Yvonne Ling

I don't usually share this story. But if you're preparing for postpartum or you're in it right now and struggling; I think you need to hear it. Not the polished version. The real one. The one that starts on a kitchen floor at 3 AM. Week 3, 2018: The Breaking Point I remember every detail. Cold tiles under my bare feet. The dim glow from the stove hood. My baby's cries echoing through the house. And me, standing there at 3 AM, thinking: "I can't do this anymore." I didn't want to hurt anyone....

When I had my first baby in 2018, I thought I was just "adjusting." The crying over spilled milk; literally. The numbness when I looked at my newborn. The endless loop of "what ifs" about the birth replaying in my mind at 3 AM. Everyone told me motherhood would be hard. But nobody told me it would feel like this . It wasn't until months later that I learned these weren't just normal exhaustion. They were signs of postpartum depression. Here in Singapore, 1 in 10 mothers *  experience...

I still remember day three postpartum with my first baby in 2018, after returning home from the hospital. I was sitting on my bed at 3 AM, staring at my crying newborn, and I felt... dread. Not the overwhelming love everyone promised. Not the maternal instinct that was supposed to kick in automatically. Just emptiness and terror. We didn't have a helper back then. It was just me, my husband, and my mum trying to figure it out. We pictured it perfectly in our heads—we'd take turns, we'd...