There is a lot of conversation about what happens to a woman when she becomes a mother.

As there should be.

Your body changes. Your hormones change. Your sleep disappears. Your identity gets shaken like a snow globe. Suddenly your breasts have a work roster, leaving the house requires the logistical planning of a small military operation, and another human being’s bowel movements become legitimate dinner-table conversation.

Motherhood is enormous and all-consuming.

What I hadn’t thought nearly as much about was what was happening to the person standing next to me.

Ned.

In those first weeks with Elke, I became intensely focused on doing everything “right”.

There is something slightly terrifying about being handed a tiny human you love more than anything you’ve ever loved before and realising there is no practical exam. No probationary period. No senior manager popping around at 4pm to confirm you’ve swaddled correctly.

They just let you leave the hospital with them.

Wild.

So I researched. I watched. I learnt. I developed systems.

And because I was with Elke all day, every day, I quickly became the person who knew her best.

I knew which cry meant hungry and which meant tired. I knew how she liked to be held, how tight the nappy needed to be, the particular bounce that settled her, which dummy she preferred despite her ongoing commitment to spitting all of them immediately out of her mouth in spite.

And somewhere along the way, my confidence became rules.

“No, she likes it this way.”

“Can you hold her head like this?”

“Don’t do that, she’ll wake up.”

“She’s just overtired, give her to me.”

“That’s not how I do it.”

Nothing particularly cruel. Nothing I even registered as significant.

But repeated enough times, I can see how the message might slowly become:

The irony, of course, is that I desperately wanted help.

I’d sometimes look at Ned and think, Why am I the one noticing everything? Why do I have to explain what needs doing? Why am I carrying all of this?

Meanwhile, he may have been standing there thinking, Every time I do something, I get told I’m doing it incorrectly.

Not exactly fertile ground for teamwork.

There’s an entire genre of content online about the “mental load”. Some of it has been incredibly validating for me. Women absolutely do carry an enormous amount of invisible labour, particularly once children arrive.

But I also started noticing something uncomfortable.

I was sometimes measuring Ned against internet husbands.

Against reels.

Against lists written by strangers about what an “equal partner” should intuitively know and do.

I was comparing a real man, learning how to become a father for the first time, against an algorithm.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t expect our partners to contribute equally. Of course we should.

It’s that somewhere between advocating for myself and consuming everyone else’s definition of what a good partner looked like, I occasionally stopped looking at the actual person in front of me.

A person who was trying.

A person who was learning too.

When Ned went back to work, I sometimes viewed it almost resentfully.

He got to leave.

He got to shower, put on clean clothes and go somewhere adults spoke in full sentences. He could eat lunch with two hands. He could go to the bathroom without calculating whether the baby had been asleep long enough to risk it.

It looked suspiciously like freedom from where I was sitting.

But I didn’t spend much time thinking about the other side.

That he had to leave his newborn daughter every morning.

That he missed hours of tiny changes and milestones.

That he might feel guilty walking out the door while I stood there holding the baby, still in pyjamas, with approximately 400 things to do before lunchtime.

That he could simultaneously enjoy being at work and wish he was home.

Two things can be true.

Turns out that sentence applies to almost every part of parenthood.

I can be exhausted and grateful.

He can love work and hate leaving us.

I can need more help without him being a bad partner.

And perhaps the realisation I need to remind myself of the most, he can be struggling without his struggle needing to compete with mine.

We’ve become much better at talking about maternal postpartum experiences, but fathers and non-birthing partners can disappear into a strange supporting role.

How’s Mum?

How’s the baby?

Is Mum feeding okay?

Is Mum sleeping?

How’s Mum coping?

All incredibly important questions.

But sometimes nobody asks Dad.

And perhaps he doesn’t think he’s allowed to answer honestly anyway.

Because how do you say you’re tired when your partner has just grown and birthed a human?

How do you admit you’re overwhelmed when she’s recovering physically?

How do you say you’re scared when you feel like your job is to be the calm one?

So maybe you say nothing.

You go to work.

You keep moving.

You try to be useful.

And if you’re repeatedly told you’re doing things wrong, maybe eventually you stop trying quite so loudly.

I’m not writing this as some grand defence of men or another tedious entry into the internet gender wars.

God knows I’m not handing out medals for changing nappies.

This is simply me realising that becoming parents hasn’t just asked Ned and me to learn how to care for Elke.

It’s asked us to learn each other again.

He’s still becoming him.

Just as I’m still becoming her mum.

We are both beginners. We’ve both got L plates hanging around our necks, and we’re just fumbling our way through.

And maybe one of the kindest things we can do for each other is allow some room for that?

Room to get things wrong.

Room to parent differently.

Room to say, “I need more from you” without translating that into “you’re failing me”.

Room for him to say, “I’m struggling too” without it diminishing anything I’m carrying.

I want him to develop his own relationship with her, his own rhythms, his own ridiculous ways of making her laugh.

