'Anxious Mama' photo series shines light on maternal mental health
(Editor's note: Oct. 10 is World Mental Health Day. This story originally ran on Oct. 4, 2018.)
One Encinitas, California mom of triplets is battling anxiety. And she wants other moms on the same road to know they are not alone.
Desiree Fortin's Instagram photo series "Confessions of the Anxious Mama" aims to do just that.
"I’m a big proponent of sharing your heart and being vulnerable. I wish I had that when I was knee-deep in postpartum depression," she told "Good Morning America."
That depression started soon after her triplets, now three, were born. "I wasn't myself. I saw a doctor and started taking medication," she said. "I was really lonely and I felt like there was a stigma. I was embarrassed. "I waited so long to be a mom desired it so deeply, now I had not one but three children."
Fortin struggled to conceive and had her triplets through IVF.
When the triplets were about a year old, she felt well enough to go off the medication. Then they turned 2.
She went back on medication and started feeling better again.
And then her daughter nearly drowned.
"There were four adults at the pool when it happened," she said. "It can happen to anyone."
The incident, she said, pushed her into an anxiety that she's been dealing with ever since.
"We go through seasons and challenges where we don't know what to do," she said. "I hope more than anything that people who do see this are truly encouraged to know they are not alone."
Fortin said the response to the series has been "mostly positive. People who have been struggling are encouraged by what I'm sharing."
