Mum runs 10K to raise funds for local mother and baby unit | News and events

A mum has signed up for a 10k run to raise money for the mother and baby unit (MBU) which gave her a lifeline when she suffered with postnatal depressions.

Chloe Gosling has signed up for the Ely Tri Club Runfest on 13 October, with the hope of collection £1000 in sponsorship for Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) Kingfisher MBU.

She has already raised £250 towards her target on her Just Giving page.

Chloe said: “In 2021, after having my daughter Aria-Rose, I became significantly unwell with postnatal depression. I was admitted to Kingfisher where I stayed for two months until I was well enough to continue my recovery in the community.

“Kingfisher and the incredible staff there gave me a lifeline when I needed it the most. It allowed me to receive inpatient treatment for my mental health whilst still being able to care for my baby.

“The support I received from Kingfisher was life changing, and this fundraiser is my way of giving back to a place that gave me back my life.”

Aria-Rose is now three and Chloe, 26, describes her as beautiful, clever, kind, empathetic, funny…and perfect in every way. But she said: “Things haven’t always been easy.”

Chloe had struggled with her mental health since her teens but had been stable until towards the end of her pregnancy in 2021 when her mental health started to decline.

“I was induced at 39 weeks and the birth ended in an emergency C-section and an eight-day stay in hospital due to sepsis. I felt very depressed and anxious after the birth, but I’d heard about baby blues and thought it was normal. But each day it got worse. I remember someone telling me all they could see in my eyes was fear, and that captured it perfectly. I was terrified of my own baby. I couldn’t stand it when she cried, I didn’t want to be around her. I thought she deserved better than me, that I wasn’t good enough for her and that she’d be better off without me.”

Chloe was diagnosed with postnatal depression and for seven weeks after Aria’s birth she was supported in the community by mental health professionals, but it wasn’t enough and mother and baby were admitted to Kingfisher MBU.

“We were there for two months in total. The first week or so was really hard. I had such mixed feelings, like I’d taken Aria away from her dad and I also hated being away from him,” she said. “I didn’t know what to expect at the start, I thought I’d be there maybe two weeks, three at most. After my first ward round, I came to realise that it would be quite a lot longer.

After initially struggling with settling in, Chloe said she began to adapt to life on the ward and that the team at Kingfisher made her feel at home.

She also made friends with other mums on the ward and started to engage with baby sensory, managing emotions and craft groups as well as go on outings to Asda or Costa with the other mums (perhaps too often).

“The food on Kingfisher was amazing, they had their own chef, but being able to go and get a can of Pepsi without it being poured into a plastic cup was nice,” she said.

Some of her fondest memories involved her, other mums and staff playing Monopoly every night. “We may have each had an awful day in our own ways, stuck on a psychiatric ward…but the time spent together doing normal things would turn the most heavy sadness into the most hysterical laughter. Those are things I will never forget.”

It wasn’t all plain sailing for Chloe, however. “Some days were good and I felt like I was getting better but some days I felt like I was right back at square one, desperate to go home but very aware I would not be able to manage it. Those days were the hardest. But on those days the staff were always there to lean on.

“I remember one specific staff member, who took me and Aria out to a country park one weekend as everyone else had visitors but my partner was working. We bought ice cream and coffee and it made a bad day bearable. The same staff member supported me twice when Aria needed to go to the Norfolk and Norwich for her own health needs. She made me feel comfortable, supported and safe at a very anxious time. That particular lady was so special and was a huge part of my healing journey.”

Her first leave home wasn’t a success. “It was horrible. I don’t know what I was expecting things to be like when I got back home but it was a thousand times harder. At that point I knew why I was at Kingfisher and why I still needed to be there.

But this and other times things didn’t go to plan, were huge steps in her recovery, healing and self-awareness.

“At first, I’d go on home leave and count down the hours until I could go back. Kingfisher had become safe for me. I was never alone. Nothing bad could happen. However, after a while, I’d start to go on home leave and wish I didn’t have to go back. I felt like I didn’t need to.”

After seven weeks, she came home for a week of leave. “I took all of my belongings with me, as if this went well, I would be discharged the following week. It was full of ups and downs, however there were way more ups and I felt like home was the place for me now, not the ward”

After she was discharged, Chloe was still able to call the ward at any time for the first month, and had three months of support from the MBU outreach service.

“It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows after I left… I was still very much just at the start of my recovery journey. At times I wished to could go back, it had become such a comforting and safe place for me.”

The perinatal mental health team supported Chloe until Aria was two, when she started to feel like she was ‘well’ again. Six months ago, he felt she had finally ‘recovered’. “I was me again but not who I used to be prior to having Aria, instead, a version of myself that I’d never seen before.”

It’s now three years now since her admission. “Thanks to the support and treatment I received from Kingfisher I’ve achieved things I never thought I was capable of. I went back to work, I passed my driving test (and overcame my crippling anxiety around driving). I truly fell in love with my beautiful daughter and started to believe that I was in fact good enough for her and there is no way on earth she’d ever be better without me.

“Kingfisher gave me a lifeline, when I so desperately needed one. The intense support and treatment I received there not only helped me through postpartum depression and anxiety, but it healed a lot of trauma and hurt I had carried with me for 10 years. It gave me my life back. It gave me a second chance, to fall in love with my baby and with being a mum, because despite what you hear, it doesn’t always come instantly. 

“If it wasn’t for Kingfisher, I don’t know if I’d be here today to tell this story, and my daughter may have grown up without a mum, which is heartbreaking.

“I am raising money for Kingfisher not only to give back to a place that saved me, but to ensure the ward have enough funds to make all patients’ experiences as nurturing and as much like ‘a home from home’, as mine was.”

NSFT Chief Nurse Anthony Deery said “Patient experience is at the heart of our improvement journey and hearing Chloe’s story of how she benefited from the care we provided is heartening. We appreciate her sharing this experience and thank Chloe for her hard work and fundraising efforts on behalf of our Mother and Baby Unit. The funds raised will help us to strive to provide safer, kinder, and better support to mothers in need.”