Identity

I look at it, like the baby is going to add to my identity. Instead of giving up things I switched things around. I had a huge desk, but got a smaller one so I could fit a sleeper beside it. I live in a travel trailer because I travel to hike and explore and I work online. So it might be a little different, but I should share some pictures, I have just kind of meshed how things work. My life "before" is just going to be enhanced. It took me a while to get there, but once I started thinking that way, I looked at what I was getting differently. The baby will go hiking with me, and I'll go do fun kid stuff with the baby! I love walking and walking around a science center and zoo sounds amazing, but also I have bought hiking carriers for babies and am so excited to include her in that part of my life and add on to my life. It has taken a lot for me to get to that mindset especially since I'm a single mother by choice. But if you can look at as expanding your identity and adding to it, not losing it. 💛

Doesn’t help when people stop asking / seeming to care how you are doing and instead just say “how’s the baby?”

Yes I get that! I make a point to make it about my sister or friends before I ask about the kids. It is just gonna be a new norm, but I have realized at least for my sister, when people do it to her, I'm not there yet lol, that after they ask about her son they will get to talking about her. She makes it a point to say how she is doing as well. I will probably do the same thing, make it a point to say how I am doing as well. The baby is great and I'm doing wonderful too! Shit perspective, not yours but there's when asking questions and hopefully it will become a norm for them to ask you how you are doing as well.

I think it’s good you’re realizing this now because the reality of this can be a huge shock when baby comes. No one fully prepares you for how big of a life change it is. You will grieve your old life and adjust to the new one, and then it will be hard to imagine life without your little one.

But your identity does not have to be “Mom“. Some people want/like this but personally I find it to be isolating and kind of offensive when I’m reduced to that. You can still have balance and be the “old you.”

@Amac this is the most accurate comment I’ve seen about this topic. Especially when you have some form of PPD/PPA, and are dealing with the hormones after birth. My son is 15 months, I absolutely adore him more than anything on earth, but I do grieve my old life and independence I had before having him.

100% recommend the book Matrescence that covers these topics and the huge identity shift we all go through…it was so validating and great to get a conversation going with other new moms to chat through these fears