of our trip.

And we couldn’t even get away from each other because of the budget accommodation. There we were, the five of us; us, the kids and the enormous elephant named fear, all squished into the tiny, beautiful budget spaces we’d carefully chosen.

Outside the rooms the landscapes were often amazing. We woke to towering crag-faced mountains jutting through delicate mists. Rivers that were actually used by villagers; children spear-fishing for their lunch and women washing themselves and their clothes in the cool part of the day.

It felt both like nothing I had ever experienced while also like something I had lived in a dream. And the dream made me feel very, very sad.

Mark couldn’t understand my sadness. I think it scared him. And he didn’t have time to be scared.

In fairness, he tried.

He tried to be patient with me when I was late, he tried to be patient with me when my anxiety set in. He sat with me while I talked about how sad I felt about the poverty, how anxious I felt not being able to cross town without getting lost and being ripped off by the tuk tuk driver. How stressed I felt bargaining in the markets. (Why couldn’t I just pay the market holders what they asked? Why? How could they be ripping me off when I could afford to pay?)

But after about three days of listening to my fears he gave up. I think he felt I was raining on his travel parade, which I was.

I think he felt I was laying my Western ideals unfairly onto a non-Western culture. And he was impatient with my ignorance.

As for me, what I wanted to hear was, “Yes, I think it’s sad too. I understand why ending up lost on a sign-less street with no map, with your children whom you’re supposed to be taking care of  in the middle of Laos where you can’t speak the language would be scary. I understand that you feel that you can’t protect your children and that as you are their mother and that is your job, you feel you cannot do your job, therefore you feel helpless. I understand that you feel sad for every single child you see whom you imagine isn’t getting enough food, whom you imagine doesn’t have safe shelter, whom you imagine doesn’t have the chance of getting an education.”

And then later surrounded by the debauchery being exhibited by Western backpackers in Vang Vieng, “I understand why you are enraged and embarrassed by the behaviour of your fellow Westerners. Especially the drug fucked young men with swear words scrawled all over their torsos, toting local girls carelessly by the arm. ”

But other people don’t often say what you want them to, they say what they want to say. And they don’t always feel like you do. They feel how they do.

There was one incident that more or less sums up my fear in one hit.

Did you know that Laos is the most bombed country on earth, ever? Before I arrived there, I did not. I was ignorant. During the Vietnam War the United States dropped 260 million cluster bombs into Laos and 75 million of them did not detonate. A staggering proportion of the bombs are still in the ground right now, ground that the farmers need to use.

Even worse, 98% of the victims of said bombs are civilians and 40% of those victims are children. The Laotian people have been trying to pick their way around the bombs for  more than 35 years. Around 300 people are killed or maimed by these bombs every year.

While in Vientiane we visited COPE —  a centre for rehabilitation that raises money for the much-needed prosthetic limbs for cluster bomb victims and the like. It also has a visitor centre attached.

We went there with our friends; Australian scientists (a couple) who had lived in Laos for many years, and their toddler son. Alex and Mark watched a video about an eight year-old boy who had been killed by a cluster bomb, children often pick up the bombs in their search for scrap metal to sell or to play with. The parent’s grief-stricken faces blinked out from the screen. I looked away.

Next, Alex hobbled around the centre on one of the prosthetic limbs you can try on. Max got restless, I took him outside to run around. Our friend and her toddler son were outside too.

A Laotian woman was pushing a young man in a wheelchair. She stopped to talk to our friend and admire her golden-haired boy. Our friend chatted with the woman in Laos and explained to me that the young man was her 18 year-old son who had been in a motorcycle accident three weeks earlier. He clearly had brain damage from which there was no return. The mother smiled at us and told her son, who was incapable of any kind of speech, to say hello to the little kids. Max just stared while I, taking my cue from our friend,  plastered a wide smile on my face and encouraged Max to say hi too. I wanted to cry. But instead I sucked it up and copied what everyone else was doing.

And that was the moment when my fear set in good and proper.

What I really needed him to say was, “I understand that your heart is breaking.”

 

To be continued…

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the seasons they are a-changin’

By On · Add Comment · In blog, sydney

A chill has descended in the neighbourhood.  Today was one of those crisp Autumn days that had me pull on a huge knit scarf, or snood as it was called when I bought it, and head out for a brisk walk. Miss Rose, the baby, is growing. She didn’t want to lie back in her pram in the newborn manner and had her first outing with it tilted into a more upright position. You can kind of see us reflected in that old television set that was left on the curb of our street. I think it would make a funky planter.

