Prenatal Depression Forced Me to Make a Heartbreaking Decision
- Amélie Padfield
- 12 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Trigger Warning: This piece discusses themes relating to pregnancy termination and suicidal ideation which some readers may find distressing.
After years of suffering with my mental health, in particular depression and OCD, I finally thought I had got what I had always dreamt of. I had met someone I was about to marry, and I was pregnant with my first child. I had never thought I would even be in the position to imagine a future like this. Then I experienced prenatal depression, and my world collapsed.
Prenatal depression is not as widely discussed as postnatal depression, yet when I experienced it, together with hyperemesis gravidarum (a very severe form of morning sickness), it led me to make the devastating decision to terminate my pregnancy. Although this is one of the most difficult things I have had to write, I know that I need to shine a light on this issue because if there had been more information available to me, I potentially may have felt less tormented about a decision that ultimately saved my life.
What Is Prenatal Depression, and How Did It Affect Me?
Prenatal or antenatal depression is depression that occurs during pregnancy. Symptoms include extreme or ongoing sadness, anxiety, and in severe cases, it can cause women to harm themselves or the developing fetus. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) states that depression and anxiety are the most common mental health disorders experienced by women during pregnancy, affecting about 12% and 13% of them respectively.
Although I had struggled with my mental health for many years, when my husband and I decided to have a baby, I had never felt so positive about my future. Certainly, I didn’t imagine that mental health struggles would once again shatter the happiness that I had worked so hard to achieve.
Initially, things seemed to be going well. I was excited, and I felt like I finally had a purpose in life. I was determined to be the best mother I could be.
I have hazy memories of how the depression started. At one point, I was looking at baby clothes in shops, and then it seemed that all excitement and life had been sucked out of me. In the coming days and weeks, I felt numb and detached from everything, like I was existing behind a pane of glass. I wasn’t looking forward to the baby anymore, despite me forcing myself to. Having once been so excited at the prospect of appointments and scans, I now felt nothing.
There are really no words to describe how I felt during this time, but ‘desperate’ comes pretty close. My mood had plummeted so much that I was suicidal, and I felt like I had made a terrible mistake getting pregnant.
As my depression deepened, I became consumed with existential fears around long-term responsibility and sheer panic about the permanence of my situation, which overshadowed my waking moments. I spiralled so badly with intrusive thoughts that I was questioning why people even have children, and fantasising about my life before this.
Every single moment of the pregnancy was making my mental health worse. If I did manage to sleep, I would wake up thinking that this was all a bad dream. When I remembered my reality, my world would come crashing down, and I would be wracked with distress and feelings of doom. I thought that ending my life was the only option I had to escape my situation. It was like a black blanket had dropped over me, and I could see no way out. All the plans I had imagined about how I would share my exciting news had disintegrated, and I felt like I was losing myself. Nonetheless, throughout this whole time I was trying to convince myself to keep going with the pregnancy.
On my first appointment with the midwife, she must have sensed that I was struggling, as she referred me to the Perinatal Mental Health Team, a team that supports pregnant women with mental health problems, as well as those who are planning a pregnancy or who have a baby up to a year old.
I was clearly in crisis, but the perinatal team only offered to see me every two weeks. I didn’t think I could get through the next minute, let alone the next two weeks. My husband was as supportive as he could be and extremely worried about me, but he isn’t an expert, and I needed professional, specific help, which wasn’t readily available. I recognise that this is just my experience, and other people are offered valuable support from the perinatal team, which is a hugely needed service. In fact, record numbers of women accessed perinatal mental health support in 2024.
The response I got was probably in part due to staff pressure, underfunding, and what is referred to as “fragmented care” – a lack of integration between services, which clearly needs to change.
A Double Blow
Not long after this, I started experiencing hyperemesis gravidarum. When I thought I had already reached rock bottom, I went through one of the darkest times of my life.
I was constantly sick. I couldn’t stand, walk, or eat without triggering vomiting so forcefully that I would wet myself. I couldn’t keep anything down, not even water, to the point that I was eventually hospitalised with severe dehydration.
I have often wondered whether things might have been easier, and I could have managed better, if I only had to cope with depression or hyperemesis. But I honestly don’t know — each was its own unique hell.
The Hardest Decision
I just knew in my heart that I couldn’t survive this. This wasn’t how I wanted to start married life. The relentless toll on my body and mind had beaten me, and I couldn’t fathom how I had been so blissfully happy a few weeks earlier.
Despite everything that was happening to me and how horrendous it was, I was tortured over the decision to terminate this wanted pregnancy. But eventually it came down to the brutal truth that it was too risky for me to keep going. I want to emphasise that everyone’s experience is different; some people may have milder symptoms or find the right support that allows them to carry their pregnancies safely. For me, however, this was the right decision given my circumstances.
The sad thing is, I still lost a baby, but often I feel like I can’t be openly sad because it was ultimately my decision, and that isn’t socially palatable.
My husband and I always say that we make the best decision we can at the time, and although it is difficult to accept, I am getting there. Of course, I think about what could have been. I still find it painful to see other people’s children, and I avoid the baby aisles of supermarkets.
Embracing Life
Although logically I know that I don’t need a baby to feel fulfilled or purposeful, society puts huge value on conventional roles. However, I am working through all of this, and in a strange way, this experience has helped me to live more authentically and to trust my mind and body more. Families do come in all shapes and sizes, and me, my husband, and our little black and white cat make a great one that is a force against the world.
I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that I made the best decision for me, and for my mental and physical health. While I am learning to accept that we never fully know the outcome of our journey, I am trying to embrace the path that I am now on and looking less to the path that could have been.
