Sophie and Henry

Name: Sophie 

Child: Henry, 5

Location: Gorton, Manchester

Expectations of Motherhood: Of course I knew Motherhood would be hard work but I assumed, naively, that at least on some level it would all come naturally and I would feel some kind of instinctive feelings about what I should be doing. 

Reality of Motherhood: The reality of Motherhood? It’s a lot of hard work, sleepless nights and this endless worry that never seems to go away. However out of everything I have ever done in my life it is by far the most rewarding and worthwhile thing I think I could ever or have ever done.



Taking your child home for the first time: When we first brought Henry home it was simply the most terrifying experience of my whole life. I remember thinking ‘Is this legal? This shouldn’t be legal? Letting a newborn baby go home with two unqualified people!’ When I woke up the next morning I was still in shock from giving birth a day earlier and running on caffeine and pure desperation alone and I felt absolutely freezing. So I did the logical thing and cranked up the heating. When my husband got back from a quick shopping run he felt like he’d walked into a sauna! He still jokes about it today, referring to it as ‘The time I almost cooked the baby.’



The Best Advice: Don’t be too hard on yourself or your body. Women today seem to put so much pressure on themselves to juggle everything. Your body might not bounce back straight away and that's ok. It just went through a huge ordeal when you gave birth! You might not have as much energy to run a duster round and that's ok too! That dust will still be there tomorrow or next week or if you’re like me when your child turns five! I’m exaggerating of course but things need to be prioritised and dusting and cleaning can be put of for a day and you shouldn’t feel bad for doing that! Give yourself a break, don’t compare yourself with what you think you should be doing and take everything day by day. 

The Worst Advice: Listening to everyone. Whether it's your mother in law, your best friend Jennifer, or that random stranger in Tesco, believe me when I say EVERYONE has advice to give. The absolute worst thing you can do is take any of it too seriously. Every child is different and what worked for Jennifer's angels won’t necessarily work for you and your little one. I tried to listen to everyone and ended up kicking myself wishing I had followed my gut instincts and gone with the flow like I was originally.



The hardest parts of being a mother: That gut wrenching worry you feel at the pit of your stomach. All you want to do is protect them but you realise that eventually there will be situations you can’t protect them from. Fall outs with friends, teasing at school, getting their hearts broken. I’d take every sleepless night going to be able to stop him feeling pain like that.

The best parts of being a mother: That’s easy, it has to be the unconditional and overwhelming feeling of love I get for him. I didn’t think it was possible to love anything or anyone like I love him.

Has becoming a mother changed you? More than I ever thought it would. I look at the world a lot differently now and I worry a whole lot more than I ever have before. I used to be impulsive and carefree and now i’m much more cautious but I’m also a lot happier than I thought I could be.


Hopes for your family: Mostly I hope for good health and continued happiness. Maybe in the future Henry might have a little brother or sister to grow up with.

What advice would you offer to new and expectant mums? Motherhood is hard work. Long days, longer nights and a boat load of worry that never goes away. It’s also the most exciting fulfilling and rewarding experience. They grow fast, enjoy every single second!

You can find Sophie here:

Blog: www.sophobsessed.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sophobsessed
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sophobsessed/ 

YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/sophobsessed

Vinca and Felix

Name: Vinca

Child: Felix, 5

Location: Levenshulme 

Expectations of Motherhood: 

I expected to look at my new baby and feel the most intense love.

I expected life to carry on as it had before. 

I expected to share responsibility with my partner. 

I expected to slot into motherhood easily.

Reality of Motherhood: The sudden wave of love didn’t hit me the first time I held my baby. I felt more of a deep sense of responsibility. The love crept in gradually over a few days, a few weeks. I felt a lot of guilt about what that could mean, until I realised it’s perfectly normal, my expectation was based on glossy celebrity stories and depictions of new mothers on film. Giving birth is a huge physical and emotional process to go through, of course it sometimes takes a little while to settle down. 

I wasn’t too far off with my other expectations, my partner and I, although we disagree on all kinds of things, are compatible in child-rearing – we support each other fully, and it has allowed us to maintain our friendships and ambitions and social lives, whilst having a fun, happy family life. I have a sense of fulfilment, not in a ‘my child is my life’ way, in a much more basic way – I was incredibly broody, now I’ve scratched that itch and we can all move forward with life together. 

Taking your child home for the first time: Felix had an infection and spent his first few days in the neonatal intensive care unit. It wasn’t the start we thought we’d have. After eight days we were given the all clear, and it was amazing! We were so desperate to go home and get on with normal life. We left the hospital and went straight to Tesco to do some shopping – something so ordinary forever changed. I was at university and my partner worked from home, so we had what felt like endless, wonderful time together, marvelling at this tiny person we’d made, and figuring out how our lives would fit together. We were a complete unit, I’ve never felt so secure in any of my relationships as I did in those first months of parenthood.

