Four months pregnant and recently fired, Susan sat at home, terrified of what the future held.

Transcript

When I was four months pregnant, I was fired from my job and I went from being a full-time career woman to being at home, having one income, being pregnant, not knowing what was coming next and just being terrified of everything that was to come. I started feeling really down about a month later. So it was in July that I was fired, in August I started feeling really down and I went to the doctor and they said it was situational depression and you know, the hormones and everything, it was really rough. I decided not to go on medication because I didn’t want to harm my daughter in anyway, so I suffered through it for the rest of my pregnancy.

So I went to the counsellor who specialized in postpartum depression and she really helped me with a lot of issues and she really uncovered that one of my big reasons for causes of having postpartum depression was the loss of my job and that loss of identity that I used to have. And then suddenly and having it taken away so suddenly and in such a manner that hurt so bad, you know, and was so undignified for me, and that I should maybe think about going back to work part time while on maternity leave.

And so I eventually did. So about a month ago I started working again in long term care as a recreation therapist and I’ve only been doing one day a week but it’s really, really helped me I think to be a better mother and to be a better person all round. Just to have that other sense of purpose in my life, you know, working with seniors, working with the people that I worked with for so long.

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