I'm not "back"

My second daughter has just turned 8 months, I’ve set up my work station in our new garden office (Hex pod — best thing ever!) and found myself taking stock of how the second time has gone so far. Inevitably this involved a lot of comparison between the second and first, but also a deeper review of my identity overall.

Why am I writing this? Partially, because it’s cathartic — writing helps me process and make sense of my own experience. But also because I think there are still not enough honest accounts of what early parenting really looks like in practice, and these insights apply to any big life transition. By sharing this I hope to make even just one person feel validated in their experience, and maybe even give them the permission to change.

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“The most important thing for you to realise is that there is no going back. The sooner you accept that, the less you will suffer.”

A good friend said this to me at the start of my first maternity leave and while this made intellectual sense to me, I proceeded to spend the next six months doing the exact opposite — desperately clinging to my old identity, and suffering a lot in the process. It took me another year before I stopped resisting, and another child to fully embrace who I am.

Most of us use the phrase “going back” when referring to our return to life and/or work after having a baby. We are fixated on getting our bodies back, going back to work, and otherwise pretending that nothing has happened. I am certainly not suggesting that we should fully give up our “old” identities for our children, but I think it’s important that we don’t see change as failure - but rather as the ultimate show of resilience.

Back in 2022 when I was pregnant with my first, my identity and self-worth were almost entirely externally determined — my career was the biggest component, supplemented with my Strava profile and my party hard social persona. When all of those became suddenly unavailable, I felt like I was in free fall. On top of that, I felt that everyone around me assumed that I would come back changed and I was determined to prove them wrong. I was working in a heavily male environment — investors, board, team — and the pressure, much of it self-imposed, was to show that motherhood hadn’t affected me.

Afraid of softening and losing the edge that had defined me for fifteen years, of becoming one of “those women” that had a baby and disappeared. I had built my identity around being intense, hard working, high-performing — and the environments I’d worked in rewarded that. Motherhood felt like a massive existential threat.

So I resisted it. I approached parenting the way I had approached everything else in the past — with structure, schedules, and relentless optimisation. I started running as soon as I was cleared by my physio at 6 weeks postpartum, and signed up for a half-marathon a few weeks later. I continued to travel and socialise as much as I could. I almost ended my maternity leave early as I was desperate to go back to how things were, to gain back control.

So how was this time different?

The first layer is purely practical. Last time, I wasn’t a mother yet - I had the illusion of full control over my life. I was the CFO of a high profile climate tech scale up that was going through its Series C while I was on leave — I was under enormous pressure on one hand, but also had the security of six months’ full pay on the other. The journey was very binary. I had six months completely off, and then I was fully back — going to an office, working US hours, travelling.

By the time I had my second, I had left my CFO role and set up my own consulting and coaching business. I had no defined maternity leave and limited financial support. On the plus side, I had infinite flexibility and control over my schedule both before and after delivery. So I restarted work much earlier, at six weeks, but entirely at my own pace.

While my practical reality was indeed very different, the even bigger change was internal.

My identity did feel threatened again - there would be even less time for myself with 2 small children, my business was still nascent and I was afraid of losing all my clients, and the perfectionist voice telling me how things SHOULD be was still there. But this time I knew that it was ok to feel scared and struggle, and that there was no “right” way.

So I didn’t leave the house or accept any visitors for 10 days (last time on day 5 postpartum I was at Snappy Snaps getting a passport photo done for an urgent passport application - LOL). My first daughter slept in a Snoo — an IoT vibrating cot — from day one. This time, we co-slept for six months (unthinkable to the old me!) and didn’t force a routine. I listened to my body and didn’t start running until 4 months in. I socialised very little and spent 90% of my waking time in Lululemon leggings. Not because I was lazy or stopped caring, but because I didn’t feel the need to pretend and trusted that I was spending time with the person who needed me most.

I savoured the morning cuddles, the first smile, and somehow even managed to find beauty in the sleepless nights by continuing to remind myself that this IS my life, and this is exactly where I need to be.

And by very stark contrast to the first 4 months at home, we also managed to travel to Kenya for a month as a family - game drives, sound downers, glamping and all - a questionable choice with a 4 month old but it was perfect.

And now, 8 months in, all the things I was worried about came back - my coaching business is thriving, I’ve signed up for a half-marathon again, and I’m reconnecting with friends and family. I’m also learning how to be a mother to two, with all the emotional and logistical challenges that entails.

I am kinder, softer, more compassionate — and this has given me something I didn’t expect: more choice, and more ownership of my own life. I am even more efficient - a scary thought for those who know me! I have better boundaries and a much stronger internal sense of who I am and what I want. I am more intentional and selective with my time. My life is slower, but much fuller.

I don’t want to overstate the impact of motherhood — I have also changed careers, done a lot of therapeutic work and generally matured. But motherhood stripped back the layers practically and very tangibly. For nine months, and then another six, my body wasn’t my own. The things that had defined me became temporarily unavailable — and in that absence, I had a chance to re-examine who I actually wanted to be.

Motherhood is by no means the only experience that offers such an opportunity. Change is constant, in every life - we are not the same person we were yesterday.