Let me start by saying this: the idea that I would lose my identity when I became a mother? Honestly, I found it completely baffling.
I heard it everywhere when I was pregnant—the endless warnings that motherhood would somehow erase me. That the “old me” would be swallowed by sleepless nights, endless nappies, and crying fits (some of them my own), only to be replaced by someone unrecognisable.
But that wasn’t my experience. Not even close.
Yes, things changed. Of course they did, how could they not? I was now responsible for another human being. My world shifted. My priorities realigned. But that didn’t mean I lost myself.
If anything, I found more of me.
I embraced the new normal of motherhood by tuning out the noise….the constant messaging that said I should mourn my former life, or that I’d somehow disappeared in the chaos of it all. Because I didn’t feel a sense of loss. I felt complete.
It was like I’d been building a puzzle my whole life and had finally found the missing piece. The picture made sense now.
I wasn’t gone. I wasn’t erased.
The old me was still there, still dancing badly to “Insomnia,” still craving a cold glass of Prosecco (currently replaced by a slightly less delicious “Nosecco”), still quoting Friends and crying at feel-good films. Still loving deeply, laughing hard at rude jokes and driving my long suffering husband slightly mad.
Motherhood didn’t take that version of me away. It simply added to her. Deepened her. Grounded her in something more meaningful.
The old me hadn’t disappeared, she’d evolved like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, I wasn’t less of who I’d been. If anything, I was more. More grounded. More purposeful. More me.
But that narrative is exhausting and, quite frankly, I feel it can be quite dangerous.
It quietly chips away at our confidence.
It suggests that in becoming mothers, we become less of ourselves, that we become just shells of the women we once were, existing only to serve, rushing through life to build a better future for our children, while slowly forgetting to live for ourselves.
But here’s the truth: Motherhood doesn’t strip us of ourselves.
It expands us.
It deepens us.
Yes, it changes us, yes it’s hard, but change isn’t loss.
It’s growth.
Motherhood also gave me something I didn’t even realise I needed: the chance to slow down.
And I won’t lie, learning to embrace that part took time. Before becoming a mom, I was always on the go, ticking off to-do lists, chasing my tail from one task to the next, constantly convinced that I had to do more, be more, prove more.
But when you’re a breastfeeding mum and cluster feeding hits, you simply can’t do anything but sit. You’re grounded. Literally parked. So you surrender. And in that stillness, I found space.
Slowly, I stopped resenting the pause.
I started leaning into it.
I let the “doing” take a backseat and gave myself permission to just be.
And what I found there, in those quiet, ordinary moments, was something I hadn’t given myself in years: presence.
I also had to completely redefine what self-care meant to me.
Gone were the long yoga classes and gym sessions. In their place came smaller, sacred rituals that helped me stay afloat:
- Drinking my tea while it was still hot (a luxury I never take for granted).
- Five minutes of deep breathing during nap time.
- Saying no to visitors when I just needed rest.
- Crying when I needed to and not feeling guilty about it.
I learned, perhaps for the first time in my life, that caring for myself wasn’t selfish.
It was essential, because when I care for myself, I care better for my baby, too.
So no, I didn’t lose myself in motherhood.
I found more of her.
I stepped into a version of me that feels softer, stronger, and more complete than ever before.
And I’ve never felt more at home in my own skin.