Growing into motherhood. Life after an unplanned baby.
When life veers off-script, motherhood can feel like survival before it feels like joy. In this candid piece, one woman shares the emotional whiplash of an unexpected pregnancy, the long road to accepting a new identity, and the growing bond with her daughter. She is choosing not to be named, out of love for her daughter… a future reader.
I had an unplanned pregnancy at 32 in a less-than-ideal situation. I was a grown woman, a professional woman, and still I found myself facing this reality.
The memory of seeing my pregnancy test results and calling my best friend, crying that I was not ready for this, is etched in my mind.
The fear and panic were overpowering.
I went into survival mode, rethinking my whole life to adjust to this new reality. I had to break the news to family, friends, and colleagues. I saw them trying to read my face, to gauge my reaction so that they could react accordingly.
Some were uncontrollably happy, which I appreciated as I was still battling my shock, and their joy gave me hope that everything would be okay. Some understood the heaviness of this reality, especially as I was likely facing single parenthood, and that validated where I was at in that moment, which was comforting too.
I remember the day I heard the first heartbeat. It sounded like a horse's hooves running on a track. That sound echoed in my mind hours after the appointment, and I actually liked the sound. Maybe even loved it.
Eventually, I started enjoying the pregnancy while anxiously preparing. I remember wishing someone would just hand me the baby now, because waiting nine months to understand my new reality felt like torture. Yet nature has its own way of making sense, and I understood that there was wisdom in having this time.
There was such a mixed reality I lived for those months - part of me genuinely enjoying every milestone of this experience in awe and wonder, and another part scared and holding my breath.
“I slowly came to understand that what I was giving her could still be enough, and that she was thriving.”
When she was born, I remember feeling like I was high on adrenaline. I could barely eat or sleep, and I didn't feel I needed to. I remember the biggest initial feeling was pride. I wanted to show everyone: “Look! Look at what I did! This is amazing!”
I felt newly connected to the strength and capacity of women’s bodies and in awe of what they can create. It felt unbelievable to me that this was not celebrated more. I adjusted to the physical demands of motherhood: the breastfeeding, the medicines when sick, the weaning and all the new information you need to assimilate so quickly.
There's no choice there, because the baby's needs reign supreme, and it became my new focus.
The psychological journey took longer. I remember learning about matresence, the life stage mothers are in when there are hormonal shifts, identity shifts, a stage which is likened to adolescence in the level of turmoil it can bring. And wow, did that feel validating - that I was allowed to be in process rather than expected to be everything at once.
While the feeling of duty and pride started immediately, the feeling of love grew slowly: The first time I thought she smiled at me at a few weeks old, and that burst in my heart. ..The first time I had the thought "I love you", the first few times I got myself to say "my daughter" with comfort because it still felt so surreal…When her birth date became automatic in my mind. F
or me, it wasn't instant or movie-like. It was gradual, and that's okay too. A part of me always felt like I was still dealing with the shock and always lagging behind to catch up to reality.
A part of me felt like I had not imagined this for myself or my child, so I was still scrambling to accept, let alone enjoy, where I was. I believe it took me a good three years of parenting (and a lot of therapy) to fully assimilate the identity of mother with comfort and enjoyment and without guilt.
Guilt that perhaps I was giving her less by not giving her the life I imagined. And that, what I was giving her could still be enough. I had to let go of the fear that she was destined for doom and gloom because I brought her into the world without a plan or the family structure I had always imagined.
I slowly came to understand that what I was giving her could still be enough, and that she was thriving. I had to acknowledge my own grief of what I thought I would give my child and separate that from my child’s experience so that I could see her needs more clearly and not through the lens of my own unprocessed grief.
I acknowledged that love, stability, emotional attunement, consistency and presence are what I valued in giving her, and that is what I work towards every day.
This is my motherhood journey, and it doesn't look picture perfect, but it's mine, and I'm sharing it because perhaps it's yours too.