In February this year (the day after Hannah's birthday!) I gave birth to my second daughter - Marni Roux. The birth went exactly as planned, which was awesome! Marni was born at home, in the water, and once the lovely midwives had left, my husband Izzy and I snuggled up in bed with our baby girl and felt very happy and very lucky. 

In the days after the birth, I tried really hard to rest and take things easy. I have a wonderful, supportive family who live very close by, and a truly amazing bunch of friends who were all on standby to bring meals! I was also lucky enough to have the same lovely health visitor I had with my first daughter and all of the visiting midwives were wonderful. 

Because I experienced severe postnatal depression after my first daughter was born, and much of that manifested in an inability to relax or sleep, my husband and I prepared as well as we could this time around for a quiet house, minimal visitors and lots of time in bed/on the sofa during those first crazy newborn weeks. While I was pregnant with Pia Mae, my eldest daughter, we had moved countries and houses, changed jobs and I had been on my own a lot while Izzy worked at sea. So we put a lot of my previous postnatal struggles down to a very turbulent year.

However, by 10 days after Marni's arrival, I found myself experiencing some of the same symptoms I had after Pia was born. I was unable to sleep during the day, struggling to relax and stay still and struggling increasingly to fall asleep and stay asleep at night. It felt like my brain was wired to Marni, so I couldn't switch off even for a moment, in case she needed me. Every noise and movement she made - I was ready to respond. 

I had also started to feel the terrifying panic sensations I had after Pia was born. My anxiety feels like hot prickly tingles running up and down my arms and upper back. That doesn't sound like much, but if you've ever felt physical anxiety or panic attacks, you'll know that they are all-consuming and genuinely feel life-threatening. 

So I called in help. By this point, my incredible friend Hannah had started making almost daily morning visits to check on Marni and I because Izzy was back at work (he's self-employed so paternity leave was limited). Then my parents were taking Marni and I to their house from lunchtime onwards because I had started to realise, like last time, that I didn't have the faintest clue what to do with myself or baby Marni. 

Hannah was with me the morning I felt so unwell I decided to ask my health visitor whether I could be referred immediately to the mother and baby unit in Bristol - New Horizons. I'd heard of the unit while doing research about what support was available if PND struck again. In fact, I had a just-in-case meeting with a mental health nurse just before Marni's due date, and at the end of her summary letter, she listed the unit as an option. I felt that Marni and I needed to be somewhere we could be together, where I could get the help I needed to shift my anxiety and start sleeping again, and where I/we wouldn't be a burden on my family and friends. I was also desperately worried about how my behaviour and plummeting mood was going to affect Pia. She was old enough to know things weren't right for me, and I didn't want to expose her to anything that might’ve upset her. 

As it was, I don't think there was a bed available at New Horizons at that time. Plus, the Intensive Service (AKA the Crisis Team) who were supporting us by then, insisted that the situation was best managed at home, surrounded by my family. It sounded reassuring and doable and actually as time went on, being away from Pia and Izzy and my family and friends started to feel more scary than staying at home and dealing with it there.

And so began 9 very, very difficult weeks. I was prescribed some pretty hefty sleeping tables, anti-anxiety meds and antidepressants, which put an end to my breastfeeding hopes, and I began formula feeding and sleeping on my own so I wouldn't 'tune in' to Marni as much at night. Izzy slept downstairs on the sofa with Marni in her cot for the first part of the nighttime, and when I woke in a hazy, medicated, and highly anxious state after 3-5 hours of restless sleep, I took over her care. 

I was still going to my parents house with Marni during the day because by now I had lost all sense of time, was unable to perform simple tasks like putting lunch together, and I was much too afraid to drive given my state of high anxiety. At no point did I stop looking after Marni though. While I could feel that the bond I had with her the moment she was born was slipping away, I knew what I needed to do for her and when. I just didn't trust that I would do it correctly. 

In the background of this groundhog-day-like existence, while waiting for my medication to kick in and for me to feel any amount myself again, an army of helpers, cooks, baby-holders, childcarers, shopping doers and shoulders to cry on were taking action. Most, if not all, of these wondrous humans were coordinated and organised by the true joy that is Hannah. She had whatsapp groups with my family, with my running tribe, with my best friends from uni who were far away and feeling useless. She organised cooking rotas, school pick-up rotas and perhaps most touchingly, evening rotas, so that when Izzy went to bed between 6 and 7pm, I had company until my strict 10pm bedtime. I have never felt so loved, supported and so incredibly humbled by people's willingness to go a little 'above and beyond' to help a family out. I will never forget the array of people who got involved to help, and the generosity of friends with their own families and little people to look after, who sat with me and comforted me. 

