Preserving Your Sense of Self Through Pregnancy & Motherhood

Hi and welcome to this super light topic! Switching gears from last week which was about how to actually get ahead ahead at work, this one tackles a topic that has been on my mind for a while now: how my identity has morphed in motherhood.

I’m glad one of you submitted this question because I get it a lot, and it felt quite cathartic to answer, and I really hope this helps someone else going through the same thing. If you have more to expand on this topic or anecdote to share, definitely share it in the comments! Here we go.

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Hi Aleen,

I actually just found out I’m pregnant! And I feel like already there’s so many things I do that are changing (like from the foods you can’t eat while pregnant to accepting a totally new body) and I’m thinking about how much time I currently spend doing things I want to do, and how most of that time will soon be spent doing things for my baby. I’m super super excited about it, but I do see some women handle that transition well and others seem to become lost, and I’m really just trying to avoid feeling like I don’t know myself anymore. For more context, there’s someone close to me who that happened to so that’s why that’s on my mind. I hope that makes sense! My question is: how do you maintain your sense of self through pregnancy and motherhood?

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Hi!

This is such a common feeling for women who are curious about having children and who are pregnant with their first (congrats by the way!). It's completely unknown and deeply personal, so the anticipation and uncertainty about what’s to come and how it will change your life can be really intense. The first thing I’d remind myself is that what you’re feeling is normal in proportion to the significance of the experience.

The unfortunate reality is that you cannot control what will happen when you become pregnant and a mother, but there are definitely things you can do to prepare and adjustments you can make. Every pregnancy is different (even for the same person), and while you can look to your peers for support and advice, others’ experiences won’t determine yours. The truth is that your friend who had that experience may have done things to prepare but it doesn’t mean it guaranteed that it was enough to avoid it entirely. And just because someone appears to be handling it well, doesn’t mean they actually are. We all know that comparing ourselves to others is generally unhelpful, but it can be especially detrimental when it comes to parenting because no two experiences are the same, including two of your own.

The thing about pregnancy and postpartum is that it is inherently unpredictable. Of course you can do things to “maintain” your emotional well being, but because you’re literally making a human which takes more energy than one can imagine, it may become temporarily impossible to make time for yourself, your hobbies, and your typical routine. And then after you have your child, there’s no guarantee of what that experience will be like because every baby is different! I’m not trying to scare you or be dramatic, it’s just how it is. So my advice would be to manage your own expectations and give yourself as much grace and space to change as possible because while you’re in it everything feels like it’s all really magnified and lasting forever, but in reality it is only a phase.

Before delving into my personal experience on this topic, I’m going to list some mildly obvious but very important ways in which you can prepare yourself emotionally for the changes to come:

• If you’re concerned about your future mental state, start talking to a therapist early on who specializes in postpartum and motherhood. Especially if you’re prone to anxiety or depression.

• If you know that a workout routine is important for your mental health, seek out new pre- and post-natal workout options that can flex with your physical needs over the next year (whether that’s finding free workouts online, an at-home subscription, a trainer, or classes at your local gym or community center, etc).

• If you know that you and your partner struggle with communication, consider looking for a couples therapist and meeting with them preemptively, or at least opening the conversation with your partner about the significant changes you’re both about to experience. FYI your partner is also going through it, of course not physically, but more likely than not they’re on their own emotional roller coaster (which they could also be suppressing, or not feel comfortable voicing to protect your feelings).

• If breastfeeding is a worry for you, buy yourself a can or two of formula that you pre-researched just in case for a peace of mind.

• Start talking to a friend or family member who has gone through it, who you trust will listen and give you what you need (ideally someone who is emotionally available). I’m also available if you feel like you have no one. Really, dm me.

The only thing you can be certain of when it comes to pregnancy and motherhood is that you will change, and not just physically. You will become a new version of yourself regardless of how much you maintain your overall sense of self.

The transition to becoming a mom is strange but big. It’s not often referred to this way colloquially, but some social scientists have likened the transformation of becoming a mother, known as ‘matrescence’, to a change on par with adolescence or menopause, in terms of how your body and mind reorganize through the experiences of pregnancy, delivery, and postpartum.

But dw, we don’t all turn into this over night

Whatever you want to call it, now that my son (second baby) is a year and a half old, I think back to my old self and compare her to who I am now and I feel like I physically shed an entire layer of myself like a fucking lizard. It’s the only way I can describe it. I feel like I’ve emerged anew but not as a younger self, just deeper more self-actualized one. It’s taken a lot of time, but after the four year span in which I’ve had my two kids, I finally feel steady. I’m a more confident, more grounded, self assured version of myself. I can guarantee your identity will transform, and the cost of that may be a (longish) period or phase of feeling really lost and disoriented.

That identity shift is a mix of both mind and body. I believe the steadiness that I feel now comes from my body finally stabilizing. If any of you were fans of my Diet Starts Tomorrow Podcast (iykyk), you’re aware of my relationship with my body. If you’re new here — I’d sum it up as— it’s been *a journey*. But then we layered on pregnancy and postpartum which was a journey of body-image-fuckery in itself. Being pregnant most of 2021, postpartum for 2022, only to get pregnant again in 2023, and postpartum for most of 2024, I have had to force myself to “accept” like 4-5 different versions of my body, within the span of 4 years, none of which I recognized. Because my body kept changing, I had no actual clue what I looked like, so my distorted body image affected how I felt every morning. Also, I love to express myself with clothes and fashion, and over those four years I totally lost that part of myself. Maternity clothes are meh, and I didn’t feel like spending the money on larger sized clothes that only fit for a short period of time. So I just bought and wore stretchy amazon dresses that were comfortable and flattering enough, but didn’t feel much like me. I wore these all the time. PS if you’re looking for a link, I can’t recommend these enough. As superficial as it sounds, this part was really difficult. For four years I looked in mirrors or at pictures of myself and I didn’t feel connected to the person that was looking back. It’s taken me quite a bit of time to find my way back to myself (zero bouncing back, just small steps forward) and it finally feels familiar again.

Now onto the mind part. Without sugar coating it, this part was incredibly difficult. Unfortunately in both my postpartum experiences I had pretty significant postpartum anxiety. (Trigger alert for PPA moms.) I knew I was prone to anxiety, but I didn’t really take it seriously and I didn’t even realize I was experiencing it until much, much later. The first trigger for me was having a low breast milk supply and I literally couldn’t talk about breast feeding for six months without crying. I also experienced hypervigilance around my daughter's routine and safety. This was actually pretty tough to deal with but I sort of brushed it off / swallowed the pain because I was in a bit of denial about the extent of the problem, and as a result, didn’t do much to solve it.

With my second pregnancy, even though I emotionally prepared myself around the breast feeding struggle, my postpartum experience was unexpectedly worse. I had my son on September 20th, 2023, about three weeks before October 7th. This heightened everything, especially my hypervigilance. I experienced a few panic attacks and truly debilitating intrusive thoughts. All the while I was leading Betches through an acquisition (we signed the deal on October 17th, 2023) which was obviously beyond exciting and a milestone for my lifetime, but to be honest, quite stressful. All of these things compounded and it’s safe to say this was the most intense time of my life. I made it through, miraculously, thanks in part to the help of an amazing mom-friend who recognized it and very respectfully recommended I speak to the therapist she had seen. Working with a therapist over the course of my maternity leave made a huge difference, especially compared to my first leave.

I know I just dumped a lot on you. I’m not sharing this to scare you, and I’m so sorry if I have! I know people say “but it’s worth it” kind of shit all the time but I genuinely mean it when I say my relationship with my kids is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. I love the cuddles. I love spending time with them and getting to know them and their personalities more than anything, despite those past painful moments. The reason I’m sharing this is because a) I’ve never talked about this publicly and it’s been pretty cathartic to let out but more importantly b) other than my husband, you wouldn’t have known I was going through anything. From the outside, I mostly kept my shit together. I believe this is the case with a lot of women, not because they’re trying to hide something, but because feelings of this magnitude are hard to discuss when you don’t even fully understand them yourself.

When most people refer to changes in motherhood, they talk about how your schedule, time for yourself, or your relationships change. Of course they all do. You have a new priority that never existed before that just popped to the top of the list literally overnight! Like you said, you have all this time now and soon it won’t be the case. That’s true, it will be a big adjustment but I promise it eventually will feel like your new normal. And you will definitely still have time for yourself! Just not like, endless time :)

I don’t want to discount those other changes. Trust me, adjusting to a “bedtime routine” was a big one for me. So you mean we have to come home from work and then spring into bath and bedtime for…ever? It’s just that people talk enough about all those other changes but I rarely hear about how your relationship with yourself is one of the biggest shifts that occurs. All of the change is inevitable, but it’s this part that’s least predictable. You can prepare as much as possible but in the end, you have to just let those shifts come, big or small, and flow with them. The more resistance you apply, the harder it is and the longer it will take to come back to you again.

The last thing I want to stress is that throughout all of this your support system is essential. Included in that support is absolutely childcare in one form or another. Whether that’s day care, a nanny, your family members, or a babysitter. You will need some help no matter what. I would prepare for this part, and I would make it a top priority if you know that your ‘alone’ time is especially important for you. Trust me you’ll thank yourself for spending the time figuring out childcare arrangements that you can rely on rather than spending hours on end researching what any of the following words mean: nuna rava uppa baby graco frida bumbo bjorn boppy brezza hakaa nanit.

So, get your mental health and support squad ready, and then try your best to go with the flow and take these big (but normal) feelings as they come. If you feel like you’ve lost yourself, get some help and remind yourself it’s only a phase. I promise you will eventually find yourself or a version of yourself again and hey, you may like her even more.

Good luck. I’m here for you. And send me a pic of your lil bebe when they come!!

And to everyone else reading, thanks for listening <3

Aleen

If you have a question you’d like me to answer please email it to hi@aleen.co