Today I speak to Polly, mother of Eben who is nine months old, a yoga facilitator and facial therapist. Polly moved from living on a house boat in London to the Gower in Wales just before Eben was born.

Polly loved being pregnant, she felt firmly in her power and was planning a homebirth. Sadly homebirthing wasnt an option at the time of her birth and she got trapped in the cascade of intervention in hospital and after a long labour ended up with an unplanned cesarean two days later.

She experienced the scariest night of her life on the postnatal ward, alone, unable to move post Cesarean or tend to her baby, full of post operative drugs, in a foreign hospital environment, pressing a bell for help and no help coming and hallucinating from severe sleep deprivation.

Polly was left feeling broken after her birth, physucally, emotionally and mentally and so totally differnt to the polly before her labour started. We chat about her physical and mental health postpartum and how she really struggled being alone, waking from occasional pockets of rest and naps, disorientated and confused. Polly suffered from horrible night sweats, and a very sore injured coccyx for the first few months post birth and wondered how much one body can take! She felt scared being out in public early on, feeling very overwhelmed, too busy, too loud, too vulnerable and just too much. We chat about the dreaded "what ifs" when self reflecting and processing your birth and how Polly feels some saddness and grief for that newborn time as she really didnt enjoy the early months.

We chat about the anxieties surrounding returning to work around the nine month mark postpartum and the dreaded loaded question of "are you going back to work?" if you haven't figured that out yet or decided not to. We also cover the difficulties staying in touch with friends postpartum and the impossibility of translating motherhood on whatsapp.

I am so grateful to Polly for sharing her story, so much of which deeply resonated with my own story and I think it is an conversation you will find really honest, quite shocking and really moving.

To find out more about Pollys work please visit https://www.pollymossman.com/ or follow her on instagram @pollymoss_