The best/worst advice: I was in my first year of my degree when I got pregnant. My Mum’s reaction when I told her the news was ‘oh no!’. She must have worried I’d drop out, but I didn’t. I spoke to one of my lecturers and he helped me to have confidence in my abilities and my choice to continue without deferring. I had to effectively do my second year backwards to fit the assignments around giving birth, but I worked hard, and with my partner doing the majority of childcare, I graduated in the standard three years, and got a first. The advice was to trust myself and not let other people determine what being a mother should mean to me and my ambitions. Oh, and my Mum told me every phase is the best bit. She was absolutely right!

The hardest parts of being a mother: I never clicked with the whole baby group thing. I got hung up on how much I hated the idea of making friends solely on the basis of having babies the same age. I couldn’t get passed it. I knew Felix needed to go to groups, so I took him to at least one a week, but it was a struggle. I was so awkward that I didn’t make any mum-friends, and had to wait for my friend-friends to start having babies so I could talk about life as a mother to understanding ears. I isolated myself. It made the first year quite lonely.

The best parts of being a mother: Where do I start? Watching this amazing little person grow and develop and express himself and his personality. There’s a trend for mourning the loss of the baby as a child gets bigger. I don’t feel that at all, I’m filled with excitement and curiosity about each new stage he goes through. He’s currently at the very beginning of learning to read, and I adore every small word he shouts out that he’s read from a sign as we drive around. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for him. This small child is brimming with possibility. 

Has becoming a mother changed you? I’m more considered in my actions than I was pre-Felix. The freedom of life without children has changed, not disappeared, just changed. There’s less spontaneity, more planning. 

Hopes for your family: I hope we support each other to be the happiest and most fulfilled we can be. I hope we have lots of fun, and enjoy each other’s company. I hope Felix has the confidence and determination to do what makes him happy, and that he always knows his parents love him. I hope we have all kinds of adventures together, all the way through our lives.

What advice would you offer to new and expectant mums: You don’t have to sacrifice yourself for your child. You can still be you. You can take your baby to a festival. You can buy a camper van and travel the world. You can go to parties. You can finish your studies. You can start your own business. You just have to make sure you build your life around the needs of this tiny person.



I live with my (now) husband, Lee. We run a design business together. It was a decision we took that means we are less secure financially, but we get to spend time with each other and Felix. We can work around the school day and holidays, he can hang out with us at the office, we can take days off to do fun stuff – it gives us freedom. I adored the early years, teaching him about the world, and nurturing him, and now he’s at school I’m loving the return to having non-Mum time between 9am and 3pm. It’s a journey we’ve been on, and I enjoy each new phase more than the last. He asked me about having a brother the other day – that’s not going to happen, I feel we’ve all developed along the way, and I don’t want to go back to the beginning now, this bit is too good, and I can only see that continuing forever.

Holly, Willow and Wilbur

Name: Holly 

Children: Willow 5yrs, Wilbur 8 months

Location: Levenshulme, Manchester 

Expectations of Motherhood: I always knew that I wanted to have children, but I think I wanted to wait for the feeling of being 'grown up' enough to become a mum.

I originally did a degree in Art and Sociology, but found when  job hunting it wasn’t very useful, so I initially worked in care jobs and mental health. A couple of years later I started a degree in Occupational Therapy to try and combine my creative side and my health care interests.

Half way through my degree we started getting a little complacent when it came to contraception and I got pregnant.

When I was younger I never felt that I understood other women or how I should really behave as a woman, so when I got pregnant I very naively felt like this was my opportunity to be the ultimate earth mother, living “as one” with this beautiful thing inside me that was made out of love. I wanted my birth experience to be calm, happy, the very epitome of womanhood and a bonding experience for my husband and I (and my mum who was supposed to be with me). Of course, it didn’t turn out as I had hoped or expected. 

I was utterly gutted when I went for a scan after a small bleed at 12 weeks to find out that my baby had died. I had a horrible miscarriage and cried for weeks. I became fixated on becoming pregnant again, probably to prove I could do it more than anything. 

When Willow was born I had planned to breastfeed her exclusively. I was prepared for the sleepless nights and the constant feeding and knew it was going to hurt, but I was determined I was going to feed her myself. I was even naive enough to think that women that didn’t breastfeed their child simply didn’t try hard enough!

As Willow grew up I had very clear vision that I wanted her to not feel restricted to girlie toys and have everything pink. I wanted her to hate Barbie, to climb trees, to get mucky and love it.
With my second child, Wilbur, I had expected to get pregnant straight away; it took three years. In this time I lost three stone and had another miscarriage, then I finally got pregnant with Wilbur. Eventually, I realised that he was a real baby who was going to make an appearance and so I should plan for his birth. My plans were very modest and all I really wanted was for it to be a positive experience, and nothing like my first birth experience.


I had expected motherhood to come naturally to me. I had expected what people tell you will happen; the rush of love for your baby, the elation when they are born and the grief of separation when they have to go to nursery and school. Needless to say, the reality was quite different! 

Reality of Motherhood:  Wow, the reality of motherhood hit me hard!

