SI used to think breakfast radio hours were hard… until I had a baby! Now, sleeping until 4am is a real treat. Becoming a mum has been the best and most challenging thing I’ve ever experienced. I often find myself thinking, “Do other mums find it this hard?!” Not just the sleep deprivation, but the emotional rollercoaster, the feeding, the way it changes everything from your body to your relationships and your ability to even just leave the house. Some big questions have come with this huge identity shift. Who am I now that I’m a mum? Still the social, busy, independent, career-hustling self I was pre-baby? How do I balance being all that plus being a mum?
Archie is my heart in human form. To conceive, grow and birth a healthy baby is an absolute miracle. One that my fiancé Eddie and I weren’t sure was possible for me at age 39. Since finding out I was pregnant, every small milestone has felt like a blessing. From tracking what fruit he was each week in my belly to his first sounds, first steps and the way his grandparents light up when they see him, there is no measure for the joy and love I feel.
My days usually start with a feed or pump in the early hours of the morning. I get ready like a ninja to the light of my phone and watch the baby monitor cautiously with every move I make. When I creep out in the dark, it feels like a tiny success and a little bit of freedom. How crazy is it that going to work is a break? Of course your mind is always racing because the mental load of mums is extreme, but somehow you compartmentalise. It’s like opening a new tab on the computer. The ‘baby’ tab is still very much active in the background, updating by the minute, but you focus on what’s going on now that you’ve entered the work tab.
What makes it somewhat easier is that I absolutely love my job. I hustled for 20 years in radio – changing career paths, moving states, a long distance relationship – to land my dream gig on the station I grew up listening to. So when the baby brain fog creeps in or when I’m running on just a few hours’ sleep, I remember how incredibly hard I’ve worked to achieve my goal and give everything to my work.
The mum guilt can be heavy but it feels good to fill my cup, because you can’t pour from an empty cup. This mindset is also what gets me to Pilates or to the pool. Physical activity has been a gamechanger that improves my mind as much as my body. Self care certainly went out the window the first few months but I have discovered a newfound acceptance of my body, with my mum bum, wild lion’s mane hair and all. Keeping social and connected has also been important, with friends or family who can fit in a coffee between naps and understand it’s impossible to be anywhere on time.
I’m very much still figuring out how to balance this new mum life, but I’m slowly realising that the answer might be to try and let go. Energy and time are so precious now. I’m learning to slow down and stop trying to fill every minute. Stop clinging onto the woman you were before. Don’t try to ‘get back’ to being her. You can’t because you have undergone an enormous transformation. Motherhood does not take from you, it adds to you. It’s not a sacrifice, but an evolution. It can be a gift and be so hard at the same time. In the perfect words of the Spice Girls, ‘Mama, now I see through your eyes, all that you did was love’. I get it now. Mums are superwomen. They are selfless and resilient. New mums especially, are surviving, not thriving, but find strength to push through the overwhelming relentlessness because the love outweighs any challenge. So while I’m all for sharing the highlights on Insta, I want to get real and let the walls down here at KIDDO so no woman ever feels alone on this wild ride it is to be a mama.
Listen to SAFM Adelaide live on LiSTNR. Download and stream for free.
Follow KIDDO on Instagram and Facebook, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter