A letter to my pregnant self
Hey pregnant self, January 2012,
First things first - you're going to be fine. It's all going to be fine. More than fine even. It'll take you a while to get there but you’ll make it. Right on the other side of the newborn fog and the many, many broken nights.
The most surprising thing about motherhood will be how hard it is. You know you're going to be tired but you have no idea how the endlessly repetitive tasks of early motherhood can grind you down to something barely functional.
So please, please, please don't insist on doing everything yourself. Get people to help more, even if they're not doing things the way that you would. It's fine to have things done a slightly different way if it means you get to have a rest/shower/walk/lunch on your own.
Since there's no family around to physically help, pay someone to come in to help with chores and hold the baby every now and again. I promise that this will be key to preserving your mental health and it will be worth every single penny and you won't feel like you have to walk through a snowstorm with a tiny baby in a sling, just so you can talk to another grown up at the till in the shop (true story).
If you're going to read parenting books, please just take from them what feels right and doable in your circumstances. As much as you'll be craving structure and predictability, it's just not going to happen. And the stress of trying to make it happen will be unbearable. Your little girl is a sensitive one, just like yourself, and she needs you to be close for a long time. But she'll be independent soon enough, you are in no way, shape or form making a rod for your own back. You're nurturing the best little girl there ever was.
While we're on the mother/daughter bond, the love for baby won't be of the instant variety but boy will it grow strong. And you'll become such a team. Trust me that she's the baby that's exactly right for you. And she'll make you a better person in so, so many ways.
Don't worry that for the first few months you'll feel a bit lost and like you don't have a single motherly instinct in your body. It will come. 1 year + will be your jam. It's ok to not like the baby stage.
And here's a secret - everyone else is whinging it also, even the ones who are adamant their babies sleep through the night and are on a settled routine. Whinging it. Every day. Every single one of us.
Give yourself time to adjust to motherhood and it's normal to grieve your old life. I still miss fancy holidays 10 years in!
Equally, hang on to pieces of you that feel important right now and make time for them in whatever shape you can fit them into life with a newborn. Go back to exercise as soon as you can and keep going. Keeping physically strong will be the thing that really restores you back to yourself.
Talk, talk and talk some more. About what you're finding hard, about how you're feeling, about how you can be better supported.
You and your husband are a team. Remind yourself of that often. He is not the enemy. It's not his fault he gets to read on the train to work or that he can't breastfeed and is therefore able to leave the house for more than an hour at a time. He's seriously one of the good ones, firmly on your side and wants to help. Please let him. No need to be a martyr. He's there. (I implore you to take this one to heart please, or you'll still be learning it because reader, I am still learning and re-learning this a decade later).
I can't promise you that you'll love every minute of motherhood (and I give you permission to kick anyone who mutters that sentence in the shins) but there are, no word of a lie, moments where you'll look at your kids and think "if this was the only feeling and moment I can take with me when I die, I'll be happy. This, in eternity, would be nice".
Much love and a forever hug
Me, 2022
Would you like to write your own letter to your pregnant self? Give a heads up, a hug, encouragement, wisdom and straight talking to yourself in that pregnancy bubble way back when. What would you say to yourself? What might have helped prepare or steady you? I found it fantastically therapeutic and I think you may do, too.
So how to go about it?
Find a quiet few minutes with enough recovery time planned in for drying tears and nostalgia lifting.
Pick your weapon. Pen and paper are fab, typing is good, too. Whatever feels right.
Let the words flow and don't think too much about it. You can always come back to it later, start again or abandon entirely.
Write as much or as little as you'd like. It's yours, for you.
And if you’d like to share your letter with me (which I’d love!) to add to a (hopefully growing) collection of letters on this website:
Email me a copy (which I can keep anonymous if you'd like) and let me know if you're happy for me to share it.
Share it on your socials and tag me in it using #LettersToYourPregnantSelf
Go old school and pop it in the post. Email me for the address - silke@raiseupmums.co.uk.
Apparently there are no pictures of me being pregnant. This one will have to do - on our ‘babymoon’ at the seaside, 7 months pregnant. Footloose and fancy free!