I want there to be things Daddy does better.

Even if it kills me slightly.

We are only two months into this parenting gig, and I’m increasingly convinced that raising a child isn’t just about learning how to love the new person who arrived.

Sometimes it’s about remembering to keep seeing the person who was already there.

And maybe asking them, every now and then:

How are you doing in all of this?

Not as my helper.

Not as Elke’s dad.

But as you.

Eight weeks ago, I became someone’s mum.

Which still feels like a deeply irresponsible administrative error.

I spent approximately nine months preparing for motherhood like I was sitting the world’s most important exam. I researched prams. I researched car seats. I researched bassinets, swaddles, nappies, nipple creams and whether a baby really needs seventeen different types of white noise.

I made lists for my lists. I packed and repacked my hospital bag(s). I asked friends for advice. I downloaded apps. I attended online workshops with crochet boobs as props. I Googled things that absolutely did not need to be Googled at 1am.

And then Elke arrived and I discovered the deeply inconvenient truth: you cannot research your way out of becoming a completely different person overnight.

Motherhood has somehow been harder, easier, stranger, funnier and more wonderful than I expected. Sometimes all within the same 20-minute window.

I am, obviously, only eight weeks into this thing. I am not an expert. I have barely completed the tutorial level. Elke could change everything she currently does tomorrow purely to humble me.

But there are already things I wish I could go back and whisper to pregnant Tully while she was obsessively comparing baby monitors and wondering whether she had packed enough maternity nappies.

So, from one slightly shell-shocked new mum to another, here are my top 10.

1. You are going to miss your old life AND love your new one more

Even writing that makes me feel a bit guilty.

You can desperately love your baby and still occasionally miss the woman who could decide she wanted to do a 6am pilates class and simply... go and do pilates.

No swaddles. No nappies. No timing feeds. No checking whether somewhere has pram access. No packing a bag containing approximately enough equipment to survive three nights in the wilderness.

I miss spontaneity. I miss sleep. I miss being responsible only for myself. I miss leaving the house without performing a 14-point safety inspection.

And yet, if someone offered me my old life back tomorrow, exactly as it was, I wouldn’t take it. Not in a bazillion years!

That’s the weird duality of motherhood I didn’t understand until I got here. You can grieve parts of your old life while being completely obsessed with the new one.

Missing your freedom does not mean you regret your baby.

Wanting an hour to yourself does not make you ungrateful.

Two things can be true at once. Motherhood apparently contains multitudes. It also contains a LOT of washing.

2. If you want to breastfeed, invest in a lactation consultant BEFORE the baby arrives

As a “geriatric” first-time mum, I made sure to ask all my girlfriends who’d walked this path before me the ONE thing they wished they’d done differently before becoming a mum. Their answer was almost unanimous: learn more about breastfeeding.

If breastfeeding is something you want to try, I would strongly recommend finding a qualified lactation consultant before birth rather than waiting until you are postpartum, sleep-deprived, hormonal and frantically Googling, “WHAT CONSTITUTES PROJECTILE VOMITING?!”

I enlisted the help of Liv from Bloom Lactation, after so many of you recommended her, and she came over for a chat before Elke was born. I genuinely think that one session made such a difference to how confident and informed I felt when it came time to breastfeed Elke in hospital.

Since then, I’ve texted her almost weekly with various panicked questions, sent her videos of my boobs without a second thought, and she’s even come back over to meet Elke and check in on how she’s feeding.

Have someone you already know you can call.

Know what support is available to you.

Learn about positioning, attachment, supply and what those first few days might actually look like.

Because breastfeeding may be natural, but that does not automatically make it intuitive.

Walking is natural too. Babies still spend an entire year learning how to do it.

And please know this is not me telling anyone how they should feed their baby. Breast, bottle, combination, formula, pumping, interpretive dance. Feed your baby in whatever way works for you and keeps everybody sane.

I simply wish I’d understood how useful professional support could be before I was already in the trenches.

3. You will never feel completely ready to leave the house. Go anyway

The first time I took Elke somewhere alone, you would have thought I was attempting to summit Everest with an infant strapped to my chest.

Do I have enough nappies?

What if she needs two outfits?

Three?

What if she gets hungry?

What if she screams?

Where will I feed her?

Will there be somewhere to change her?

What if the pram spontaneously combusts?

Eventually you realise you could prepare for every possible scenario and your baby will simply invent a new one.

The best thing I did for my confidence was start going places.

A walk. Lunch. Woolies. The pub.

Then eventually, travel.

Every time I successfully left the house and returned with both of us alive, my confidence grew another tiny notch.

The first outing feels impossible.

The fifth feels manageable.

Eventually you’re changing a nappy in the back seat of the car in the Chadstone shopping centre carpark thinking, “Look at me. Basically Bear Grylls.”

4. Newborns make approximately 400 terrifying noises while sleeping

I had heard they were noisy but I didn’t take anyone seriously.