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time travellers part one

By On · 6 Comments · In asia, blog, family, family backpacking, personal, relationships, travel


By the Nam Song river in Vang Vieng, I was afraid. I was afraid I might step on a landmine. I was afraid I couldn’t communicate with the locals. I was afraid of having dirty hair. I was afraid of washing my hair in the river in case the locals thought I was doing it wrong. I was afraid of everything: I was afraid of my fear. Because I was afraid, I wished I was anywhere but where I was, doing anything other than what I was doing, which is pretty much the most dangerous thing one can do.

In January, 2011 our family embarked on a little backpacking trip through Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. It was the first time Mark and I had really travelled together. We soon discovered that if it’s true that travelling brings out a person’s true colours, our colours were a bit, shall we say, murky.

I like to take my time while Mark likes to be on time.

I enjoy holidays. Mark enjoys travelling.

I enjoy spending hours sitting still, sipping coffee and people-watching. Mark enjoys spending about an hour sitting still before he goes stir crazy and has to go do something physical.

I am that person who is being paged at the airport. Mark is that person who is waiting at the gate long before boarding has even been announced.

Even before we left home we were in a swivet with each other. I’m not quite sure how we managed it, possibly it was something to do with packing; perhaps I wasn’t being efficient enough. I am the kind of person who leaves her suitcase open until the very last minute in case I have forgotten something. I pack in no particular order and put my bags into the car at the very last minute. Mark likes to have all bags packed and lined up in the hall, by the door, well before departure; preferably the night before departure.

Not only do Mark and I have different ideas about such preparations, but Alex, who has predominantly been raised by me (being my first child from a previous relationship), behaves similarly to me in the area of travel time management.

Nonetheless, our plan was to backpack through three countries over two weeks, staying no more than three nights in any given place with two children aged 13 and three, in budget accommodation. Were we crazy? Yes, I think we were.

Continued in part two.

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now I’m a mama : jodi wilson, 28

By On · 1 Comment · In babies, birth, children, family, mama says, pregnancy


Before I was pregnant with Che I drove around in a mint green 1978 Triumph and spent my time going to yoga classes, writing freelance for magazines, going to the beach, reading books, studying yoga and catching up with friends. In retrospect I had all the time in the world. Daniel and I had been together for four months when we moved into a little (love) shack. Within the first month I was pregnant with Che.

Currently I’m the main breadwinner in our family. I work from home and every day I remind myself how lucky I am to have that opportunity. My primary job is freelance writing for a variety of magazines. I also teach prenatal yoga and birth workshops at my mother-in-law’s yoga studio nearby. Daniel is trying to break into the film industry as a camera assistant – it’s hard work but I believe he’ll do it. When I’m working he takes care of the kids. When I’m not working we wander down to the beach, got for coffee at our local cafe and hang around at home. Our life is very simple, just how we like it.

When I had Che someone said to me: “You’re a mama forever now.” Of course I had never thought of it that way but I think as a statement it’s all encompassing of this motherhood journey. It’s 24/7, every day for always. It’s hard work but by the far the most rewarding. I really love being a mum. Letting go is hard. I remember during my pregnancy with Poet – the house was immaculate, everything was in order and I found that incredibly satisfying. I often reminded myself that it wouldn’t be like that with a new baby. I don’t cope well with mess or chaos but there’s some days where I just have to ignore it and get on with the day. I tell my students all the time that letting go and surrendering is the essence of birth and the essence of motherhood. The sooner you surrender to the enormity of the role, the easier it becomes. “I am here now, being a mama, looking after my baby. For now this is what I’m doing.”

I love them so. They just exude joy; happiness follows them everywhere. It’s a blessing to be with them. I loved the journey of pregnancy, I love that I birthed them in the gentlest way possible and I’m proud of the way we are choosing to raise them. My happiest days are spent with them. We all went to Bunnings yesterday and we bumped into a friend of ours. She asked if we were going to have more kids and Daniel and I immediately said: “Yes!” We love being parents, we love growing a family. It’s chaotic and challenging and tiring but wrapped up in the normalcy of it is pure joy.

