A MOTHER FIRST: The transition into motherhood

Welcome to my new series, A Mother First. Every first day of the month I will talk about honest experiences so far as a first time mum. IF you are hoping for a ‘U rated’, Instagram worthy, face-tuned version of motherhood then this series may not be for you. I’m creating a space that is raw, honest and hopefully refreshing about my experience so far. There are millions of spaces on the internet that offer a fluffy, roundabout, aesthetically pleasing version of motherhood which can be wonderful to see sometimes, but isn’t exactly what people like me need or needed to see or be exposed to when I was choosing to embark on this incredibly challenging, but incredibly beautiful journey. So all I ask from this moment on, is to only continue reading this post if you want to hear about my journey without the rose-tinted glasses on. 

2023 is slowly coming to an end. How did we get here?! My 2022 looked so so different to this year and even though we only have a few weeks left of the year, I still find myself staring into space sometimes just thinking “WOW, what a year!” 

My reason as to why this year has looked so differently to last year is simply because I have transitioned into motherhood. A wild, crazy, beautiful, emotional, painful, overwhelming, euphoric, enlightening experience that has rocked my world in ways I never knew even possible. Just WOW. I consider myself to be pretty organised, and someone who leans heavy into research before I do anything new but when people said there are no amount of books, podcasts, insta infographics, memes, parent forums, or stories from your friends and family that can prepare me for this my word, it was no joke. 

My transition into motherhood has been more than eyeopening. Everything that I thought I was insecure about doesn’t even matter now. Everything I thought that I was sure about I question with the thought of “how can I make this even better for my Lettuce?” Everyone and everything negative and toxic that I tolerated in my life before has now for the most part come to an end. Every decision I make for the future is not for me alone but mainly for my baby. Every time I’m scared, or confused, or upset I ask myself “how would I comfort Lettuce in these moments and how do I teach her to handle these feelings when she’s older?” I am asking myself questions that I never even knew were questions before. I am seeing life with brand new eyes, eyes that I didn’t even know had vision. I am holding my relationships to a new standard and asking myself what kind of women should have the privilege of being part of my village. I am seeking advice and validation only from mothers I aspire to be like and only from women I aspire my Lettuce to be like. “What is going on?” Is a question that only just scratches the surface. 

Since becoming a mother, my mind is doing things that not one soul on earth could of prepared me for, and I am beyond shook in the best ways and the worst ways – every second of it. Every single high, and every single low is met with pure vulnerability. My question of “am I good enough?” now sounds more like “am I doing good enough?”. This question influences the highs of highs, and the lows of lows, and is a question that feels like no one else in the world is able to answer.

There is tons of info out there about preparing to become a mum and life after motherhood but of course, there are some areas that are not covered at all or sometimes not as transparently as they could be. I’m going to share my top 5 personal experiences and a little bit of advice in these areas too. I am in no way an expert, nor do I claim to be, in any areas of pregnancy or postpartum and this is just all in my opinion and from my personal lived experience over the past few months. 

1. Falling in love didn’t happen instantly 

I’d like to think that many of us have heard a story or two, or even read a book or online somewhere that this is actually more common than we like to think. Disclaimer, this does not mean in any way, shape, or form that I did not love my little one, or that I had any regrets (although temporary regret is also a very normal and natural feeling to have for a lot of women, especially after having a traumatic birth). This is just a reality for many, including me. 

After months of being on autopilot, survival mode, living with severe sleep deprivation, and physical exhaustion, I was one day able to just look over at my Lettuce and finally think to myself “my word, I am so in love” rather than “my word, does she need feeding/changing/burping/all of the above?!”. I think that’s partly what it was, not having or giving myself time to just be in the moment and absorb everything I was getting from this new journey. I don’t blame myself though, and I give myself a lot of grace when I think back to that time as I am very much aware that we were essentially two strangers just getting to know each other, and what a beautiful and emotional journey that was! 

2. There’s too much and too little advice about basic needs for baby

I really found that there was just too much but yet too little advice on basic needs for baby. One example being on feeding. The complete state of confusion I was in for the first couple of weeks is certainly something that I can laugh at looking back now but at the time, I remember feeling anxious and overwhelmed about all the conflicting advice. The conflicting advice came from everywhere. My NCT class, midwives, feeding groups, friends! In the end, a combination of a drop-in breastfeeding session, and the help of my mum provided the advice that really helped me start my journey again with confidence. I genuinely thought that my ‘mother instinct’ would just kick in and that I would somehow just know exactly what to do when it came to other basic needs. However, it just didn’t work that way for me. When I then tried to research and also ask for advice it was just a lot to take in all at once. I think the best way to avoid the confusion is to seek out advice and guidance from a few very good sources. For me it was one of my dearest friends and the free services that my local council offer. This combination gave me so much more confidence and took away the looming feeling of being completely overwhelmed all of the time. 

