Yes, I feel comfortable being a mother. I love my new identity. It was a really hard shock to the system initially, especially as prior to giving birth I really geeked out on pregnancy and all things birth, but did absolutely zero research on Matresence; motherhood and parenting. It’s definitely been a learning as I go experience for me. My daughter Rosa is 9 months now and I feel like I accept this new chapter of my life the longer I’m in it.
I found the hardest part was when my husband, Tom went back to work and all of a sudden it was just me and Rosa day in-and-out. I was having these really intense dark thoughts about responsibility, and would create all these scenarios in my head like “what would happen all of a sudden if I dropped her”. I’d have vivid daydreams of awful things happening to Rosa when it was just me and her. I’ve since read the book Matresence by Lucy Jones and she’s made me feel less unhinged and apparently it’s really common to have these thoughts. Don’t quote me here but something happens where the brain does this so you are more hyper diligent and aware of possible threats.. but I was terrified!
Thankfully I had friends who lived within walking distance and I could call on them daily. Without a community of friends (or family) nearby I don’t know what women do. We live in London and all our family is in Australia so it has been very hard not to have a parent or sibling to physically call on. Our dear friends nearby have been a godsend!
A bit of both. Now I’m reading constantly but initially I was just doing. Every stage it seems to be a new challenge or lesson or something to learn. But as I mentioned before I read A LOT about pregnancy and birth and nothing on parenting. I recently read Phillipa Perry’s ‘The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read’ and amusingly my mum saw me reading it and she has now been reading it too. It’s a great book so I often come back to it.
Absolutely and these moments are few and far between now so when I get it I don’t take it for granted. I work for myself and Tom works during the week, so weekends are my days for yoga and exercise so he takes Rosa, some mornings we will do a hand over down at London Fields so we can both fit a class in - which is great. But otherwise my only other window is 7am before Tom leaves for work and sometimes it’s hard to find motivation to make that 7am class but I try my best.
No, but I’d like to know some! Most of the time I ask my sister who has 2 kids already. She’s always giving me great advice.
The most challenging part was definitely the post birth recovery. I had the dream birth I wanted at home, but then I haemorrhaged 1.5L of blood on my bed. It happened after I birthed my placenta and in the days following, I had an infection in my womb so my recovery was not what I planned. It really took its toll on my recovery and my body. I couldn’t walk more than 500m until I was at least 5 weeks postpartum.
Sadly no, as they are all in Australia, but when they visit us or we fly home, we get the help. We have an ad-hoc nanny who is amazing, we were connected through friends. She’s doing her masters in psychology, and she’s a musician. We love her. Given the nature of my work, we are lucky to just text her weekly to book her in. Otherwise, Rosa will go 3 days a week into nursery come the new year when she is 1. I just try to manage and if I’m having a busier period we will have our nanny more and then when I’m quieter, it is just us :)
Not at all. A lot of my friends already had kids, so it felt like I was just joining them and it’s been a nice way to relate. And for my friends that don’t have kids, they’ve all been so supportive and really interested in Rosa’s life. Weirdly, I’ve found since having Rosa I’m more interested in going out and socialising so I’m seeing my friends more than I was before - especially more than when I was pregnant.
I have far more respect for my body than ever before. I am still in absolute awe of everything it has been through; growing a baby, growing an organ and birthing my baby. In all honestly, during postpartum I was struggling with the fact that I wasn’t loosing weight even though I was breastfeeding and everything I had read said it would drop off. That wasn’t the case for me. So in the end I just let go and gave myself a break. My body had been through so much so I just reminded myself of that and gave myself and my body respect for the biggest thing that has ever happened to me.
Women are literal warriors and in my opinion this needs to be shouted from rooftops.
