"Made me feel listened to and heard"

I was referred to the service after my first midwife appointment when I was around 9 weeks pregnant. I am currently pregnant with my second child (writing this at 36 weeks), and it wasn’t until I started talking about my birth experience that I realised how traumatic this had been for me. I was terrified of being in the hospital and giving birth a second time. My midwife felt I would benefit from the MNPI service to help deal with this trauma and prepare me for labour.

Over the last few months, I have worked with Elaine, one of the clinical psychologists working within the MNPI team at Wishaw. When starting these sessions, Elaine and I discussed what happened during my first labour. She helped me articulate my thoughts in that I have always looked back on my first labour/hospital experience and believed I was the problem. I felt weak in that I hadn’t coped well, lost control and told myself that everyone else would have dealt with the situation better than I did. Elaine helped me understand that this was not the case and that my experience would cause a trauma response in most people.

Before my first pregnancy, I had always been such a positive thinker but felt that recently I had a pessimistic outlook and always thought the worst would happen (in all aspects of life, not just pregnancy related). Throughout the sessions, Elaine made me feel listened to and heard, again helping me understand that this thinking was a result of trauma. She taught me strategies to overcome my negative thinking using a combination of CBT and ACT. She would give me resources to work through at home, and we would then discuss how I found this during my next session. I told Elaine that when thinking about giving birth to my second child, all I could picture was the same hospital ward that I had been on, and it felt that these images haunted me. To overcome this, Elaine arranged for me to do a hospital tour (I am giving birth in a different hospital this time) and this has hugely helped as now picture this new environment when I think about giving birth.

Over the last few months, I have worked hard to use the strategies Elaine taught me if I am feeling worried or anxious – even in situations not related to pregnancy or birth. This have undoubtedly helped me. I feel back to viewing the world optimistically and no longer think of the worst case scenario in every situation. I feel much more able to cope with feelings of worry/anxiety and now have the tools to work through these. In relation to giving birth, I now feel confident, strong and excited to meet my second baby. Elaine and I have discussed strategies I can use when in the hospital and this makes me feel prepared. I am so grateful to Elaine, she has helped me so much and I feel privileged to have been able to use this service. Thank you for everything.