After her dream physiological labour and birth, Amelia’s world was turned upside by a sudden postpartum haemorrhage that whisked her away from her husband and daughter.

From the moment she awoke from the surgery, Amelia was consumed by mania and insomnia. Over the next eight weeks, her postpartum psychosis escalated but Amelia was able to hide most of her delusions and hallucinations from her care providers. That is until finally she made the brave call to ask for help and present to her local hospital.

Three years on, Amelia is expecting baby number two and shares openly about all the supports that are in place to protect her mental health this time around - given the 50% chance of recurrence.

Join me as Amelia discusses the overall lack of awareness around postpartum psychosis, her initial misdiagnosis of PTSD, what worked for her and what didn’t, and the incredible support she did eventually receive.

Please note, this episode mentions suicidal ideation. Go gently.

This is a story that begins in November 2022 when I received a message from a new mum who wanted nothing more than to change the trajectory of her motherhood story.

This is a story about a mum who’d just been diagnosed with depression and anxiety, who was experiencing vivid intrusive thoughts and panic attacks, and who couldn’t stop crying.

This is a story about a mum who made the move back to rural NSW to be closer to her family for support, but who was now struggling to find the right professional support for herself.

This is a story about a mum who advocated so hard for herself so she could finally say ‘that’s not my story anymore’.

This is Jessie’s story.

When Ashlee entered motherhood, she expected the transition to be easy from her many years of working with children. What she didn’t expect was the severe anxiety she experienced in her first pregnancy or the depression that overshadowed her postpartum. As a perinatal and infant mental health psychologist, she also didn’t expect to miss her own red flags.

Sleep, feeding, and health complications with her daughter also diverted any attention away from Ashlee’s wellbeing, and left her blaming motherhood and expecting her mental health to get better only when circumstances improved. Ashlee finally reached out for support and even moved cities for a fresh start, but two weeks later, she found out she was unexpectedly pregnant with her son.

This is Ashlee’s phenomenal story - about the benefit of hindsight, about grieving her first postpartum, about navigating motherhood with a diagnosis of autism, about the importance of being listened to, about seeking psychological help as a psychologist, about the challenge motherhood caused to her identity, about the difficulty in deciphering the difference between mental ill health and the ‘normal’ challenges of motherhood, about redefining what a ‘village’ means, about rejecting the shame of taking medication, about overcoming depression and having faith that things will get better, about learning to look inwards, and about embracing her own humanness.

Expect to be blown away when listening to this episode.

You can find Ashlee on Instagram at wells_psychology where she raises awareness about perinatal and women’s mental health. Please note, this episode discusses the lived experience of anxiety, depression and an unwanted, unexpected, pregnancy. Go gently.

In this episode, I’m joined by Gemma - a recovering perfectionist, accredited social worker, perinatal counsellor, podcast host of @postpartumlikeaboss, and mum-of-two. From the moment she fell pregnant, Gemma experienced an immediate sense of identity loss and anxiety that lasted until postpartum.

While the anxiety and unknowns disappeared after birth, the relentlessness and challenges of early motherhood left Gemma at her lowest. Despite experiencing mental ill health in the past, Gemma found the transition to motherhood to be harder and riddled with more guilt because of the expectations to feel joy and fulfilment.

Finding and accessing support was also hard for Gemma, but thanks to the help of the PANDA hotline, her somatic therapist, and the sense of identity she reclaimed by returning to work and exercising, Gemma slowly found her groove in motherhood. Even more than this, she decided to retrain as a perinatal counsellor to be able to provide the same support for others knowing how life changing it had been for her.

Join me in this episode as Gemma and I discuss mum guilt, the barriers to support, the shame that comes from not loving every moment of motherhood, and the importance of finding the right fit when it comes to therapy. This isn’t an episode to miss.

When Sarah was discharged from the mother-and-baby psychiatric hospital, she felt both refreshed and proud. Her recovery from postpartum anxiety and OCD became a badge of honour.

But that wasn’t the end of Sarah’s story with maternal mental ill health. Severe depression, a medication change, a presentation to the emergency department, and a second and third MBU admission filled pages of a book she thought she had already closed.

Join me for part two of Sarah’s story as she is once again forced to confront the way she sees mental health, recovery, and herself, and where she grapples with both the relief and shame around being a ‘frequent flyer’ of the psychiatric hospital.

