For ten years, I was a lawyer. I wore great pencil dresses, killer heels, went to court a lot and occasionally cried under my desk. I suspect, like a lot of people, I crafted a good deal of my identity around my career.
But now I have had a baby and I am wrestling with the same question that so many have before me – who am I now that I am a mum?
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Truthfully, I found the early days of motherhood pretty manageable.
I was blessed with both a baby that slept, and a husband who could take a significant amount of parental leave. In the early days, my son was pretty portable. We would just pop him in the capsule or the carrier and go about our lives, making smug but naïve comments about how the baby was going to fit into our lives and not the other way around.
But now he is bigger, more distractible and more in need of the consistency and stability that doesn’t exactly mesh with the pre-kid lifestyle of two inner-city professionals.
Gone are the weekly dinners with friends that lasted as long as the wine did. And although nothing has ever brought me as much joy as being butler to this tiny human, I would be lying if I said there wasn’t a small pang as I close the front door behind me, leaving early to take him home to bed, whilst my friends' laughter continues on the other side without me.