From surviving to thriving

By way of introduction, I’m Harriet. I am a part-time lawyer and full-time mum, and I have decided to document my journey from surviving to thriving following the birth of my daughter and my subsequent return to work almost two years ago.

It makes me somewhat sad to say that, nearly three years after the birth of my daughter and two years after I returned to work, I still do not feel like I am thriving. I never thought that would be the case. In fact, I never thought there would be any need for “survival” at all.

I, perhaps naively, thought motherhood was going to be a piece of piss. I had always wanted children, and I honestly (arrogantly) thought I was going to take to it quite naturally. Since being a small child, I had always been obsessed with babies and felt like I could quite easily care for them – I used to love the challenge of a screaming baby who I would relentlessly rock/bounce with enthusiasm until they settled, only to be congratulated and titled “the baby whisperer” and the like.

So, when I had my own child and suddenly felt like I had no clue what I was doing, it is fair to say I was caught off-guard. I think that the main issue is that, in the midst of a huge degree of anxiety (and what I now recognise to have been post-natal depression), I totally forgot to trust my gut. In fact, I forgot I even had a gut.

Instead, I became almost totally reliant on the absolute deluge of information (which was often conflicting) found across a range of sources (particularly social media) to tell me what to do and how to take care of my child. I would hate to look back at some of the google searches from the first few months of my daughter’s life because I imagine they would paint a picture of a very tired mum who was starting to unravel.

Needless to say, relying on the advice of so-called “experts” on how to look after a theoretical baby did not help me much at all. Instead, it further fuelled my anxiety when my baby did not conform to the suggested ‘norms’ and led to a huge amount of frustration as I repeatedly tried to implement routines and techniques which my baby had absolutely no tolerance for. As I say, I had forgotten to even consider my gut instinct, let alone trust it, instead deferring to the advice of strangers, whose credentials I never thought to question…

And the above is despite the fact that I had more help than a lot of new mums in the first few months. Due to a bereavement the day before my daughter was born (which I will go into in more detail at a later date), I was given much more support from my healthcare visitor than your average new mum. As a result, I had a sounding board for some of my more rational concerns (I saved the more out-there ones for 3am google rabbit holes) but unfortunately this still didn’t enable me to be the zen, go-with-the-flow, instinctive mother I thought I would be.

And I think that was one of the hardest things I had to deal with. The mum that I thought I would be and the mum that I thought I was, were poles apart. A lot of the time I felt angry – and I mean super angry (cue another 3am google spiral re postpartum rage) – and when I wasn’t feeling angry, I often felt immensely lonely.

I am not someone who has ever coped well in their own company. I don’t like being by myself for more than about an hour. Even my commute pushes me to my limit of ‘alone-time’, usually resulting in me calling someone to chat for at least some proportion of my journey. I just don’t like having the time to be in my own head.

However, with the right company, I am very content to behave like a bit of a hermit. I have no real desire to venture far beyond my front door – providing that I have the right companion to enjoy the reclusion with. It was on this basis that I thought I would be in my absolute element on maternity leave. The idea of being able to hunker down at home with my newborn baby made me feel warm and fuzzy – I never had to be alone again!  

Unfortunately, this was not my reality. As it turns out, newborn babies aren’t always the best company. Definitely not the best conversationalists and to be honest, a bit needy. For all I don’t enjoy my own company, I do quite like being able to go to the toilet on my own. Or to be able to make a cup of tea without the backing-track of a screaming child because I dared to leave the room ever so briefly.

I felt smothered by the extreme reliance on me and totally restricted by the constant contact required by my baby. Instead of revelling in being nap-trapped for hours on end, I yearned to be able to get up and move around independently. To be able to clean, both myself and the house. To be able to make myself food that I actually wanted to eat (rather than endless mugs of soup which could be prepared and eaten using one hand). To be able to engage in adult conversation without it being interrupted by a wailing baby or my own brain fog causing me to totally lose my train of thought, bringing me to a halt mid-sentence.

For all I would never have changed it blah blah blah, I did often wish I could just press pause on mum-life for just a few hours. I wanted to press pause because I didn’t want to miss a moment of it but equally, I really needed to cut my toenails…

But now, almost three years on, things are certainly getting better. For all I cannot say that I am thriving quite yet, I feel like I am edging closer every day.

In this blog, I plan to reflect on the last three years and think about all that has changed – both positive and negative – as well as document progression going forwards. Who knows – maybe one day I will write a post confirming that I am, finally, thriving (not sure that ever happens for a working mum but we live in hope)!