Newborns grunt. Snort. Gurgle. Squeak. Wheeze. Groan. Thrash. Stretch. Make noises that sound suspiciously like a tiny goat being exorcised. Or a baby raptor trying to escape Jurrassic Park.

During those first few nights, every sound had me sitting bolt upright thinking, “THAT CAN’T BE NORMAL?”

Then you look over, and they’re completely asleep.

Apparently babies can be extremely noisy sleepers, and a lot of the strange little sounds that sent my nervous system into DEFCON 1 were simply... baby noises.

Obviously, if something feels wrong or you are genuinely concerned, get medical advice. But I wish someone had warned me that newborn sleep does not necessarily sound like the Calm app.

Sometimes it sounds like someone trying to start a lawnmower.

5. Stop trying to win motherhood

This may be the hardest lesson for those of us who have spent our adult lives treating productivity like a personality trait.

There is no Motherhood Olympics.

Nobody is awarding points because you answered your emails during nap time, cleaned the kitchen, cooked dinner from scratch, walked the dog, folded the washing AND remembered tummy time.

Sometimes you will absolutely smash the day.

Other days, the baby will inexplicably refuse to be put down and you’ll realise at 4pm that you’ve eaten three TimTams and a can of Coke.

Both are days of parenting.

I’m slowly learning that my job right now is not to prove I can effortlessly maintain my old life while also raising a newborn.

Sometimes success means we both got dressed.

Sometimes it means she slept.

Sometimes it means I had an Everything Shower.

Sometimes the achievement is simply everyone being alive at 6.15pm when my partner (finally) walks in the door.

Take the win.

6. Your relationship will change. Protect it

Speaking of, nobody warns you quite how quickly a loving adult relationship can descend into a forensic investigation about who slept for how many minutes.

“I was up from 1:17 until 2:03.”

“YES, but I got up at 4:12.”

“You went back to sleep.”

“I DID NOT.”

Suddenly two adults who once went on romantic holidays together are presenting sleep logs like opposing barristers.

Having a baby changes the entire ecosystem of a relationship.

You are tired. You’re overstimulated. You both have less time. Someone always needs something.

You can start unconsciously keeping score.

Who changed more nappies? Who got more sleep? Who got to leave the house? Who had 40 uninterrupted minutes to do something luxurious, like go for a walk alone?

The biggest thing I’m learning is to remember we’re on the same team.

It’s not you against each other, it’s both of you against the baby… jokes, I mean the 3am wake-up.

Join forces.

7. Your body is not an emergency

I would like to personally apologise to every woman I ever looked at eight weeks after giving birth and thought, “Wow, she bounced back quickly.”

Because WHAT DO YOU MEAN BOUNCED BACK?

From where?

My body spent nine months growing a human being. My organs moved. My abs separated. I had major surgery. Then I immediately began keeping another person alive around the clock.

And still, there can be this bizarre feeling that once the baby exits, your body should immediately return to factory settings.

It won’t.

And it doesn’t need to.

Some days I feel okay in my body. Other days I catch myself in the mirror in our living room under lighting specifically designed by Satan and wonder who that woman is.

Then I try to remember what this body just did.

It grew Elke from scratch.

Eyeballs. Fingernails. A tiny little nose.

My body does not need punishment.

It needs time.

And perhaps better lighting.

8. Your instincts WILL get louder

At the beginning, everybody feels more qualified than you.

The midwife.

The doctor.

Your mother-in-law.

A stranger named Sandra in a Facebook group.

Someone on TikTok with very confident opinions and a ring light.

You Google everything because you assume there must be a correct answer somewhere.

How often should they sleep?

How much should they eat?

Is that poo normal?

Why are they doing that with their tongue?

Should their left eyebrow be doing that?

Eventually something changes.

You start recognising their cries.

You know when they’re hungry.

You know when they’re overtired.

You know the face they make approximately seven seconds before a poo.

You begin to understand that while professionals have expertise you absolutely should listen to, you also have something increasingly valuable: intimate knowledge of your own baby.

You start trusting yourself.

And that may be one of the nicest changes of all.

9. The thing breaking you this week probably won’t exist next week

Newborn life moves at warp speed.

There have already been moments where I’ve thought, “I cannot possibly do this every day for the rest of my life.”

Then, almost immediately, whatever the issue was changed.

The unsettled period passes.

The feeding changes.

They start sleeping longer.

You find a solution.

Or they simply grow out of whatever bizarre behaviour sent you into a three-day research spiral.

Babies have an extraordinary ability to make you spend six hours researching a problem and then never do it again.

So when something feels impossibly hard, I try to remind myself: this is a phase.

Which is comforting when the phase involves screaming.

Less comforting when the phase is them sleeping peacefully on your chest and you suddenly realise that will end too.

Rude.

10. You are allowed to enjoy it

I spent so much of pregnancy preparing myself for motherhood to be hard.

