Nicole Cousens cried for 547 days immediately after the birth of her beautiful baby girl.
Excited to welcome baby Ellie, Nicole knew something was terribly wrong when she met her long-awaited bundle of joy for the first time.
Instead of being “overwhelmed with love” like she thought she would be, she had a very different and confrontational thought: “What the hell have I done and how do I keep this thing alive?”
The 34-year-old new mother from Perth had been plunged into deep postpartum depression with no clear way out.
She knew her headspace wasn’t quite right, but every Google search told her she had the ‘postpartum blues,’ which usually goes away a few days after giving birth.
Nicole tried to smile in the pictures after welcoming Ellie into the world, but she just didn’t feel the loving connection she had been promised and didn’t think she could properly care for her baby.
Nicole cried for 547 days immediately after the birth of her beautiful baby girl. Her daughter Ellie shows up in the NICU. Her husband Shayne is with her.
But as the days turned into months, he began to despair.
“I thought I was a terrible mother because I didn’t love her like I was supposed to,” Nicole told FEMAIL.
Four years later, she and her daughter are best friends and she’s finally the fun mom she always wanted to be, but it took a while.
Nicole is so marked by the profound mental health episode she experienced for two years that her dreams of having two children, a pair of pigeons, have been shelved.
The tingling sensation he felt when he heard his baby’s first cry contrasted with his desire to keep her safe at all costs. She told her partner Shayne to keep an eye on her at all times.
Nicole gave birth via C-section, but maintained a positive attitude the entire time, as she had during her glorious “sunshine and rainbows” pregnancy.
‘I was so naive that I thought being a father would be easy. I thought I would be the fun mom who would make toys and do my own baby sensory activities,” she said.
Relief came when she returned to work, but she fell back into depression every time her baby became ill and she stayed home to care for him.
She felt “oddly relieved” when she was discharged before her baby daughter, who ended up swallowing fluid at birth and had to stay in the NICU for a while. It was there that they also noticed holes in her heart and a “click” in her hip that they wanted to monitor.
“I came in and saw her every day, but it wasn’t like she was home and I had to take care of her,” he said.
But this also affected her ability to bond, as did the brace her daughter came home with that kept her hips square until they developed properly.
In retrospect, postpartum depression was clear: there were indicators everywhere. Even his previous mental health issues indicated the potential for it to develop.
Nicole’s mental health spiral meant she couldn’t be the mother she thought she would be or have the enlightening period of motherhood she had dreamed of.
Nicole and Ellie are best friends now, but the mother regrets the period in her life when she was anxious and depressed instead of being the fun mother she wanted to be.
Instead, she was sitting at home, experiencing sensory overload every time her baby cried and believing she was the worst mother ever.
“I just didn’t know what she needed,” he said.
He questioned her ability to feed the baby or keep her happy and safe.
‘Shayne could really determine what she needed much quicker, she knew when she was hungry or tired or needed her nappy checked. She just couldn’t understand it,” she recalled.
Nicole lamented the confident woman she had once been and the dream of motherhood she had created during those “perfect” months of pregnancy.
“I thought we would be sitting in cafes, I was really looking forward to maternity leave and a ten-month break,” she said.
In fact, she was relieved when her maternity leave ended and she had to return to her job at the government office.
She explained that she thought being a mother would be easy, but in reality her partner was more in tune with her baby’s needs.
At least there I knew what I was doing and if I was doing it right.
‘This improved our relationship. I missed her when she was at work and I thought about all the fun things we could do,’ she reflected.
Nicole didn’t realize the darkness she was facing was postpartum depression or how common it was.
In fact, specialist pediatrician Dr. Daniel Golshevsky, better known as Dr. Golly, explains that perinatal mental health problems affect approximately one in five mothers.
‘Having a very unstable baby or a history of mental health problems will increase your chances of suffering from it. There are many symptoms but feeling numb or sad, as well as excessive crying, anxiety, fear or worry are some of the most common,’ she said.
The numbness, anxiety and sadness mentioned by the doctor were always present for Nicole, but they came to light one day when she and her now-husband, Shayne, were shopping for an air conditioner.
“I didn’t want to go home because she was there and that meant I would have to take care of her,” he said.
‘We were in the car and I burst into tears. Poor Shayne saw me crying all the time but she didn’t know how to help me.
It took Nicole two years to get out of her postpartum depression and start enjoying parenting.
Shayne hugged her and promised her that everything would be okay, reminding her that he was there and that they were a team.
The next time her feelings took over Nicole was alone. Ellie’s screams made her angry.
“I was screaming and yelling, not at her but in general, I was shaking. I called my mom and admitted I needed help,” he said.
That phone call brought the family closer.
‘She had a difficult birth with me and my twin sister. and she admitted her own struggles with parenthood. She was from the generation where it wasn’t talked about,’ she said.
Nicole has been working on her relationship with Ellie every day and things are getting easier now that the young woman can talk about what she wants.
She says sending her to a daycare where she knew she was safe also helped with her mental health.
Now she and Ellie are inseparable.
Nicole wants other women to realize that they are not alone and that if they feel the crushing weight of depression and anxiety after birth, then it could be something more sinister than the “blues.”
Nicole and Dr. Golly are doing push-ups this month to raise awareness about mental health.
“The most important thing to remember is that if you need help, there is help available,” Dr. Golly said.
PANDA has a national hotline 1300 726 306 and is a great starting point for any parent seeking advice.