After losing a close friend just five days before giving birth, coupled with a traumatic birth experience, Julie was not doing well.
Transcript
So there was very much pressuring. And I read the studies and I saw, like, the absolute versus relative risk. Like, I was looking at, like, OK, do they – you know, is there support for an older mum to be induced? And yeah. There is some evidence to suggest minimizing stillbirth. So I made the decision to be induced but I think that very much contributed to the sequelae medical problems and my mental health as well.
Interviewer: Wow. Wow. And did they give you emotional support for all of this?
No. It took a lot for me to get mental health support and I think it’s important to understand the context too that – because I do think it’s an important part of my narrative story. A very close person in my life ended her life by suicide five days before my child was born. Sorry. I thought I’d be able to –
Interviewer: Take your time.
I think that’s important context because that on top of my birth injury, I think through myself and my family sort of in a bit of a crisis. And at my six-week follow-up I had shared that I wasn’t doing well – that, you know, there was – that’s when my birth injury got diagnosed as well as sort of, I think, you know, in the checklist of mental health, like, I raised probably red flags to my ob-gyn.
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