By Yasemin Talat
This Sunday, Stephanie Davidson will celebrate her first Mother’s Day with son William.
The Bacchus Marsh mother is especially excited because she has overcome a challenging first year of motherhood since William was born the day after Mother’s Day last year.
This year, Stephanie will celebrate mother- hood with William’s grandmothers and great grandmothers, reflecting on the whirlwind year she’s had as a new mum.
In September last year, Stephanie was diagnosed with postnatal depression and anxiety. She had tried very hard to breastfeed William, to no avail.
“For me, that was really hard because I wanted to feed him,” Stephanie said. “I felt like everyone else was breastfeeding except me.”
The pressure to breastfeed, and the expectation that she should, led Stephanie to feel she had failed as a mother.
And although she felt things weren’t right, Stephanie said she kept her feelings to her self.
It was at a visit to the doctor for William that she sought advice.
She said even then it was hard to speak about herself and hard for those around her to understand.
“Although it looked like I had it all together and it looked fine, it really wasn’t,” she said.
“There is that stigma that mental health isn’t real, but one in five new mums and one in nine new dads will have postnatal depression – it’s a real thing,” she said.
“Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”
In the past six months Stephanie’s mental health has improved and she has opened up about her experiences.
She created a blog,
Trays of Slice, where she documents the good and bad days and the ways she deals with her depression.
Before the blog, it was making trays of dessert slices that kept her occupied, hence the name. Her advice to others is to speak out about how they’re feeling, whether to a doctor, friend or partner. “The first time I spoke to my GP I felt so much better,” she said. “There is no shame in mental health.”
Stephanie’s blog
Trays of Slice is at www.traysofslice.wordpress.com