3. Friendships change for better and for worse 

This has been a conversation I have had with many of my new and old mum friends and it is one that we seem to continue to have over and over again. That is how important this experience during the transition into motherhood is. It is something that I have been told for years but like anything to do with motherhood, you just can’t imagine it until you go through it yourself. For me, I started to feel more conscious of my time, how I spend it, and with whom I spend it with. This felt and still does feel very important to me. It is very true and very real that your baby grows up so quickly, so every second spent without them is a second missing out on time with them. Because of this, I am spending my time with people more wisely. With this being said, a lot of relationships grow stronger and feel more mature, safe and transparent. In my case I felt this a lot more with my friends that are mothers as we now could connect and understand each other in a way that I just simply was not able to before having a baby.

4. Who am I? 

This is the big question that I have found that most new mums have to face at some point during postpartum. It is by far, the hardest question that we have to face as new mothers and a question that does not get answered overnight in most cases. I am someone who spent my whole entire 20s figuring myself out through everything that life had thrown at me. Going through the good, the bad, and the ugly in my 20s was something that I did sometimes knowing that in the end I would meet a another layer of myself and continue to grow into the woman I wanted to be. After having a baby, I look at that woman and see that all those layers have disappeared and I am meeting myself at a new beginning, with a new responsibility, and new bucket of challenges. During the first couple of months with my little one, I did not have time to sit and ask myself this question at all. I most certainly did not expect it to creep up on me like it did. One day after a few months in, and while I started to feel like I was getting to a better place during my journey, the question hit me like a ton of bricks. A couple of friends had told me that there will be a time where you have to figure out who the new you is but honestly, I had no idea what that meant until then. I’m still on the journey of figuring out who I am, and starting from scratch has not been easy at all. I am having to come face-to-face with a lot of emotions and a lot of questions about myself, all while having to show up for my little one. All I can say for now is that I am looking forward to learning more about myself and the woman that I am becoming. 

5. Redefining your sense of style 

Redefining your sense of style may seem like a less important part of the transition into motherhood, but if you are someone like me who has used their style as a form of expression in all of its forms their whole life, this then really is a part of your identity, and is also a part of the transition. During the 4th trimester, I was dressing like the old Shamar. Clean, feminine and classic. With no questions asked, I just pulled the outfits that I would of worn pre-pregnancy along with doing the same hairstyle and the same makeup looks. I remember one day pulling one of my usual outfits and putting it on but something just didn’t feel right. Was it my new weight and body shape, was I bored of this outfit, was I suddenly over that specific colour palette, or was it just me? I couldn’t put my finger on it at all and began to feel quite emotional about it. I felt like I was dealing with so much change in my life, and my wardrobe was truly my only constant in my life at the time which was 100% for me. Putting together outfits for me, and that represent me, was supposed to be fun but in this moment it really wasn’t. After a few weeks of trying to figure out if I needed to donate my whole wardrobe and start again, or if I needed to just have a bit of a reorganise, I started to remember a conversation I had with a friend, and also remember listening to her speak about how she was struggling with her wardrobe after having her children. It reminded me that I wasn’t alone here, and that I was again about to embark on another layer of this journey, this layer being redefining my sense of style. To begin doing this I have had to be very disciplined with myself as I did not want to fall into the trap of purchasing lots of new clothes that I would later dislike, as I continued to shift as a woman and as a mother. I have been trying out new outfit combos, pulling single items that I really like, and trying to style them up in new ways. I have also spent more time looking at inspiration, singling out details that I really like, and trying to figure out how to build outfits with those things. Although I feel like I am in limbo at the moment with redefining my sense of style after having a baby, I feel a growing sense of confidence in being able to express myself in ways that make me feel like the new me.

Motherhood is an incredible thing and the confidence I have developed is something that I don’t think I would of been able to gain in any other way during this life. The person I am hoping to be now is someone who is sure, someone who is brave, someone who knows who they are and who they can be, and someone who can express themselves positively. The journey to defining my personal style again has already been a fun one. I have learnt so much about myself, and about who I am capable of becoming, and it continues to keep me determined to show up everyday as a mother.