Everyone tells you.

You’ll never sleep again.

Your relationship will suffer.

Breastfeeding hurts.

You’ll lose yourself.

Say goodbye to your social life.

(GEE WIZ, WHERE DO I SIGN!?)

So I arrived at motherhood slightly braced for impact.

And yes, parts of it ARE brutally hard.

But I almost forgot to prepare myself for how much I might love it.

The tiny noises.

The contact naps.

The way she looks for me.

The gummy smiles.

Watching Ned twirl her around the room to 80s love ballads.

Seeing this tiny person slowly become more alert to the world around her.

Sometimes I catch myself enjoying something and immediately start worrying about the next feed, the next nap, tomorrow, next week, whether she’ll sleep tonight.

I have to consciously drag myself back.

Stop anticipating the next problem.

Put the phone down.

Look at her.

This bit is happening now.

Eight weeks down, approximately forever to go

The funniest part about writing parenting advice at eight weeks postpartum is that Elke will probably read this back to me one day and explain precisely how wrong I was.

I know nothing.

That may actually be the eleventh tip.

Eight weeks ago, I thought becoming a good mother meant knowing what I was doing.

Now I think it might be accepting that I often have absolutely no idea what I’m doing, doing it anyway, asking for help when I need it and loving this tiny human so ferociously that I keep figuring it out as I go.

There is no moment where someone hands you your baby and suddenly you feel like a mother.

For me, it has happened gradually.

One feed. One nappy. One 3am cuddle. One terrifying first outing. One small victory at a time.

I’m still becoming her mum.

And she’s still teaching me how.

Everyone talks about the “mama bear”.

You hear it constantly.

The image is always the same.

A mother bear stands between her baby and the world, teeth bared, claws out, ready to destroy anything that comes too close.

It sounds almost primal.

Biological.

Ancient.

And now that I am a mother, I understand it.

Completely.

The fierce protectiveness. The idea that the second your baby enters the world, some ancient part of your brain wakes up, bares its teeth and decides it will destroy anything that comes between you and your cub.

I understand that feeling completely.

I look in the rear-view mirror at Elke and could cry on command.

Her teeny, tiny face.

Her button nose.

Her little hands curled beside her cheeks.

Sometimes I catch sight of her sitting peacefully in the back of the car and feel overwhelmed by the sheer fact that she exists.

That she is mine.

That somehow I made her.

I love her so much it almost hurts.

Like my body cannot contain it.

Like my heart is trying to expand beyond the dimensions it was originally issued with.

The thought of anything happening to her feels unbearable.

And I do not even mean the big, terrifying things.

I mean seeing her scrape her knee.

Watching her fall off a bike.

Her first heartbreak.

Someone being mean to her at school.

The idea of her feeling embarrassed or rejected or scared makes my chest ache already, which feels completely reasonable given she currently cannot hold her own head up for long periods of time.

I understand the mama bear now.

I would protect this baby from anything.

Anyone.

Everything.

Except, apparently, myself.

Because somewhere in the middle of all this overwhelming, enormous, life-altering love, another thought has started creeping in.

She deserves better.

She deserves the best mum in the entire world.

And I am not her.

The issue is that all of that love, protectiveness and responsibility has collided head-on with one of my least useful personality traits.

Perfectionism.

I decided that loving Elke this much meant I had to become the best mother in the world.

Not a good mum.

Not a loving mum.

Not a mum who learns as she goes.

The best.

Gold medal.

World record.

No notes.

And if anything deviates from the perfect motherhood plan in my head, I do not simply think, well, babies are unpredictable.

I think I have failed.

One big vomit? (Why did I not know what caused it?)

One night where she won’t latch? (What am I doing wrong?)

A screaming car ride? (Why can I not settle my own baby?)

A nap that lasts twenty minutes instead of whatever the internet has decided is developmentally ideal this week? (Excellent. Apparently I have ruined sleep forever.)

I am just over six weeks postpartum now, and I am absolutely finding my feet.

I know Elke better than I did a month ago.

I recognise her cues.

I can often tell the difference between hungry, tired, uncomfortable and simply deeply offended by the concept of being alive at 5pm.

I am building confidence.

I can feel myself becoming her mum rather than simply a terrified woman who has been handed a newborn and told, “Off you go.”

Then we have one bad day.

And somehow six weeks of evidence disappears.

One difficult feed can erase every successful one that came before it.

One enormous vomit can make me question every decision I made that afternoon.

One prolonged screaming session can convince me that I am fundamentally unqualified for the job I wanted more than anything.

That is the part I did not expect.

I knew I would worry about my baby.

I did not realise how quickly that worry would become self-criticism.

Because the mama bear inside my head is savage.

She does not gently suggest areas for improvement.

She conducts performance reviews at 3am.

The internet does not exactly help.

