The Year I Spent Looking for Myself After Motherhood

Postpartum hit me harder than I ever expected. This is my honest experience of grief, identity loss, sleep deprivation, relationship struggles and learning to let go.

I don't think I realised how much of my identity was tied to freedom until I became a mother.

I spent most of my first year trying to find the old version of myself again. The one who loved slow mornings, spontaneous coffee catch ups, watching sunsets and deciding on a whim to go for a surf.

I kept waiting for her to come back.

Maybe after six weeks. Maybe after three months. Maybe once breastfeeding got easier. Maybe when Bailey slept better. Maybe once life started feeling familiar again.

And she never really did.

I was a pretty wild free spirited person before becoming a mum. I loved travel, surfing, adventures and just going with the flow of life and things. I'd say I was very impulse driven. I loved being spontaneous and independent and if I'm being completely honest, I was terrified of the transition into motherhood and losing all the things I thought made me who I was.

Postpartum wasn't what I expected though.

I knew it was going to be hard. I expected the sleep deprivation, healing from birth, taking care of a tiny human and not really knowing what the f*ck you're doing. I expected exhaustion, tears and moments of overwhelm. What never crossed my mind was that I would completely lose who I once was and spend months trying to find my way back to her.

Which is kind of ironic because pregnancy was probably one of the best things that had ever happened to me. I know that's not everyone's experience, but apart from the usual first trimester struggles, I genuinely loved being pregnant. The second trimester especially felt magical. There's this thing that can happen with ADHD in pregnancy where symptoms can actually improve and for the first time in my entire life I felt like a functioning human. I felt calm, capable and honestly a little unstoppable. So going from that version of myself to feeling completely dysregulated, overwhelmed and like I had lost every ounce of confidence was a pretty brutal adjustment.

The first few weeks after giving birth are honestly a bit of a blur. I almost have a difficult time remembering them because it was such a whirlwind of emotions. I remember my milk coming in and being an absolute mess. I was engorged, raw from birth and completely overwhelmed. It's one of those things nobody can really prepare you for.

And while everyone talks about surviving those early weeks, we seemed to hit roadblock after roadblock from the get-go, which made the whole experience just intenseeee.

Have you ever heard of retained membranes? I hadn't. Not until I was still dealing with cramps for a whole six weeks postpartum. They varied in intensity, but they were there every single day. Annoying to say the least because I wasn't only doing all the normal postpartum things, I was also in a decent amount of pain for weeks.

We got a scan done and it said "normal amount of debris". Even my midwife was like, what's that supposed to mean?

She suggested I could go on antibiotics and that would hopefully sort it out, as she also mentioned this could lead to sepsis if untreated. I didn't want to take antibiotics (just FYI, I gotta be dying before I actually touch that stuff) so I ordered some herbal drops that made me cramp more in the hope my body would naturally expel the retained membranes. After six weeks, finally it happened. What a relief. The cramping subsided after that.

And while we were dealing with that, Bailey started losing weight around the three to four week mark, so then we navigated that. The IBCLC coming in, the oral ties, my oversupply constantly sending me over the edge, trying to figure out whether or not we should get the procedure done after getting conflicting advice from different health professionals. It was a loooot to say the least.

And amid all that, you don't even know who you are anymore.

I couldn't recognise myself. Everything that I once loved or enjoyed was stripped away. I'm pretty sure my husband and I both experienced a bit of postpartum depression. Everything revolves around the baby's schedule. Everything needs planning, anticipation, thought and execution. All the things ADHDers struggle with.

To this very day I still feel overwhelmed by the amount of mental load and planning everything takes and needs, but I've gotten better at it and accepted that some days are just pure chaos.

Nobody tells you that early motherhood is basically one giant experiment. You try something and it doesn't work. You read another article and try something else. Someone on Instagram tells you that's wrong, your mum suggests something completely different and your health professional says the opposite. You're sleep deprived, hormonal and desperately trying to do the best thing for your baby while somehow every little decision suddenly feels high stakes.

Wake windows, oral ties, sleep associations, feeding schedules, solids, routines, naps. I spent so much time trying to do motherhood the "right" way that I completely forgot to trust myself.

I remember feeling so much rage at this whole situation. Rage at my body, at the tongue ties, at my husband, at myself. I should probably also mention that we only had each other. No family around, no village, no real support system, which made it even harder.

If I'm being really honest, it took a loooot of work to find our footing in our relationship after having Bailey. We fought so much. There was resentment over who carried more responsibility and neither of us really had anything left to give. We were exhausted, touched out and trying to keep our heads above water while simultaneously learning how to become parents.

There's resentment, loss of connection, you miss yourself, your old life and your partner. It felt like life just kept moving while I was constantly coming up for air, trying to catch a breath, only to find myself back under water again. It's hectic and really hard to put into words, but wow did postpartum hit me.

If I'm being honest, I didn't really enjoy the first six months much. I know that's not something people like talking about, but there was so much grief in that period. Obviously there were beautiful moments in between, but there was also grief for my old self, grief for my old life and grief for all these tiny moments slipping through my fingers at a speed nobody can really grasp. I felt guilty all the time for not enjoying this period more because everyone keeps telling you how fast it goes, while you're secretly wishing parts of it away.

Around six months postpartum things started getting so much better for me. Sleep makes all the difference for me. I don't know if the ADHD is at fault, but I literally can't function without decent sleep and genuinely felt like a terrible mum because I had no emotional regulation whatsoever and just struggled.

And I know this is gonna ruffle some feathers, but we decided to sleep train and it was one of the best decisions we could have made for our family.

But I don't think life only got easier because Bailey started sleeping better. I think it also got easier because I slowly stopped trying to do everything by the book. I stopped obsessing over doing things the right way and just started trusting myself more. We did what worked for our family, even if it wasn't what Instagram, sleep consultants or parenting books recommended. I stopped trying to optimise every little thing and motherhood suddenly became a little lighter.

Then I fell pregnant lol.

And maybe that's what postpartum really was for me.

Not learning how to take care of a baby.

Learning how to let go.

Let go of the person I used to be, let go of trying to do everything perfectly, let go of the expectation that motherhood would feel natural straight away.

But more than anything, learning to let go of control. Because becoming a mother has taught me over and over again that you can prepare, research, plan and try to make all the right decisions, but so much of this journey is simply out of your hands. Birth taught me that. Breastfeeding taught me that. Postpartum taught me that. The more I tried to control the outcome, the harder everything seemed to become.

Bailey turns one next week and while I still miss parts of the old me sometimes, I don't spend my days looking for her anymore.

Maybe I was never supposed to find her again.

Maybe I was just supposed to let her go.

And honestly, I think I'm finally starting to like the person I'm becoming.

Love, Charlie