Motherhood: A Journey Like No Other

As a mother, I am just three-years-old. Honestly speaking, for the first three decades of my life, or as far as I can remember, I have been a bit of Miss-Know-It-All. So, when it came to being a parent, the same rule applied.

In the last three years, I worked my way through a plethora of things, a premature delivery, an underweight baby, quitting a full-time job and being a stay-at-home mom, relocating to a new city with a toddler at my heels, all punctuated by various other postpartum issues which nobody ever discusses. If these years and the new role has taught me something, it is to be shameless in asking for “help”.

Of the million things that motherhood may or may not be, it is certainly not perfect. It is unpredictable, clumsy, scary, filled with sleepless nights, crazy appetites, ego clashes and unsolicited advice. Motherhood is not definitive, it is a journey where you need to evolve every day. So, it’s pretty tough to keep pace with this new-found position.

As a new mother, I found the journey a very solitary one too. Not because I did not have people around me to help me out, I had rock-solid support in my husband and my mother, but I refused to ask for help.

I went through a vicious cycle of analysing and over analysing where I went wrong that my baby had to come to the world the way he did. And the emotional and physical changes that the body went through did not help either. It is not at all a pleasant feeling to get discharged from the hospital, leaving your baby behind in the NICU. What is even worse is going back to the baby ICU every day to see him there.

Read other Stories in the #SheTheMom series here

Now when I look back, I realize, I lost out on some precious moments I could have had with my little one. It took me a year-and-a-half and lot of convincing to schedule my first meeting with a counsellor.

Today, another year-and-a-half later, I can say that I juggle with some amount of proficiency between my roles of being a mother, wife and a professional who works from home.

If you are a mother who knows what it feels to be like inside my head, then I leave you with the old adage that no one can help you till you decide to help yourself.

Also Read: #SheTheMom: On Being An Awkward Mother

Views expressed are author's own.