I can open TikTok at 2am and within fifteen minutes learn that I should be feeding on demand but perhaps also establishing a routine, watching wake windows but not obsessing over wake windows, practising responsive settling but definitely not creating sleep associations, following my instincts while simultaneously downloading an app to tell me exactly what my instincts should be doing.

Then there are the books.

The podcasts.

The feeding guides.

The sleep experts.

The parenting accounts.

The mothers who swear their newborn slept through the night at seven weeks because they followed three simple steps you can access through the link in their bio.

There is always a “right” way.

And when you are already someone who likes to do things properly, motherhood becomes fertile ground for madness.

I do not simply want Elke to be okay.

I want to optimise her.

I want her fed perfectly, sleeping perfectly, developing perfectly, attaching perfectly.

I want to anticipate every need before she has it.

I want to protect her from discomfort, sadness, pain, illness and apparently the occasional bad nap.

Which, logically, I know is impossible.

Emotionally, however, I remain unconvinced.

The cruellest part is that if anyone else spoke to me the way I speak to myself, my mama bear instincts would activate immediately.

If someone told me I was failing because my baby screamed in the car, I would tell them to get fucked.

If someone suggested one difficult latch made me a bad mother, I would think they were insane.

If a friend came to me six weeks postpartum and said, “I had a bad day and now I think my baby deserves better than me,” I would wrap my arms around her and list every single reason she was doing brilliantly.

I would never expect perfection from her.

Only from myself.

Perhaps that is what I need to unlearn.

Because I am starting to realise that perfectionism can disguise itself beautifully as care.

It says: I just want the best for her.

It says: I am only being thorough.

It says: I should know more.

I should do more.

I should be better.

But eventually, all that striving stops helping.

It just makes a tired mother feel inadequate.

And I do not want Elke to grow up watching her mum believe that love means getting everything right.

I do not want her to learn that mistakes require punishment.

I do not want her to inherit the voice in my head that says anything less than perfect is failure.

I want her to know that humans get things wrong.

That we learn.

That we adapt.

That one bad day does not cancel out a hundred good ones.

So maybe my mama bear instincts need redirecting.

Because they are not going anywhere.

I will always want to protect her.

I will probably always worry.

I will probably still Google strange noises at midnight and analyse the colour of vomit with the forensic intensity of a homicide detective.

But perhaps protecting my daughter also means protecting her mother from impossible standards.

Maybe the world’s best mum is not the woman who never gets anything wrong.

Maybe she is the woman who cares enormously, keeps learning, shows up again the next day and eventually understands that her baby does not need perfection.

She needs her.

And maybe, one day, I will believe that too.

Last week, at four and a half weeks postpartum, I took my newborn baby to Sydney for the media launch of The Traitors Australia.

Even typing that sentence feels faintly unhinged.

At four and a half weeks postpartum, you are still bleeding. Your hormones are doing parkour. Your body feels unfamiliar. Your brain is operating with approximately seven per cent battery, and your daily ambitions generally involve showering, eating something with one hand and remembering which breast the baby fed from last.

And yet, there I was, boarding a plane with Elke because a television show I filmed almost a year ago was finally about to launch.

It should have been one of the most exciting weeks of my career.

In many ways, it was.

It was also one of the hardest.

From the moment conversations began about the launch, I felt an enormous pressure to show up.

Too difficult.

Too much work.

I did not want anyone deciding it would be easier to leave me off the list.

So I downplayed it.

I acted as though bringing a one-month-old baby interstate was a minor administrative detail, rather than a logistical operation requiring the strategic planning of a small military deployment.

We needed to hire a car. Then we discovered the hire-car company could not guarantee a newborn-specific car seat, so we had to hire one separately through a third-party company. I borrowed a pram with a bassinet from a friend because none of the standard travel prams lie flat enough for a newborn. I checked that the hotel could provide a portacot. I packed nappies, wipes, bottles, breast-pump parts, sterilising equipment, multiple outfits, swaddles, blankets and approximately 400 emergency burp cloths.

For Elke.

For myself, I packed two outfits that I had picked in a panic because finding something that both fits my postpartum body and made me feel remotely like myself had become its own impossible task.

My wardrobe sat at home filled with clothing that belonged to another woman.

A woman with a waist.

A woman who wore bras chosen for aesthetics rather than rapid boob access.

A woman who could get dressed without first calculating whether she could breastfeed in the outfit, whether it would hide leaking milk and whether it would accommodate the abdominal tenderness left behind by major surgery.

When I arrived at the event and saw my castmates assembling their phones, microphones and tripods to capture content, I felt 100 years old.

They knew what angles they needed. They knew which clips they wanted. They were filming transitions, interviews and behind-the-scenes footage while I was trying to remember whether I had packed spare breast pads.

Nine months earlier, this would have been my natural habitat.

I would have arrived early, found the best lighting, filmed three reels, worked the room and left with enough content to feed the algorithm for a fortnight.

Instead, I stood on the red carpet wearing stupidly expensive Spanx that came up to my armpits and cut into my c-section incision every time I breathed.

