I Had Lost The Will To Live But My Baby Saved Me

Chitwan Sethi had lost a baby just six months before she gave birth to her son. She shared her journey of overcoming the difficulties in her pregnancy and how experts and her son helped her get through it. Here's her story.

“They say that, ‘being a mother is the greatest joy for a woman’ - but little do people stress on how less prepared you are for it. My son was born in September 2020 but I had given birth to a stillborn just 6 months before I conceived him, which had left me traumatised."

"The day my son Kabir was born, everyone around me was ecstatic! I was happy too - but after a few months my body suddenly started feeling heavy & I had put on a lot of weight. I’d stretch marks all over my belly & couldn’t connect to my new version. My friends said, ‘These are gifts of motherhood. This shows you’re blessed with a healthy baby.’ But, I wanted to tell them that it’s not about the baby, it’s about ME! Sudden blues of overwhelming emotions kept hitting me from time to time, until one day I broke down!"

"My son was around 6 months old when I suddenly broke into tears for no reason! I kept crying for hours but my husband or I couldn’t understand what the reason was. That’s when I decided - I need help. Without giving a second thought, I went to a therapist to get myself treated. I was detected with Postpartum depression which I realised was much more common in women than I thought."

"I’d suffered from depression before so I could feel where these blues were taking me but my therapist said that, ‘many women abort their second child just because they can’t handle postpartum depression again’. That made me realise how serious this issue is."

"After taking 6-7 sessions of therapy, I could feel a change in my emotions & soon I told my mother about it. What I heard from her left me shook. She told me, ‘You know what, I used to feel just like that but we didn’t have an option other than living through it alone.’"

"Today my son is 18 months old & it was just because of therapy that I could be the mother I am today. So all I’d to tell new moms is that, ‘Postpartum depression is real & nothing to be ashamed of so take that 1st step to help yourself."

Watch her story here. 

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