Carrie Bickmore has opened up about the struggles she faced during her pregnancy with her now four-year-old daughter Evie.
The mother-of-three sat down with Charlie Pickering on his show The Weekly With Charlie Pickering on Wednesday and revealed how she sought professional help because she was terrified of giving birth to her second child.
After being on the brink of death as she welcomed her firstborn, Oliver, 11, she chose to see a psychologist to help keep her mind at ease.
The admission came after she made the decision to be more open about her family’s battle with mental illness, as she revealed her anxiety diagnosis and her partner Chris Walker’s OCD.
“We don’t spend a lot of time talking about it, I think,” said Carrie.
“That’s what we have and we both openly see; I saw psychologists when I was pregnant with Evie as I had this real fear of giving birth to Evie because I nearly died after I gave birth to Ollie.”
“Both of those things are a part of our life. We don’t take special time to talk about as if it’s a strange thing or a thing to be ashamed of or anything, it’s who we are,” she said, as she tries to erase the stigma surrounding mental illness.
In 2017, the 38-year-old mentioned how she went through counselling to help prepare for Evie’s birth, after being left “traumatised” giving birth to Ollie.
Speaking on her Hit Network radio show, the journalist said: “Giving birth is a full on thing, it’s beautiful, it’s special, but it’s also traumatic.
“It’s painful, I would have done anything to have the experience erased from my mind.”
She then added: “They say you forget and that’s why you go back again. I never forgot. The funniest part, it’s hard to get your head around what actually happens.”
“A big thing comes out of a very small space,” she said.
Talking about the extent of her traumatising experience, Carrie told Marie Claire in 2016 that she suffered from a severe haemorrhage 10 days after Oliver’s birth.
“I had a severe haemorrhage 10 days after the birth of my son Oliver,” she said.
“If had I not been able to head straight to hospital and have an operation and blood transfusions, I would have died.”
