He fed well, he settled easily and he slept as the adage goes “like a baby”.

First-time mum Kinta Gitsham had the dream child except for the fact she was living a cruel nightmare playing out daily in her Thurgoona home.

“I’d feed Archie and put him down on the ground; I wouldn’t interact with him,” she recalls.

“I loved him but something was missing. It was a real effort.

“Then I’d sit on the couch and look out the window. My mind was blank and numb."

Kinta didn’t know it but Postnatal Depression (PND) was taking hold in her very being seven years ago.

Now she understands it intimately.

“PND is absolute hell,” says Kinta.

“It’s debilitating, it’s life-sucking; it robs you of so many precious memories of your babies and so much time in your life.

“It tears families and marriages apart. It’s extremely cruel and you wouldn’t wish it on your most hated enemy.”

Two years after their wedding, Kinta and husband Rick were blessed with a text book pregnancy.

“My pregnancy was awesome,” says Kinta.

“He was overdue by two weeks but I didn’t wish him out.

“I was just loving embracing this whole thing; I did heaps of yoga and mindfulness leading up to it.”

Kinta recalls how her labour seemed to go pear-shaped from the outset.

“It was 36 hours, he was stuck and went into foetal distress and I had an emergency Caesar in the end,” says Kinta.

“I then had a reaction to the epidural so I blacked out for half an hour and they had to assist me to breathe.

“I worked so hard to birth my child and and then when all of this happened and being exhausted afterwards, I felt like I never had him; that he wasn’t my child.”

Exhausted and demoralised, Kinta found things at home piling up.

The former bubbly veterinarian nurse could barely function; it took her all day to tidy the house she used to do over in an hour. She withdrew from her friends and avoided the shops. Archie, meanwhile, was doing all the right things.

“He slept well, he fed well, he was a really easy baby and people just couldn’t understand why I just couldn’t snap out of it and enjoy him,” she recalls.

“And it wasn’t that, it was just something wasn’t firing and I just got sadder and sadder. I felt like I was wading through mud.”

Six weeks post-birth Kinta went to the Parents and Babies Unit at The Mercy Hospital in Albury.

“I was watching a DVD on PND and I thought ‘I feel like that’ and ‘I do that’. They did the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale on me and I scored very high for PND; I was off the Richter scale!”

For Queensland-born Rick, his wife was almost unrecognisable in a matter of weeks.

“The hardest thing is seeing your wife change and not being the same person you married,” he says.

“You have to be supportive no matter what and you have to constantly remember that beautiful person you fell in love with. Do whatever it takes because if you don’t you won’t have them in your life either way.”

KINTA was prescribed medication to treat her PND but she held off until it was unbearable, fighting the stigma attached to it and feeling herself to be a failure.

She needed a high dose to have any impact and the side-effects were strong and fast.

“I put on loads of weight, 30 kilograms in around 12 months,” she says.

Kinta was stable for 12 months before they moved to Queensland, near Rick’s family.

When their newborn daughter Josie was 12 weeks, Kinta suffered a breakdown and the young family headed back to the Border.

They also knew something was amiss with Archie and began the process of having him diagnosed. He has autism spectrum disorder and sensory processing disorders; ADHD was diagnosed later.

“I felt like it was just one thing after the other,” says Kinta.

“The anxiety was so crippling because I had been such a social butterfly and I couldn’t even go out, I couldn’t go down the street.

“Archie was hard work and I really withdrew. My mind was trying to stay 10 steps ahead of him all the time and all my anxiety on top of it; I felt like I was quivering in my body all the time.”

The couple decided against having any more children after their ongoing battle with PND, however, the universe had other plans.

A little more than two years ago, “miracle George” was born in Wodonga hospital.

Kinta says their third child has been the biggest blessing.

“He’s been an incredible gift, he’s been everything we’d missed out on; he’s been cuddly, very easy going,” she says.

When Kinta found out she was pregnant with George she was put in touch with perinatal emotional health program in Wodonga.

She wanted to make sure she was prepared should PND flare again.

“George was born in September and mum and dad both got diagnosed with cancer on Remembrance Day,” she says.

“I held it together until about January and that’s when my wheels really fell off.

“I just got to the point where I wanted to check out; you know you’re going to get well, you feel you’re going to get better, but you get to that point where you feel like it’s choking you.

“You’ve had enough of the adversity and the hardness of it all and strangers looking after your kids because you can’t do it; you can’t give them that joyous time, they’re just seeing Mummy sad and angry.”

Twelve months ago Kinta was at her lowest point.

The days were even darker than when she first brought Archie home from hospital.

“I was at my heaviest and I’d had enough and I screamed to the universe: ‘Please just send me help and people my way’,” she recalls.

Kinta began looking into health and wellbeing and has dramatically changed her approach to food since January. 

She has cut out grains, sugar and dairy from her diet.

“I found a beautiful naturopath in Sydney, we’re healing gut-related issues … my symptoms have reduced, my weight’s dropped off, 23 kilograms without any exercise, simply by the food that’s going in,” she says.

“And my mental clarity has come back, my ability to talk to people and converse."

Kinta helped organise an Aspire Support Services fundraiser, bringing Therese Kerr to the Border this month to speak on health and wellbeing.

She emphasises to other mums going through the same situation, there is light at the end of the tunnel. 

“I feel that’s why I’ve gone through this journey to help other people,” she says.

“If I can reach out to 1 or 2 per cent of people to get them to reach out then that’s a positive … I want people out there who may be struggling with this at the moment, please know that you’re not alone.

“Please know you’re by no means a failure for feeling like this.

“Take one day at a time, reach out for help, accept it when it’s offered to you, enjoy those precious moments when they come.

“There is an end to all the darkness, with love and support and doing whatever makes your heart sing.

“For me, it’s been my horse, meditation and colouring in.

“You will get there, as hard as this journey has been, it’s been a blessing in many ways.

“It has made us so strong, so full of love, so full of understanding and so much better people.”

Where to get help:

Perinatal Emotional Health Program (02) 6051 7950

Parents and Babies Service (02) 6058 4882

PANDA 1300 726 306

Tresillian Parent Help Line 1800 637 357