I rode the lift to the fifth floor just as I had every day for the first 148 days of my child’s life. This time however, was different. We were going back. Only for a follow up appointment but the squirming, uneasy sensation in my stomach and my sweaty palms didn’t seem to know that.

My heart pounded as the computerized voice declared “Fifth, fifth, floor, floor” and the doors slid open. We turned the corner and suddenly the corridor I’d walked down hundreds, possibly thousands of times, looked immensely longer than it ever had before and then there was the smell of the antibacterial hand soap. While Erin was in hospital I didn’t mind it, in fact I liked it, it reminded me of her, now though, it brings back the fear and hurt that I’d repressed while in the thick of things.

Since we’ve been home I’ve noticed a sharp increase of flash backs, crying spells and imaginings—I swear I sometimes hear patient monitors and alarms. I don’t know if what I’m experiencing is Post Traumatic Stress, “just” depression or something else entirely. Maybe this is one of those lovely “normal” things that NICU parents get to experience. Whatever it is it doesn’t feel normal.

When your baby’s in hospital you don’t have time to deal with the emotional baggage that piles up as a result of having an early and possibly sick baby. You simply don’t have time and if you go to pieces who’s going to deal with the hundred and one things you need to do to keep your life going? No one. So you keep going and your baggage keeps piling up until you come home with a baby who cries for no reason, wants to be held at all hours of the night, who either, doesn’t eat and doesn’t grow or wants to eat all the time but still doesn’t grow!

So now you’re a crazy bag lady with a baby tucked under your arm, nappies piled in the corner, bags under your eyes that could easily accommodate your NICU baggage and armpit hair down to your elbows from a months worth of showers aborted due to screaming! At some point you’re going to explode and it’s not going to be pretty.

But you don’t because if you do who’s going to look after the baby, the house, the husband and any other kids you may have and where did that cat come from? Instead you wait for that rare moment when the baby’s quiet and you’re FINALLY alone and you just cry or you don’t because you’re afraid that if you start to cry you may never stop. Instead you just go silently crazier.

There are no answers in this post. I don’t know how to deal with what I’m feeling; I don’t even know what to call it. Somehow I think finding a name would help.

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Three months after we left the Special Care Nursery, last week I finally ran into a brick wall, emotionally. Perversely, I think it is because the weather improved. All winter I complained about being stuck indoors due to the rain, but now the sun has come out I still can’t stop feeling fragile and anxious, to the point where some days I don’t want to go out, or do things I used to enjoy. And last Tuesday when my appointment to see the child health nurse was unexpectedly cancelled, I just sat on the sofa and cried.

It makes no sense, but all my emotional resilience just seems to have gone out the window. Although it was stressful, tiring and frustrating during Talia’s hospital stay, I just focused on the positive things and “soldiered on”. Taking her home opened up a range of new challenges, but they are what any new parent has to deal with. Mostly I think I am doing OK – but some days I am finding the hole just seems to be bigger than the doughnut.

We do have some issues. Talia is difficult to settle, often screaming and hardly sleeping during the day, which means both of us are cranky and frazzled by evening. I feed her on demand but she remains very small, even for her corrected age. She looks healthy but has only gained 1kg in the three months since she was discharged from hospital. This has been causing me a huge amount of worry, and last week it reached the point where I was clearly showing some of the symptoms of postnatal depression.

The NICU staff told me that mothers of prems are more likely than mothers of full term babies to suffer from postnatal depression (PND). My own mother suffered terribly from PND and I really don’t want to go there.

I hate to admit it, but I couldn’t stop crying as I phoned the hospital last week and asked to speak to someone about getting some help. I felt like a failure, even though I know it is not my fault. I also went through quite a few tissues while talking to my GP a few days later, but now I feel a sense of relief that, even if I don’t feel in control of things, I don’t have to try and cope with it all on my own.

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I found the following websites helpful in learning more about PND

• The Black Dog Institute
• Children, Youth and Women’s Health Service
• Beyond Blue
• The Better Health Channel