At one point, I watched my dear friend and fellow castmate Alex Nation swan around the room, schmoozing the media, throwing back champagne, laughing, looking hot and completely carefree.

I adore Alex. This had nothing to do with jealousy towards her and everything to do with grief for myself.

Watching her felt like watching me nine months earlier.

I recognised the energy, the ease, the ability to be fully present in the room. I remembered what it felt like to walk into an event and think only about the people in front of me.

For a moment, I looked at her and realised I did not recognise myself.

I wanted to hide in the bathroom.

During the episode screening, I breastfed Elke in the dark. During canapés, I found myself facing a corner to feed her because I didn’t want to draw attention to myself, didn’t want my engorged boob to end up in the background of a TikTok.

I know breastfeeding is natural. I know I have every right to feed my baby wherever she needs to be fed. I also know that confidence does not magically arrive with the placenta.

People asked me questions. Cameras appeared in front of my face. Content creators wanted funny answers, juicy stories and charming little grabs they could upload to Instagram.

I tried to switch on.

I tried to be witty. I tried to be engaging. I tried to summon the version of myself who knew how to hold court, land a punchline and give people something they could use.

But while I answered, I could see Ned trying to settle our newborn baby out of the corner of my eye.

Was she hungry?

Was she overtired?

Could he find the dummy?

Did she need me?

My body sat in the interview, but my brain hovered across the room beside her.

What would have been a dream day on the job nine months ago suddenly felt overwhelming, exhausting and anxiety-inducing.

Later, Ned told me, “I love watching you do your thing.”

I looked at him and said, “But did I, though? Did I do my thing? I didn’t feel like I did my thing at all.”

That question has stayed with me.

This new stage of my life has collided with a career highlight I have waited almost a year to share. I am thrilled to be part of this show. I want to celebrate it properly. I want to attend everything, say yes to every opportunity and squeeze every drop from the experience.

I also wish the launch had happened a few weeks later.

I wish I had felt more together.

I wish my body had felt more like mine. I wish feeding felt easier. I wish I had slept more. I wish I knew my baby’s rhythms. I wish I had found my footing in this strange new life before being asked to perform the old one.

I worry I am not making the most of these opportunities because my focus is on my baby.

As it should be.

Then I feel guilty that I cannot show up as wholeheartedly as I once did. I feel guilty that I am distracted. I feel guilty that I am tired. I feel guilty that I am not creating enough content or saying yes quickly enough.

At the same time, I feel guilty for dragging my precious, tiny baby through airports, cars, hotels and crowded events because Mummy has a television show to promote.

There it is.

The trap.

On the flight home, it was just Elke and me. By the time I collected our luggage, wrestled everything into the car and walked through my front door, it was midnight.

I felt proud that I had done it.

I also felt completely depleted.

The never-ending push and pull.

The feeling that when you are working, you should be with your baby, and when you are with your baby, you should be doing more with the opportunities you worked your entire adult life to earn.

Women have been told that we can have it all.

Perhaps we can.

But nobody explains that sometimes “having it all” looks like breastfeeding in a darkened cinema while wearing armpit-high Spanx.

Nobody explains that your dream job can still feel like a dream while you quietly wish you were back in the hotel room with your baby.

Nobody explains that the old version of you does not disappear when you become a mother. She simply has to learn how to share the room.

I did not feel like I did my thing that day.

Maybe I did a new thing.

Maybe I showed up imperfectly, fed my baby, answered the questions, walked the carpet, supported the show and got us both home safely.

Maybe that counts.

Perhaps, at least for now, that has to be enough.

A few weeks ago, I became a mum.

I also became a patient.

It’s funny how quickly I forgot the second part.

Before Elke was born, I’d made the decision to have an elective caesarean.

It wasn’t a decision I made lightly. I researched it. I spoke to my obstetrician. I weighed up the risks and benefits. I thought about my anxiety, my personality, my family history and what I knew would make me feel safest and most in control.

For me, it was the right decision.

I don’t regret it for a second.

But here’s what’s surprised me, what’s brought me to writing this post…

Long before Elke was born, I’d already started feeling this strange, underlying sense of shame.

Then I’d list my reasons.

Almost like I was pleading my case before anyone had even put me on trial.

I’d explain my anxiety.

I’d explain that my obstetrician supported it.

I’d explain that it was the right choice for me.

I’d explain.

Explain.

Explain.

As though choosing how my own daughter entered the world required a defence.

The funny thing is, nobody was asking me to justify it.

At least, not out loud.

Somewhere along the way, I’d internalised the idea that a caesarean was something you only “deserved” if you had enough reasons.

That there was some invisible hierarchy of birth.

That vaginal birth sat at the top.

Emergency caesareans somewhere underneath.

And elective caesareans...

Well.

Were they cheating?

Taking the easy way out?

Even writing those words makes me cringe.

Because intellectually, I know they’re ridiculous.

