The untold stories of motherhood

Every week Dr Sarah-Louise Hurst, a perinatal clinical psychologist, listens to women who are struggling after difficult births and/or finding it hard to bond with their babies. She believes it is time such women are given space outside the therapy room to be heard, supported – and no longer shamed

“Why didn’t anyone tell me it would be like this?” she asked, her voice catching somewhere between exhaustion and quiet disbelief. We were sitting in my therapy room, her tears threatening to spill forth. The week before, another mother had said something strikingly similar: “I know I should be grateful, as we waited years for this baby. But no one told me it would be this hard.” As a perinatal clinical psychologist I’ve heard this refrain more times than I can count. 

Many Christian women share birth stories where the rhetoric celebrates God’s goodness, or focuses on gratitude: “We were so blessed; everything went smoothly.” But there are other birth stories too, quieter, more complex, sometimes not spoken of so freely. Stories of fear, loss, trauma or unanswered prayers. Stories where God felt distant, or where faith was tested.