Go read.... I'll wait.
I'll tell you what happened with me if you're interested.
I think I lost some of my career ambitions and drive while trying to fall pregnant. I honestly don't know how others get through infertility with everything intact :)
It feels like my 30's were taken up trying to fall pregnant (4 years), being pregnant, having babies, surviving the twins and then I blinked and I was 39 in that awful job.
I'm fine now but I don't think our marriage is even close to what it was pre-twins and I certainly feel like I've lost a lot of my ambition.
I love my children with an indescribable amount of all-consuming passion but I also know I love when I'm engaged in client solutions at my workplace.
I could never be a SAHM and I'm not sure if that's a brain thing or a personality thing; all I know is that I've had 5 months at home for maternity leave, 4 months on sabbatical and .... it's not for me.
Do you feel you lost your identity when you became a mother?
Or has it, as some of those commenters said, moved you towards your identity?
Tell me what you think.
I definitely think I changed, but I think I needed to. I became a better me. Less hectic, less OCD and less intense. I needed to after kids, I had to learn to lose control of every situation.
ReplyDeleteMy career focus has changed too, but I think it's a coping thing... I only did what I could cope with. It's tough though, because I definitely lost out on the career front in the last few years.
I am actually writing a blog post about this...
ReplyDeleteI don't really think you can avoid it. Whether you feel like you lost it or found it, it definitely changes. My one cousin put it nicely way back when I was pregnant with Nicola. She said, you get 9 months to prepare yourself for the fact that you will never be the main character in your own story again...you go to supporting role. ;-)
ReplyDeleteEven so, I think once you find your new feet and start to bend your head around the new normal, your world stretches or contracts (your choice which one), and so do you right along with it.
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ReplyDeleteI definitely became a different person. My Mom and sisters say I became softer, with more compassion. I do not think I lost me, I just became me. We are none of us static, and even if we had never had kids, we would have changed.
ReplyDeleteI became better organised and scatty at the same time. My Robin Hood tendencies have increased and I cry easier and I will always love being a Mom. I love my work too, and my design improved with being a Mom, I am able to empathise better and be a better designer because I can see more then I did before HB.
I lost my identity mostly once Bianca became sick. Suddenly I had to give everything up, it was hard. I am slowly learning to find myself again. This is hard also. I have just started a new blog with a focus mostly on the vision board I created at my retreat last year. Time to start focusing on me again (and my kids), but me too :-).
ReplyDeleteLea
http://afieldfullofdaisies.blogspot.co.nz/
I actually feel exactly like you do! Exactly - career, maraige and even the house. Like I lost a part of me and a lot of time. Maybe its twins?
ReplyDelete