The joy Morag Wehrle felt when her daughter was born three years ago was soon replaced with an experience no new parent wants to go through.
“My daughter got very very sick when she was five days old. We had to rush her to the hospital in the middle of the night,” Wehrle explains.
The North Vancouver family had to spend the next month living at the hospital and was forced to largely eschew the very things that can make being a new parent so special.
“That first month is supposed to be when you’re kind of resting at home and bonding and having friends and family come over to meet them, and instead there we were living in Children’s Hospital,” she says.
Wehrle adds that the postpartum anxiety she experienced following her daughter’s birth was closely linked to this initial harrowing experience.
For months afterwards, Wehrle just assumed that the often immobilizing sense of panic and fear she was experiencing was just a normal part of motherhood.
But looking back, her experience went far beyond the usual challenging circumstances new parents find themselves in.
Although it was at times hard to feel like she could seek help, with some support Wehrle was able to open up about her challenges with postpartum anxiety and depression – and not feel ashamed about it.
One place she felt she could turn to for support was the Good Mother Project, an online resource and community hub where women are encouraged to combat the sometimes isolating nature of motherhood by engaging with each other.
In an effort to reach even more moms feeling ensnared by isolation, or postpartum depression or anxiety, Good Mother Project, in partnership with the Pacific Post Partum Support Society, has just launched its We’re In This Together photography series.
Moms from across Metro Vancouver were professionally photographed holding cards that expressed a meaningful sentiment of encouragement, hope, support and love to new mothers.
The images, along with accompanying blog posts and stories, are being shared periodically on the Good Mother Project and PPPSS’s social media channels and websites from now until January.
Wehrle had her photo taken in June and it should be running on the organizations’ sites Sept. 4. She hopes her image, which displays the sentiment “You are stronger than you ever dreamed,” will help other mothers realize they aren’t alone.
“If they can see this project and see that there’s a whole sisterhood of people who get it and are going through the same thing, and that there are places that you can go and people that you can talk to who will help you then maybe somebody else won’t go through the same thing that I did,” Wehrle says.
According to the Pacific Post Partum Support Society, it is estimated that one out of every six women and one out of every 10 men suffer from depression or anxiety following the birth or adoption of a child.
Support society director Sheila Duffy says there’s a multitude of factors that could contribute to postpartum depression or anxiety, and she stressed it could happen to anyone.
“The stigma just around mental illness, but even more so around moms experiencing any kind of mental health issue, is that the stigma will keep them silent. And that’s where people really run into trouble,” Duffy says.
Good Mother Project founder Eran Sudds first had the idea to take photos of moms with their kids as a fundraiser for the PPPSS in 2014.
From there, the photography series has grown. Sudds says she likes the current We’re In This Together series because it allows the women to be photographed individually with a sentiment that is personally meaningful to them.
“I think just being able to see the person that is connected to the words really allows the message to hit home a bit more,” Sudds says. “When you see that actual person you realize, ‘Hey, that’s a mom just like me.’”
