I have been a mother now for just over two months, eleven weeks to be exact. It has been a whirlwind of an experience. To say motherhood has hit me like a ton of bricks would be an understatement!

Ever the cynic and “realist” I walked into this new role completely prepared for everything to be as hard as it could possibly be. I imagined a terrible recovery and this assumption was worsened when I found out that I couldn’t have my baby vaginally at home as I’d planned but that I’d need to have a c-section. Having not read up on c-sections I imagined that I would spend the first few hours of my baby’s life drugged up and would be able to breastfeed and cuddle him. I thought that after that I’d be in a state of pain that would require I’d be on pain medication and again would be unable to feed my baby.

Fortunately for me and the baby I was completely off! Recovery was awful but I was home the day after giving birth and I found that I could survive on the recommended paracetamol and ibuprofen pain management schedule suggested by the NHS. My husband made sure that I was comfortable, well fed and supported in the big task of feeding our little boy.

And feed him I did! On the third day when my milk came in instead of being in tears as I was told I would be I was in high spirits! After every feed I felt my sense of self just go higher and I higher. I tapped into an innate quality I have always possessed which is the belief that I can do everything and anything and with that my motherhood course was charted.

I won’t lie and say there haven’t been days when I’ve survived with two hours of pieced together sleep and the hope of a gummy smile. And I won’t minimise how difficult it was recovering from what is a major surgery.

What I am saying is that motherhood has been a sea of highs peppered with some lows purely because have jumped head on into the inevitable change. I say inevitable because even during pregnancy the physical changes alone are enough to send one into a tailspin. On the other side though, on the other side of pregnancy, comes motherhood with its many changes that aren’t solely confined to the physical.

Over the month and a half I have seen myself transform into someone else. However this is not the first time I have done this.

When I moved to London from Johannesburg I moved from moving through the world hyper vigilant to relaxing enough when walking down the street reading Oscar Wilde exercising an appropriate amount of vigilance.

When I started running in 2010 I became obsessed with running, protein and loved drinking smoothies and when I stopped running in 2020 I started referring to smoothies as “fruit soup” .

I’ve changed a lot. Sometimes the change was warranted and other times it was a trauma response but it was change I undertook nonetheless with varying levels of resistance. In all these changes the most important parts of myself have stayed constant.

I still believe in equity and equality across genders, sexualities and abilities. I still believe that we need to do better by the planet and ourselves by consuming less. And I still believe that we owe one another kindness, always.

When people imagine change as a result of becoming a mother it is often perceived as if it is the complete abandonment of the self when in actual fact it can be an expansion of who and what we are just like any other change. The only thing that sets motherhood apart is that, for me anyway, the change is non-negotiable.

The changes are both neurological and physiological. Embracing this for me has meant being present in my bodies current role as it provides nutrition for my son (because I am privileged enough to the able to). It has meant leaving my old anxieties behind me and following my intuition in how I show up as a parent and mother. It has meant trusting that the change that motherhood has brought on is meant to transform me in the best of ways not only for myself but also for my son for the rest of our lives.