However, despite this war-worthy effort, I was not getting better, in fact I was getting worse. My anxiety seemed uncontrollable, sleep was completely evasive and induced panic attacks when it came, and my mood continued to plummet. It all came to a head one weekend, when I realised I felt totally unsafe looking after my two girls alone and that I had run out of hope that things would ever improve. That was a totally terrifying and horribly empty feeling. The Intensive team came to see me the next morning and suggested I meet with the team at New Horizons, because I'd come to the end of the road with what could be done at home.

So, two days later, I went to Southmead Hospital, to New Horizons, where I met with the unit's main doctor and two of the mental health nurses. I was frightened, but wanted to hear what insight they had into what was happening to me and what could be done to get me better. When they said they wanted to admit me to the unit, I was utterly horrified. Despite almost begging to be taken there when Marni was 10 days old, the prospect of having to leave home and Pia now was beyond imagination. I had managed despite everything to get Pia up and dressed for school in the mornings and partake in her bath and bedtime routine each night, so she felt I had a handle on some elements of her routine. Plus, on some of my most anxiety-fuelled nights, when I was terrified of going to bed, I slept with Pia for comfort. Removing those last few mum-duties and privileges felt like I was sacrificing one child for another.

The day Marni and I went to New Horizons is one of the most haunting of my life. The staff were unbelievably kind and gentle, Izzy and my parents were with us for as long as possible, and it was clear from the outset I could have visitors - including Pia - as often as I wanted. But the dread of leaving my ‘safe zone’ and entering a place that felt clinical and unfriendly, where I didn’t know a soul nor what might happen to me there was frankly, unbearable. I remember curling up in a ball on my bedroom floor while mum and Izzy packed the remaining things I wanted to take and I just couldn’t take in what was happening. What it meant and how it would end. 

Over the next two months - I still can't believe it was that long - I was helped gently through the horrors going on in my head, supported with talking therapies, mindfulness and medicine to be able to sleep, and most importantly to get my bond with Marni back. I always told the staff at New Horizons that I trusted them completely, but that I didn’t believe I would get past this cruel illness - that I was some kind of ‘one in a million’ oddity. Thankfully, they knew better. 

When the team at the unit found out I love running, they began to encourage me to make it part of my recovery. I wondered how they expected me to go for a run when I could hardly get out of bed. They suggested that I just put my trainers on one day, then put my whole kit on on another. I eventually went for a walk around the carpark, and then actually ran along the hospital street. At first, I did these things to ‘tick a box’, to please the nurses and to honestly just fill some time in those long, long days. But, as the team knew would happen, I slowly and gradually started making myself do more, go further, try listening to an old playlist, and then get a real sweat up. By the time I left the unit I was running about twice a week, half an hour or so each time. The first run I did the day after I was discharged was like running on air! 

During my admission, I would come home on the weekends to test out how things were with the girls and try to build my confidence and mood back up again. Hannah was (and is) totally in tune with my love/need to run and would suggest we did it together - talking or not, walking if needed, and we did. And it felt good. 

Hannah also arranged to come to the unit one evening with two of my closest girlfriends and cook dinner for me. It was incredibly surreal having the girls see me in New Horizons, but it gave me such hope that I would get back to being able to socialise like I used to, and that I could talk about my time there with people who understood what it had looked and felt like.

I truly believe that the care of the staff at New Horizons made me better. Even before I was discharged I started thinking of ways I could show my immense appreciation for that care. Running is one way I have raised money in the past, and as it became such a huge part of my recovery, it felt right to plan to run the 2020 Bath Half Marathon to raise money for the unit. When I told Hannah what I was planning, she immediately said she’d like to join me. Now Hannah is fairly new to running, but has proved she has seriously good long-distance stamina! Her first Bath Half experience left her feeling a bit battered and bruised so I wasn’t sure she’d ever do another one. But the fact she did want to, and she wanted to do it with me to raise money for this particular cause, well, there were tears. 

Hannah and I have been training lots already. I decided that I wanted to be a sort of running ‘doula’ for her, to see whether I could help her run the half and not feel spent at the end, and run it quicker than her previous time. She’s smashing it so far and the photo of us above was after she’d done her first sub-30 minute 5km! If I can support her running even a fraction of the amount she’s supported my family this year, I will end the race feeling immensely proud for us both. 

When I told New Horizons what we were doing and asked what might be on their shopping list, they instantly said ‘new sofas’! It made me chuckle, but it perfectly reflects where so much of the ‘therapy’ happens at that special place. When dinner was over and the babies in bed, us mums would sit together on the slidy, squeaky sofas and watch Gogglebox or something similar. We’d chat, sometimes cry, sometimes be silent, but always have the warmth of one of the incredible staff members nearby. Professional hugs were plentiful. I’d love to give those wonderful women somewhere more comfortable to relax on after fretful days. We might not raise enough for a whole new suite, but whatever we can raise, that’s where it’ll go!

Thank you in advance for reading my story, for encouraging Hannah and I to run this race with pride in our strides, and ultimately for helping support a small but incredible service. All the money raised will go directly to New Horizons.