After losing her mum and baby within the space of 14 months, Malin Andersson was left struggling with PTSD and emotional pain. Now pregnant with her second child, the former Love Island Contestant’s mission is to help and support others going through difficult times. Here, Malin opens up about her own grief – and what got her through.
So we are four days into baby loss awareness week, one of the hardest weeks of the year I struggle with the most. Every day is a struggle for me since losing my beautiful baby girl Consy.
Going into labour at 32 weeks pregnant and watching my baby girl lie in a tiny incubator in Great Ormond for four weeks is an image I will never get out of my head. It was one of the hardest times of my life.
As a mother carrying her, feeling her movements, creating a bond and imagining milestones that we would reach together – having that all taken away and having no control over it is something I’ve never fully been able to process. The heavy feeling in my heart that I carry everyday - the guilt of “could I have done more as her mum” will always stay with me.
Even now at 24 weeks pregnant I’m scared! I’m scared history will repeat itself. I want nothing more than to be a mother. A real mother. Be like the person I looked up to the most - my mum, who I sadly lost. Not having my mum here with me is something else that makes losing a child even harder… I felt like I had no one to lean on.
I won’t lie to you all and say my second pregnancy has been easy because it hasn’t. I’ve struggled a lot more than I thought I would. I thought therapy would prepare me for how I would feel carrying my baby girl now. I was so wrong!
Sitting in that room and saying I would be fine when I fall pregnant again is easy. Living the reality of it after a loss is hard. I’m constantly on high alert, every movement I’m aware of; I’m looking for blood every time I go to the toilet. Even being sent for extra appointments, the worry, the anxiety it’s giving me is overwhelming. I know they are doing it to be more cautious, but it doesn’t stop my mind from going into overdrive.
I thought all the thoughts and how I was feeling during this pregnancy were normal. The morbid thoughts I was having constantly hanging over. The only way I learnt to get rid of them was by sleeping. If I was sleeping, I wasn’t having them – it was an easy solution for me.
I got into a routine in my first trimester of waking up, eating and then going back to sleep and this became normal for me. It wasn’t until I worked up the courage to speak to my midwife about it that she diagnosed me with pre-natal depression, which had stemmed from the PTSD of losing Consy. She explained to me that my fears were normal, that what I was feeling was normal and it was how I processed them that would make a difference.
