Being a new mum: Expectations vs Reality

I know it’s almost time to get up because I can feel his breathing has changed. It's hopefully around five am, I think to myself as I turn around to stare at his half smiling-slow-waking little face. It’s early, and I am still tired from a night of four, five, or was it eight wakings today? But I haven’t even gotten up, and I already feel a sense of excitement. 

Today there is daycare! This means Mr R gets to play with friends his tiny size, and mum gets to write... and take a long shower, prune her plants, read, and dream about the hundred things she wants to do with her time just to turn around once the house is tidy and realize it’s already almost three o’clock!

I am mum. Am I mum? A statement and a question that has lived very closely together during this past year. Always spoken in awe; awe of him, life, our family, myself.

So, let’s get to the nitty-gritty truth: 

Do I miss him during the five, sometimes six hours that he is away? No. 

Is he the creature I love the most in the whole universe? Completely and without a doubt.

Can these two emotions coexist within me at the same time? A hundred per cent. 

Because there are a lot (a loooooooot) of things no one tells you about motherhood. And maybe some of these truths you do not want or are ready to hear when all you dream of is your bubba and starting your own family (which is what I was told when I complained to my girlfriends about it), but I still wish someone had been a bit more honest. 

The gap between the expectations and the reality of motherhood is wide and deep. And a big part of me feels that maybe we are a bit to blame for this; perpetuating messages and images of “perfection”, an impossible thing in life. So maybe, we should be the ones to start doing something to change it.

So, coming to the end of the toughest most rewarding year of my life, these are…

 My top 3 things “I wish someone had spoken truthfully to me about”

A million emotions will live within you: good, bad, and ugly. And that is all ok.

This may be the first thing you don’t expect as a parent, and it can be quite confusing. No, it’s not all joy and cotton candy smelling cuddles (though there are plenty of those). It was all going to be love and love and more love, right? But just after one hour of giving birth to Mr R, I was experiencing the greatest love and the greatest fear at the same time. Exhaustion, second thoughts, sadness, tenderness, amusement, and a mad rush of hormones. 

The single emotion fallacy I call it. The motherly unconditional, eternal, never wavering love. 

Being a first-time mum will probably make you feel more things you’ve ever felt in your life. All of them are mixed up and heightened by physical, emotional, intellectual, and social changes. Absolutely everything in your life gets turned upside down and if you were a nomad, traveller, jack of all trades, million priorities persona like me, you’ll have to learn that you have ONE single priority now and it depends 100% on you. It’s magical, and it’s also very very very hard. Did I say very? 

Surround yourself with people who truly love you. With people that are willing to help and support. You’ll come to understand you don’t need too much advice (there is too much out there) what you need is someone who listens, someone who hugs you and definitely having someone who brings you warm dinners now and then helps. 

Also, what you need the most is to trust your inner teacher, we all have one. 

Breastfeeding doesn't always come natural nor easy. 

Being a first-time mum is hard all around. Now add isolation, pandemic, Covid and a million different factors women are living today. We do not need added pressure and/or guilt. 

Breastfeeding, in my experience, is beautiful, worth it, and amazing…if you can overcome the first excruciating weeks and sometimes months. Thankfully this is not everyone’s reality, and it may be a breeze for you (hopefully), but it is a sore (and sometimes very emotional) pain point for many of us. Let’s be kind to one another and stop judging each other’s choices and journeys.

If you do decide to breastfeed and it does hurt like someone is cutting your nipples with sharp tiny blades, hang in there, be gentle, give yourself rest days, do what you need to do to feel better and believe me: it gets so much better. 

   Lack of sleep and sleep itself will be a big topic in your life

You won’t be able to sleep when the baby sleeps 98% of the time so the reality is that you will be exhausted, and sleep-deprived for a while (hopefully for most of you is not 11 months like it has been for me). You will make it work somehow and you’ll be fine. 

You are much more of a powerhouse than you have ever given yourself credit for, so stop being hard on yourself, you’ll be tired, and it’s ok. You will also be so in love. 

Expectations, as I said before, come from why we see, hear, read, and learn. Therefore, from what others and we have put out there. I believe that if we set a more honest path ahead then the future mums would have a less humongous fall, to put it poetically. 

This is up to us mums, to speak honestly and openly amongst ourselves, no judgement, no shame, no guilt. It may be hard but it’s contagious and honesty will always have the power to heal. So, try to be the mum, the woman, the person, you wish would have been there for you when you needed it the most. 

All my love, 

Eda Sofia CB