Rhythm is the golden word. Once I found a rhythm with Che life became so much easier and I really feel that I settled into the groove of being a mama. While my days are a little unpredictable now I do try to find rhythm – we wake, we eat, we play, I work, they go out, we have lunch, they nap, I prepare dinner etc. Flowing from one activity to the next.The Steiner education believes that children thrive when they have a rhythm but I would go as far as saying that families thrive when they have a rhythm.

I always tell my Mums & Bubs students that it really takes one year for you to feel like you know what you’re doing as a mother. They all look at me rather shocked. A year?! Yep, one year. We used to live in villages with three generations is one household. Can you imagine the help the new mother would receive?

Nowadays our society very much expects the new mum to be out and about within a week of birthing. That’s just cruel. I planned a babymoon for both my babies – I stayed at home for three weeks after I birthed them and it was the best thing I’ve ever done as a mum. I established a really good breastfeeding rhythm, my babies were settled, I had the time and space to recover and gain my strength and not once did I feel stressed because I had to get ready to go out.

The best parenting advice I’ve been given is to go with the flow. A midwife friend told me that when I was pregnant with Che. I have kept those wise words with me since.

Jodi Wilson blogs at Che and Fidel.

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you can see she’s a beautiful girl

By On · Add Comment · In indigenous australia, interviews, single mamas, young mamas


I interviewed Jessica Smith in 2010 after she had been awarded the National NAIDOC Youth of the Year title. This interview and photograph appeared in issue 39 of Frankie Magazine. Photo by Mindi Cooke.

When I was in Grade 5 I found out I was Indigenous. By the end of Grade 8 I’d realised that being Aboriginal was something that other people didn’t think was very good. I remember going out of history class in tears because people were laughing at me. Even though I didn’t look what people consider to be typically Aboriginal, I didn’t see that. I really knuckled down to my work; I was determined not to be that Aboriginal kid who dropped out of school. Then at the start of Year 12 I fell pregnant. That was probably the worst thing that I could imagine happening at that time.

I was in the running for school captain and had all these plans. I didn’t know if the school would keep me on — I was on a scholarship. And I didn’t think any other school would take on a pregnant girl. Also, I kind of knew that Mum and Dad wouldn’t let me stay at home. Fortunately the school said I could stay so I was able to finish. Finding out that I got into the course of my choice at uni was probably the second most exciting day of my life, after having Eden — which was exciting in a different way. I was petrified.

My son was four months old when I started first semester. Then one day he just started vomiting and went limp. We rushed him to the hospital and for seven days he lay there in a huge hospital bed. This little tiny baby, not moving, not crying, nothing. I remember looking out the window and I could see my uni. I was supposed to be there. And I was like, I cannot even think about study when my son is here…dying. That was probably the first time I ever had to let something go for someone else. The doctors fixed what was wrong and I spent that next year rasing him at home. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I had become depressed.

We were living of practically nothing — a single mother’s pension. It was just enough to cover electricity, petrol, food and rent. I certainly didn’t ever go out. But to me that was okay because I had my son and I was working towards a way out. That’s what pushed me towards good marks. But by the third year I had dropped nearly 20 kilos and had anorexia. I did not want to accept that I had a mental illness. At my lowest point, towards the end of fourth year, I didn’t want to live anymore and ended up in hospital.

That was when Mum had to take a big step into my life and I had to reach out to her. In the hospital I realised I wanted to get well and I wanted to help other people get an education like I had. Growing up I has seen people who had nothing: a mattress on the floor and walls falling down. That to me was reality.

I saw a job in the paper for an Indigenous support officer. But it was more like a teacher’s aide  job. At the interview they asked me why I had even applied because I’d finished uni with two degrees, first class honours in education and a distinction in the drama degree. I asked, “Is this a job where I can help Indigenous kids succeed? Where I can inspire young people to do their best?”  They said definitely. And they decided to pay me as a teacher. I’m still in that job and working towards my Doctor of Visual Arts.

There are a lot of stereotypes that I don’t fit the mould of, that I guess on paper I am. Single mum. Aboriginal. Low-income person. I’ve been to interviews and things where you have to fill out paperwork before you get there. The person would call out my name and then I’d stand up and they’d say, “Oh no, I don’t think I’ve got the right person. Have you got a child? Are you sure?” I’ve never understood that concept; that you could somehow tell someone from the way they look. I don’t understand why people would ever think that.

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