Willow’s arrival could not have been more different than how I had planned. She was breech and I had to have a planned Cesarean section. I had assumed an elective c-section would have been calm, positive and a pain free way of having my baby but I was totally shocked about how brutal the process was and how brusque the staff seemed. I started crying on Willow’s second day and must have stopped only 3 weeks later. Looking back I quite obviously has a rather nasty case of postnatal depression. 

Breastfeeding Willow did not go to plan, my milk never came in fully and she lost over 10% of her body weight. I had to mix bottle and breast feeding and beat myself up for months for not being able to exclusively feed her. I was not prepared for the constant anxiety and guilt or the insomnia, and not being able to drift off to sleep because I was so wired and terrified that she would wake up and want feeding at any moment.

Despite my hippy, earth-motherly dreams I was not a natural maternal type. Willow was a very unhappy baby, full of colic and never seemingly comfortable. She would scream from about 3pm in the afternoon until 9 or 10 pm and would be inconsolable. We would call it “suicide hour”.

I knew I had to care for her but I remember not being in love with her or particularly liking her. All the mums at the baby groups seemed to be doting on their babies but I just wanted mine to stop screaming for long enough for me to get some sleep. It turned out that poor Willow had silent reflux but she didn’t get diagnosed until she was about 5 months old. After being put on the right medication she became a much happier baby and we got to know each other all over again. I started to fall in love with her and realise that we had all had a really tough few months, but now things were only going to get better. 

My experience with my second child was totally different. I had a c-section booked but wanted a natural birth so when I went into labour naturally I was really happy. The labour was actually OK, I’ve had more painful toothache and although it was very uncomfortable and very intense I almost enjoyed the primal, instinctive aspect of it. My husband and one of my best friends were with me throughout. Sucking on gas and air and a couple of jabs of Diamorphine got me through 26 hours and then Wilbur was born. I was completely elated. I fell in love with him the moment I saw him, and I finally understood what all the other mums I knew were going on about!

Wilbur seemed so easy compared to my first experience. He was easily soothed and he didn’t cry all the time. I exclusively breastfed him, however he got an infection in his umbilical cord and again I didn’t have enough milk to keep his weight up. He lost 15.9% of his body weight and had to be admitted to hospital at 5 days old. I was gutted to have to start mix feeding again but he was going to be seriously ill if we didn’t.

Taking your children home for the first time: Taking my daughter home felt wonderful because I had had such a horrible time in hospital that I thought home was the answer to everything. As it turned out, home was the start of a whole new level of sleeplessness and perforated ear drums from the constant screaming. I ran on adrenaline and hysterics. My mum had come to help us out and ended up not leaving for about three months because I was such a wreck. My mum being around was a blessing and a curse really because she seemed to be the only person who could soothe Willow - I felt increasingly useless.

Taking Wilbur home was a totally different experience. My mum was there again, but I was determined to be more together this time. I was really lucky enough to get the support I needed.

There was a moment when I looked at my daughter and my new baby and suddenly all the hippy-dippy earth motherly feelings I had initially hoped for actually happened! I felt like I had everything I had ever wanted.

The best/worst advice: The best advice I had was from my friend Audrey. I would often take my daughter and go and hide at her house in the afternoon (to try and distract the baby from the evening screamies). She told me everything with children is a phase, even the good stuff - so whatever they are like now, it won’t last forever. That saw me through some very dark times!

The worst advice I had was whilst we were trying to get pregnant with Wilbur. It took three years to get pregnant and I had to go to the women’s hospital for investigations. People would constantly say, “Oh you just need to relax!” and, “Stop trying and it will just happen”. It drove me nuts even though I knew people were just trying to be nice.

The hardest parts of being a mother: The hardest part of being a mum has to be accepting that I have limitations and I don’t always have the answers or solutions to every problem.

Finding (and sharing) the time and energy for the people I love is also tricky. With my first baby I think my husband and I forgot to give each other enough attention, and that made it hard to get on when we were both tired and grumpy. 

The best parts of being a mother: The best parts of being a mother has to be being able to witness this creature that you have made turn into a little person with a very big personality.

The laughter and joy in simple and unexpected things is wonderful, for example, the relief in seeing a great big poo erupt from your baby when he has been constipated for days are joyful!

Hopes for your family: My hopes for my family are that we will remain close. I come from a large family of half brothers and half sisters, but none of us are particularly close. I would love for Willow and Wilbur to be there for each other when they grow up.

What advice would you offer to new and expectant mums: Have realistic expectations! Child birth and babies are unpredictable things and trying to have control over every aspect of it can really backfire. 

I listened to a hypnobirth CD about giving birth naturally after a c-section for a few weeks before I had my second child; I found it really helped to relax me and give me a positive outlook on having another baby. My other bit of advice would be not to worry if you don’t immediately feel gushy and maternal, it doesn’t mean you won’t love your child or give it a great start in life.

Additional comments:

Miscarriage affects 1 in 4 pregnancies, and that is a lot of women. I found the silence surrounding being pregnant for the first 12 weeks and pregnancy loss very isolating. The Miscarriage Association website is full of information and Tommy’s do fantastic work and have a midwife available to talk to.

http://www.tommys.org/

http://www.miscarriageassociation.org.uk/