Content warning: This article contains references to suicide.
Our gorgeous boy was born on the windiest day of September.
I was earlier told the fibroids around my ovaries were as aggressive as Khaleesi’s dragons, and the only shot I had of conception would involve ominously invasive procedures. That was a resounding “no” from me. Whatever was going on down there, I wished it well. I let it be.
In true style, the Man Above decided it was time to show some real muscle power. One hot January morning, a week after we had returned from a month-long trip to Sri Lanka, I woke up at the crack of dawn with lethargy akin to a hangover. Somehow, I knew my body had changed. A pregnancy test swiftly revealed two beautiful horizontal lines that were about to change my life.
Sarah with her son Azai. Source: Supplied
I don’t know how it happened and I cannot explain it. I was deliriously happy. Such ecstasy, of course, could not go unnoticed by the Patron Saint of Irony.
My son’s birth was a harrowing 22-hour ordeal resulting in two failed epidurals, one emergency C-section and one cherub who simply needed to exist to make every iota of my body erupt with glee. The touch of his raw paper-thin skin melting on mine felt like an elixir that my soul did not know it needed. When I held him to my chest, his ear pressed against my heart, I knew he was eavesdropping on generations of his ancestors, welcoming him to his rightful place in my arms. How had I been hiding him inside me forever? I was his everything; he was all I needed to stay alive.
I developed infection-grade mastitis in the second week of his life. Until then I was struggling to feed him, but the midwives insisted he was getting what he needed. A mother and her child are a part of the same whole; I knew that I wasn’t producing enough milk to keep him fed. The pain from the infection was unbearable, the shivers so epic that I couldn’t hold my son long enough without the fear of shaking him. The decision to stop breastfeeding came with an Everest-sized side of mum-guilt. I was crumbling under boulders of I-am-not-good-enough.
Sarah with baby Azai. Source: Supplied
Sarah Bari. Source: Supplied
The incessant crying arrived soon after. Not my baby’s; that was all me. I sobbed inconsolably every hour of the day. Every time my son would stir in his sleep or was on the cusp of waking up for his next feed, fear gripped me. I physically shook with dread; bile rose to my tongue, and I would run to the shower to vomit whatever little food I was consuming those days. My wonderful but sleep-deprived partner in his zombie state would step up.
I would sneak into our room only when my son was fast asleep and stare at him from afar, not wanting to touch him. I did not want my monstrously undeserving hands on the greatest perfection that existed. I feared he would smell the unworthiness of me and know from rubbing of our skin my deception: that I was not a real mother.
Meanwhile, oceans of “Congratulations, you’re the best mother!” messages seeped via every medium of my life: texts, voicemails, presents – the towering words of confidence, the overwhelming expectations. The only thing I despised more than those was myself. I was a phony, and no one had a clue.
Azai at the park. Source: Supplied
Nights went by with me sitting on the steps outside my son’s room with a bowl of barely touched soggy cornflakes. With an unwashed face and unbrushed teeth, a single thought consumed every inch of my brain space. I wanted to end my life. I thought about nothing else other than ways it could happen.
Rock bottom came one night in October. It was 3am when I had put my son to sleep after an hour of pacifying him. I kissed my child goodbye and went out the front door barefoot in my flimsy blue nightie that clung to my postpartum saggy, leaking breasts. My intention was unwavering; it felt as if my brain had been possessed by an other-worldly being. I was going to walk down to Victoria Road and throw myself in front of a truck and all this would cease.
Sarah Bari and her partner in Sri Lanka. Source: Supplied
I struggle to remember much from that night other than having flashes of my son grown up in various stages of his life, sad and frantic. Straining to figure out why his mother quit on him. I couldn’t do it.
At home, I laid next to my husband and asked him to not leave me to go to work. I said I had self-harming thoughts. By noon that day I was on a phone call with , an organisation that provides support for new parents dealing with mental health issues.
Azai with his dad. Source: Supplied
The counsellor on the phone asked me if I had thoughts of harming myself. I wailed, ashamed to bring the simple three-letter word to my tongue. She asked if I had thoughts of harming my baby. I screamed “No! No! No!” I cannot recall how many times.
An urgent appointment with my physician followed. A diagnosis of severe postpartum depression and anxiety was made; it was imperative that I be on medication. The doctor described to me her own struggles 25 years ago, no different than mine, the exact feelings I had been nursing quietly in the dead of the night. I felt a little less lonely that it wasn’t only me.
The journey to recovery came with its own sets of challenges, with the medication taking time to settle. Every day I almost didn’t take the next dose, fearing the worst – that I would never get better.
And then I did. The beast had started showing signs of leaving. Each day was exponentially better than the last and the lonely, helpless, desperately scared being I had become was slowly unrecognisable to me. I try never to forget her, though, as from her I emerged – mother, human and everything in between.
Azai with his grandparents. Source: Supplied
Azai at the library. Source: Supplied
Azai with his parents, Christmas 2020. Source: Supplied
Sarah Bari is a full-time corporate worker, overtime mum and a chronic daydreamer. She is a UNSW econometrics major graduate and lives in Sydney with her husband and their son. You can follow her on Instagram .
For help with perinatal anxiety and depression, call PANDA (Perinatal Anxiety & Depression Australia) on 1300 726 306 or visit . For 24/7 mental health support, call Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636 or visit . For 24/7 crisis support, call . For support in your language, visit who support people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