Emotionally?

Apparently not.

I’d notice it in conversations with other mums.

They’d swap birth stories.

Talk about contractions.

Transition.

Pushing.

The moment they finally got their baby onto their chest.

I’d listen, fascinated.

But I’d also go strangely quiet.

I never felt like I belonged in the conversation.

Like when it was my turn, I wouldn’t really be earning my place.

As though my experience would count a little bit less.

As though I was about to skip a chapter everyone else had lived through.

Again...

Nobody ever made me feel that way.

I did.

And that’s what’s so fascinating.

Because where did that come from?

Who taught me that?

What had I absorbed over thirty-eight years that made me quietly believe there was somehow a “better” way to become a mother?

I don’t have the answer.

But I suspect I’m not the only woman carrying it.

Then Elke arrived.

The surgery itself was everything I’d hoped for.

Calm.

Gentle.

Joyful.

Within minutes, she was here.

Perfect.

Healthy.

The greatest love I’d ever known.

The surgery took around fifteen minutes.

Then another forty-five or so while my incredible obstetrician, Dr Amanda Ward, carefully stitched me back together.

And somewhere in my brain, I think I decided...

“Well, that wasn’t so bad.”

Which meant...

Women labour for twenty hours.

Thirty hours.

Some push for days.

Some experience unimaginable trauma.

Mine took an hour.

Who was I to complain?

Who was I to stay in bed?

Who was I to ask for help?

Who was I to nap?

Who was I to not carry things?

Who was I to take it easy?

So I didn’t.

I tried to carry on.

Business as usual.

I answered work emails.

I walked around.

I bent.

I lifted.

I tidied.

I ignored my obstetrician.

Ignored the midwives.

Ignored my partner.

Ignored my mother-in-law.

Ignored every single person who told me...

“Rest.”

Until my body made the decision for me.

A few days later, I was hit with the most excruciating white-hot nerve pain I’ve ever experienced.

It stopped me in my tracks.

I couldn’t stand upright.

Walking was agony.

Even sitting hurt.

I was screaming in pain just trying to get into bed.

I remember crying in the shower, bent over, wondering what on earth I’d done to myself.

The answer was simple.

Too much.

Too soon.

I hadn’t listened.

Because I was trying to prove something.

The irony isn’t lost on me.

Isn’t that wild!?

That even in 2026, women can still carry silent shame over how they give birth.

We’ve made incredible progress in so many areas.

We’re told every birth is valid.

Every journey is different.

There’s no prize for suffering.

And yet...

Somehow...

Many of us still seem to believe there is.

Maybe it’s because birth has become another thing women feel judged for.

Too much intervention.

Not enough intervention.

Too medicated.

Not medicated enough.

Breastfeed.

Bottle feed.

Co-sleep.

Sleep train.

Motherhood seems to come with an invisible scoreboard that nobody asked to play.

But perhaps nowhere is that scoreboard harsher than in our own minds.

Because the truth is this.

I didn’t just have a baby.

I had major abdominal surgery.

Eight layers of skin.

Fat.

Fascia.

Muscle.

Peritoneum.

Uterus.

All cut through.

Then stitched back together.

If I’d had that exact operation for any other reason, nobody would expect me to be up making meals, lifting a tiny human every two hours, surviving on broken sleep and learning an entirely new job before I’d even left hospital.

Yet that’s exactly what we ask of new mothers.

A caesarean is one of the only major surgeries where you leave recovery not with a certificate and six weeks off work...

But with a newborn.

Congratulations.

Here’s the love of your life.

Now feed them.

Rock them.

Change them.

Carry them.

Bleed.

Wear an adult nappy.

Sleep in forty-five-minute increments.

Good luck.

When you look at it like that, it’s almost absurd.

And yet so many of us still minimise what our bodies have been through.

So if you’re reading this as a fellow C-section mum, or you’re about to become one...

Can I tell you something I wish I’d believed myself?

You deserve to rest.

Not because your birth was hard enough.

Not because you’ve ticked some arbitrary suffering box.

Simply because you’ve had major surgery.

Your body isn’t being lazy.

It’s healing.

Those are two very different things.

Let people make you meals.

Let them carry the groceries.

Let them fold the washing.

Let them cuddle the baby while you sleep.

Let your body do what it desperately wants to do.

Recover.

Because here’s what I’ve learnt in these few short (and yet somehow, loooonnngggg) weeks:

Rest isn’t something you earn through suffering.

It’s something your body requires after healing.

And no matter how your baby entered the world...

You deserve every minute of it.

Seven years ago today, I lost my mum to younger-onset dementia.

Almost seven years later to the day, I gave birth to my first child… a daughter, Elke.

The day my daughter was born, I expected to feel overwhelming love.

I expected relief. Joy. Gratitude. Terror.

But I didn’t expect to miss my mum quite so much. Not after all these years…

Everyone tells you that becoming a mother changes your life. What they don’t tell you is that it changes your grief too.

