Their Story: Susie’s story of post partum depression in Rural WA

NOTE: This article is also available in podcast form on WELLpod.

One in eight women experience postpartum depression, and today I bring you the story of Susie (not her real name).

Originally a city girl, Susie moved to rural Western Australia for love. Her partner Lachie, a born and bred farmer, who she knew would never give up the farm. A sizeable operation, Lachie worked the land with his family- Mum, Dad and his brother David. Susie slotted into the family nicely, they accepted her as one of their own and made her new life in the country feel seamless, like it was meant to be. She started a job in local government which she adored and made friends the way all country people do - at the pub. 

Wanting to extend their family, Susie and Lachie began trying to conceive but found they were hitting hurdles along the way. The idea of IVF and other treatments sounded so out of the realm of possibility for the couple - the cost, the fact they would have to travel to the city, it just didn’t seem like it was something they could even land a thought on. 

After four years of trying, the two had come around to accepting that maybe they weren’t supposed to have a family the traditional way, and even began looking into other methods of becoming a family. “I had accepted that I wasn’t going to get pregnant, and that was fine, so much so that I didn’t think anything when signs of pregnancy started to pop up. I put it all down to the flu or something. I did see a GP eventually, and I remember laughing at him when he told me the pregnancy test had come back positive.” The couple were overjoyed with the news, surprised, but overjoyed. 

Living so far from the city, Susie ended up having to travel between the city and home quite frequently, being diagnosed with gestational diabetes during her pregnancy. With the constant travel, and Lachie having to be home on the farm often, she started to struggle.  “It was a lot, travelling all the time, often by myself, as well as the changes in my body and the gestational diabetes. I was really not coping with it well, but I felt I had to hide it from Lach, I didn’t want to worry him, and I didn’t want to force him away from the farm. It was harvest, I knew there were things to get done.” 

Susie often confided in her midwife but struggled to talk to her friends as most of them didn’t have kids, and the ones that did, she didn’t want to bother with her problems. In the last four weeks of her pregnancy, Susie was told she had to stay in the city, close by to where she was planning to give birth. She stayed with her Mum, which helped. “I stayed with Mum for those last couple of weeks which was good, I liked being able to connect with her like I hadn’t really done since I left home. I felt a bit lighter, and definitely more prepared going into birth, but there was still just something in me that was… sad, I was sad.” 

In a turn of events, Susie needed to be induced, with Lachie still hundreds of kilometres away. He dropped everything at a moment’s notice and began the long drive to the city, knowing there was the potential for him to miss the birth of his first child. “All the “prepared” that I felt just the day before disappeared when they said I had to be induced and I knew Lachie wasn’t going to be there to support me for at least three hours. Mum was working that day, and thankfully she knocked off to come and be by my side until Lachie could be.” 

Susie experienced something she hadn’t before, what she knows now to have been a panic attack. “I didn’t know what was happening at the time, I honestly thought I was having a heart attack at first.” She was overwhelmed, she was scared and she was facing an unknown situation. 

Eventually, Lachie did arrive, right before Susie was wheeled into the theatre for an emergency c-section. “Seeing Lachie run around the corridor to meet me as I was being wheeled into surgery was the biggest relief of my life. Before he got there I had been dead silent. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, I just wanted to be left alone. I didn’t even talk to mum, the doctors got a grunt when they came in to check on things.” 

I asked Susie how she felt when they announced that she needed to have an emergency c-section, and she told me she was relieved more than anything. “Honestly, I was just glad it was going to be over, that I was going to get to hold my baby. I didn’t like the whole drawn-out process of labour, it was taking a real toll on me both mentally and physically. I had been so strong for so long, I knew this was going to be my undoing.” 

The first days of motherhood went smoothly for Susie, wrapped in the cocoon of the private hospital, with Lachie at her every beck and call, the nurses just a beeper push away if anything went wrong. It was when the new family returned home that the cracks started to show. 

“The long drive home gave me far too much time to think, to be in my own head. That newborn bubble that people talk about, for me only lasted while we were still in the confines of the hospital. I started feeling this real sense of impending doom and sadness that I hadn’t felt before. The feelings I had before giving birth were back, but multiplied.” 

Lachie tried as best as he could to be there for Susie during the newborn phase, seeing how much she was struggling, but he felt helpless not having the ability to breastfeed for her. “It was nearing the end of harvest by the time I gave birth and had come home, so I knew Lachie was tired and it wasn’t like he could breastfeed for me, so I took a lot of the load myself.” 

What Susie thought she was experiencing mentally, was just “baby blues” as people call it, until it really began to progress as the baby suffered from colic. “I started to resent my baby every time she cried, I started to resent Lachie for being able to get up and live a normal life every day- his life barely changed. I was mad at myself for not being a better parent, for not having that neutral mum instinct. My mother was so far away, my mother-in-law was on the chaser bin after a harvest casual up and left, I didn’t want to bother my friends. So, I suffered in silence. Which, I think, was the worst thing I could have done, I bottled it all up instead of finding a healthy way to express my emotions.” 

It was a visit to the GP for a checkup for the baby that saw Susie take some action against how she was feeling. “I went in there for the three-month checkup, and left with a prescription for anti-depressants and a referral to an online psychologist.” Being in such a rural area, Susie was adamant that she would not use the referral if she had to drive hours to see the psychologist, instead opting to use a telehealth option. “The GP told me that I would be a wreck before the first appointment, just anxious and wanting to pull out, but she told me to get through that first appointment and it will get better from there.”

The anti-depressants that Susie was prescribed came as a shock the Lachie, who had known she was struggling but not to what extent. “It took a couple of weeks for them to kick in and really start doing something, and you don’t notice the difference until you forget to take them one day and think ‘Oh! Okay! I do see a difference there!’” 

I asked Susie about her first psychologist appointment, knowing all too well that the first appointment can be very daunting and nerve-wracking. “Just as the GP had said I was a wreck. I picked up the phone to cancel so many times, but in my heart, I knew that I needed to do this, for me, for my daughter, and for Lachie. So I did go through with it.” 

Suse tells me she felt lighter after that first appointment, not like she was “suddenly cured” but lighter. “It wasn’t the be-all and end-all for me, and it is something that I am working on every single day. I still take the medication, I still speak to the psychologist fortnightly, and I now know how I can work on myself, by myself. Taking those first steps was so bloody hard, but so worth it.”

If you would like to tell your story on WELLpod, whether it be anonymously or through an interview, please contact well@ejgcreative.com.au