“For a long time, I felt as though I had been robbed of my motherhood experience.” Aurelie's Story #BlackMaternalMentalHealthAwareness

I gave birth to my son at 26 +5 days, on the 21st August at Royal Berkshire Hospital. We had no inclination that our pregnancy was high risk and thus were very poorly prepared for the emergency caesarean as well as what a stay in NICU would entail.

As far as my birth experience goes, I cannot fault the nurses and obstetrician that helped to deliver my son. It was overwhelming and fast paced. It felt as though there was no time to take stock of the fact that the baby I'd been growing would now be earthside. He was SO little and I felt numb not being able to hold my baby that looked so tiny and fragile and had come earlier than anyone was expecting.

The nurses gave me a very quick opportunity to give him a kiss on his forehead and swiftly took him up to intensive care. A couple of hours later we were told that they had tried to remove my son from the ventilators and his lungs had collapsed, thankfully they were able to stabilise him and the team from John Radcliffe informed us that they would be looking after our son until he was strong enough to come home with us.

In the midst of a highly charged emotional moment, this was the first time we'd had any doctor be optimistic about our son eventually coming home with us one day. The doctors, while a lot more experienced and knowledgeable, treated us as though we were part of the team. Every intervention was discussed with us.

Every single second in NICU is hard and while there are a few moments that stand out, the most poignant one is when we were notified of our son's brain bleed. The doctors were excellent at explaining to us that they would do their best to make sure that our son was given a fighting chance. It was a long three months until we were able to take him home.

Being in the neonatal unit was traumatic to say the least. I think the biggest reason why we survived was because of the support we received at John Radcliffe and from Bliss. We were offered access to mental health support that helped us realise that it was important for our baby to have parents that are healthy too. To this day it is probably the hardest thing I have ever experienced.

We were provided access to a psychologist and once we took our son home, I was provided with ongoing support with a psychologist in my local area. While I still experienced postpartum PTSD, having these tools helped me become healthier and enjoy every moment with our healthy boy instead of viewing him as the fragile 26-week-old. Access to a psychologist helped me see that life was moving on and we could celebrate that after living in a highly stressful environment for so long.

The biggest challenges I faced were coming to terms with the fact that my parenting journey looked different to what I had expected and accepting that it didn't make me any less of a mother. For a long time I felt as though I had been robbed of my motherhood experience and I was missing out on key moments with my baby such as feeding him for the first time, changing his nappy, having family meet him. It was hard not having a typical newborn experience of taking your baby home. On top of the new parent anxiety, I also had NICU parent anxiety which made everything feel a lot harder.

The doctors and nurses were brilliant as well as the charities on the unit. They provided us with all the information we needed to feel as though we were being factored into our child’s care. The support from Bliss particularly with connecting us to other parents made us feel that we weren't alone. It made us feel as though we had people we could lean on if it ever became too difficult.

Bliss support is a great way of reminding parents to look after themselves and that they are not alone. Bliss helped us feel as though we could be hopefully optimistic for our son and that he was in perfect hands. It also taught us to embrace and accept our experience which filled us with peace.

I would advise parents going through a NICU experience to accept any support that is offered. Having a baby in NICU can feel isolating and at times it can leave you feeling disconnected from the rest of the world. Support from Bliss and the teams on the unit reminded us that we should and could celebrate every milestone without guilt and anxiety on what was next around the corner.

My son is doing amazingly now. We are so proud we get to parent such a fun, clever and curious boy. He is three now and we feel so honoured to parent the most amazing kid! We are fully in three-nager mode where every answer has a bit more attitude to it, but we are loving it!