Maternity leave and anxiety/depression

[MrsAlbie]

NC for this.

I'm 22 weeks pregnant - due January 2018.

I had a period of depression and anxiety at the beginning of this year and was signed off work for a few weeks. My job was one of the main contributing factors to the anxiety. I refused ADs as we were TTC and fell pregnant a few months later. I took an online CBT course which helped a lot with managing the negative thoughts. The pregnancy also helped as I now had a 'focus'.

I work FT (40h/wk) in a private nursery so it's loud, busy, quite physical and often stressful (challenging parents/children). I like the colleagues who I work with directly but the management have instilled quite a 'blame culture' and are always passing problems and issues back to us (on the 'shop floor') to sort out. They also 'tell you off' about little issues, making you feel like you’ve made a huge mistake. I'm a university-educated 29 year old and I hate being made to feel like I'm 12 and being told off by a teacher.
I'm sensitive and I take everything like this very personally. I go home, worry, cry, over-think and over-analyse everything I've done that day. Whether I made the right decisions and whether I said things in the right/wrong way. My confidence at work is really low after been 'told off' things and I'm dreading going in every day.
I feel like I'm slipping back down into that hole I was in at the beginning of the year. The thought of another 11/12 weeks at work feels impossible given how I feel at present. I can’t deal with the stress each day brings. I can’t switch off the worries at home.

Work are doing monthly H&S questionnaires with me now I’m pregnant and it includes a question about how I’m feeling, but what can I say? ‘You’re making me feel rubbish about myself’. It’s not like they can change my duties either – I can’t be in a room with 30 children and not interact with them, not talk to parents.

I don’t have another midwife appointment for about five weeks. I’ve looked up our trust’s ante and post-natal mental health team but I don’t think I can self-refer – it’d have to be a midwife or GP and I just feel like I’d be wasting my time and I don’t know what help or support I even want. It’s not like I’m anxious about the pregnancy or birth – it’s all work.

I'd love to be able to take mat leave just before our busy Christmas period (various parties, trips and shows to organise and partake in) and I'd be 33 weeks at the end of November.
My DH however is really pushing that I work for as long as possible so that I'm earning the maximum before SMP kicks in (this is all I'm entitled to). He'd have me working til 38/9 weeks and is implying that anything less suggests I’m being lazy, because I don’t like my job. The pregnancy has been straight-forward so far and I’m feeling physically fine, so is going at 33 weeks a cop out?

I’d intend to take nine months of mat leave and find a different part-time job to go back to.

Has anyone ever accessed pre-natal mental health support and found it useful? Will they be interested in helping me if it’s not to do with pregnancy?

Thanks if you got this far – would be grateful for any advice

Your husband is a dick. He is being lazy by not carrying his own child to term inside him.

My pregnancy is straightforward, but I'm fucking knackered. I hope to survive in work til 39 weeks , but my husband would be happy for me to stop whenever. I would absolutely not be able to do the hands-on, physical work in a nursery until just before I pop.

Sorry I can't help with your actual question, I just wanted to let you know your husband is unreasonable.

Thanks, carrots. The funny thing is that my DH is a GP so one would assume he'd understand that each pregnancy is different and that MH is something you can't just turn off. I think he uses up all his sympathy at work so that I don't get any!

I didn't have depression but I found working with children extremely tiring whilst pregnant and went on maternity at 34 weeks. It took a few weeks to get over the tiredness and start to enjoy my pregnancy. Working with children is exhausting without MH issues so please go easy on yourself 💐. Can you speak to your midwife/doctor they may be able to sign you off for a few weeks? It might give you time to relax and then stick it out until 33 weeks. Your DH should be supporting you in whatever decision you make. Think about yourself and the baby everything else comes second.

Can I ask which online course you did?

Tell nursery you can't cope, they may be able to re-jig so you work less full on hours, when I was pregnant first time 37odd hours at an office job was exhausting. Going to 40 weeks working full time in a nursery just sounds too much.

Thanks for the replies Padfoot and Mirror.

It's a common misconception that nursery work is 'just playing with the children'. It's pretty physical and dealing with challenging children or parents with unrealistic expectations is really quite stressful in itself. You have to be super happy and polite all the time. It's tough doing that at the moment.

I am quite tired as well, but I guess that's to be expected. Because DH works longer hours each day (out for 12 hours rather than my nine) most of the house stuff - cleaning, cooking, washing and shopping - is still falling to me. One day this week I was so tired and down I ate a whole garlic baguette for tea . It's all I had the energy to shove in the oven cook.

I'm due a chat with management this week for my next H&S questionnaire. They don't let people work PT so I doubt they'd entertain the idea of reducing my hours unless a doctor recommended it. I don't have a direct contact for my own midwife, just the office number for the community team across the city - would they be able to help and advise me too or would it have to be my named midwife?

I did SilverCloud, Mirror. Have you tried one of the online programmes yourself? Several of the modules were rubbish and for anyone with some prior knowledge of anxiety were a bit patronising. A few however were helpful and gave me different ways to work through negative thoughts. The online 'support' (an IAPT worker you could leave a message for but never actually met) came to an end after 10 weeks though and there's been no follow up.