Please note, this episode discusses suicidality and suicidal ideation. Go gently.

With a history of anxiety and depression, Jess and her care team went into pregnancy with a plan to protect her mental health during postpartum. Unfortunately, serious and sudden medical diagnoses for her son, Jasper, immediately after birth meant Jess’s mental health was neglected amongst relentless surgeries, a two-month NICU admission, and full-time caretaking for a sick baby.

The NICU experience cast a long shadow over Jess’s motherhood journey, leaving behind a trail of self-blame, overwhelm, uncertainty, and doubt. Through the support of caring helpline staff, changing medication, making mum friends, a GP that took her seriously, and reclaiming her passions, this is the incredible story of one mother’s journey to come into her own light and to help other mothers know that they do not have to struggle alone.

Follow Jess on Instagram @jesscareywrites and visit her website https://jesscareywrites.com/ to find her collection of books about mental health for both children and adults.

Between a PCOS diagnosis, fertility struggles, and several rounds of IVF, it was not easy for Emma to bring her three boys into the world. Unfortunately, trying to conceive was only part of the mental and emotional battles she faced.

Serious health complications in pregnancy, antenatal anxiety, guilt about not loving pregnancy, and a traumatic birth with her first son, only compounded the mental health struggles that Emma was already facing from years of infertility. By the time her second son was born, Emma’s anxiety was tipped over the edge processing her grandmother’s passing and by an accident that nearly claimed the lives of her husband and son.

From an MBU admission to cutting the ribbon at the opening of Sydney’s newest public MBU, this is the breath-taking story of one woman’s determination to prioritise her own healing and to shape the healing of all women who may one day walk the same path. Emma’s story is as incredible as she is.

Please note, this episode details the lived experience of infertility, miscarriages, and IVF. Go gently.

As someone who had never experienced mental ill health, the bubbly and outgoing Nikolina was confronted by the sudden onset of perinatal depression and anxiety within her first few weeks of motherhood. From crying for no reason to not being able to sleep, her PNDA symptoms hit very hard and very fast.

Nikolina pushed through these symptoms for weeks, even using her son’s milestone photo cards as a countdown to the idealised six-week mark. But when nothing changed at six weeks as she had hoped, it was her husband who helped Nikolina realise that she wasn’t herself and that she may need some help to get her spark back.

In this episode, Nikolina takes us on her journey from the career high in her first pregnancy to the excitement of dressing up for therapy, and now to the recent publication of her children’s book - filled with lots of tears, insomnia, therapy, stepping on Lego pieces, and of course, laughter, in between!

You can follow Nikolina on Instagram @heynikolinak where she shares the ridiculousness and realities of motherhood and order her new book My Mummy Loves Fudge! from her website heynikolinak.com

In this episode, I welcome Jade who shares her ongoing journey with mental ill health - a journey which is both three years old but new at the same time. After the birth of her son and the subsequent sleep deprivation, Jade’s mental health declined and she was (mis)diagnosed with postpartum depression. Despite proactively and consistently seeking support from several psychologists and trying multiple anti-depressants across three years, Jade was still experiencing depressive episodes while all the mothers in her online community were in the enviable stages of recovery. With the persistence of a very supportive friend, Jade finally reached out to a perinatal psychiatrist. Within 15 minutes of that first appointment, Jade received the correct diagnosis which came with a whole new treatment plan, a referral to the perfect psychologist (finally!), and of course a whole lot of grief.

With a long list of achievements under her belt, Lisa assumed motherhood would be easy compared to her prior endeavours. As she says, she thought highly of her ability to get shit done. To her surprise though, Lisa struggled with the transition as motherhood didn’t provide the feedback and awards she was used to, and felt she was failing because nothing she did would stop her colic daughter from crying all the time. At five months postpartum, she was diagnosed with depression.

Pregnancy and motherhood really forced Lisa to confront the reality that she had past experiences to unpack and behaviours to unlearn - the biggest being her reluctance to ask for help.

Through therapy, postpartum planning, a strong support-system, and a much more self-compassionate attitude, Lisa approached her second pregnancy in a completely different way and is finally enjoying a maternity leave without mental ill health.