For twenty-three years, I’ve mourned my mum as her daughter.

Now, for the first time, I’m mourning her as a mother.

And I’m quickly learning that those are two very different things.

My mum was diagnosed with younger-onset dementia when I was just fifteen.

At an age when most girls are rolling their eyes at their mothers, slamming doors and arguing about curfews, I was slowly losing mine.

Not all at once. Dementia is a real jerk like that. It steals someone in tiny, almost imperceptible pieces.

First, they’re a little forgetful. Then they’re confused. Then they’re frightened. Then one day you realise you’ve been saying goodbye for years.

She died when I was thirty-two.

For almost half my life, I’ve existed somewhere between having a mum and not having one.

I’ve celebrated birthdays without her. Graduated university. Moved interstate without her. Fallen in love without her. Frozen my eggs without her.

I’ve navigated heartbreak, career changes, anxiety, friendships, weddings and funerals without her.

Every milestone has carried the same quiet ache.

I just want my mum.

Not my dad. Not somebody else’s mum. Not a mother figure. Not advice from Google.

Her. Only her.

If I’m completely honest, I’ve also carried some resentment… okay, a lot of it.

Not because I ever blamed her for getting sick. I never did.

But grief isn’t rational. It doesn’t care what you know intellectually.

Some small, wounded part of me still felt abandoned. Left behind.

I was angry that she wasn’t there. Angry that I was suddenly the only woman in a house full of men. Angry that every awkward conversation about periods, boys, university, careers and becoming an adult had to happen without the one person who should have been leading me through it.

I needed my mum. Instead, I got dementia.

I felt robbed. Fucking ripped off. It was all so unfair. Why me? Why us?

For years I quietly carried guilt about feeling that way, because how could I resent someone for something that wasn’t their fault?

The answer, I’ve discovered, is that two things can be true at once.

You can have endless compassion for someone. You can understand exactly why something happened. And you can still grieve what it took from you.

Then Elke arrived.

And almost overnight, something seismic inside me shifted.

Not because my grief disappeared. It didn’t. If anything, it grew bigger.

But it also became softer. More compassionate.

Within days of holding my daughter, I found myself thinking about Mum in a completely different way.

Suddenly I wasn’t only someone’s daughter. I was somebody’s mum.

People say you’ll never know how much your parents loved you until you have children of your own.

I always thought it was one of those throwaway clichés.

Then I looked at my tiny daughter asleep on my chest. And I understood.

Not intellectually. Physically. Viscerally.

The idea of anything happening to her is unbearable.

The idea of missing her first day of school. Her first heartbreak. Meeting the person she’ll fall in love with. Watching her become whoever she’s meant to become.

It doesn’t just make me sad. It feels impossible.

Which means my mum didn’t leave us. She was torn away.

For years, my grief centred on what happened to me. Now I find myself grieving what happened to her.

Because can you imagine anything more devastating than slowly losing your mind while knowing you have three children growing up without you?

Knowing there are birthdays you’ll miss. School concerts. Graduations. Engagements. Babies. Christmases.

Knowing you’re disappearing while they’re still desperately trying to hold onto you.

I honestly don’t think there could be a crueller fate.

I’ve spent so much of my adult life thinking about what I lost.

Now I can’t stop thinking about what she lost.

The years. The conversations. The ordinary Tuesday afternoons. The grandchildren she would have adored.

She would have absolutely lost her mind over Elke.

Well, perhaps that’s the wrong phrase.

But you know what I mean.

She would have been obsessed.

My mum worked so hard for us.

Looking back now, I see things I couldn’t appreciate as a child. The sacrifices. The long hours. The determination to send us to the best schools. The way she always made Christmas magical, somehow outdoing herself with the amount of presents under the tree each year.

The countless invisible things mothers do that children never notice. Until they become mothers themselves.

Now I catch myself doing tiny things for Elke. Straightening her blanket. Checking she’s warm enough. Tracing her tiny lips with my finger. Watching her breathe while she sleeps.

And I realise Mum probably did exactly the same things for me. Thousands of tiny acts of love I never witnessed, because they looked so effortless.

Love is often invisible while you’re receiving it. You only recognise its weight when you’re the one carrying it.

People keep asking whether becoming a mum has been healing.

It has. In ways I never expected.

Having a daughter feels like being given another chance at a mother-daughter relationship.

Not because she’s replacing my mum. Nobody ever could.

But because through loving Elke, I somehow feel closer to Mum.

It’s as though every cuddle, every nappy change, every middle-of-the-night feed teaches me something new about the woman who raised me.

I’m learning about her through myself.

And what a beautiful gift that is.

Maybe it’s wishful thinking. Maybe it’s sleep deprivation. Or maybe it’s simply the story my heart needs to tell itself.

But I genuinely believe Mum sent Elke to us.

The timing feels too perfect. The little moments feel too uncanny. The overwhelming sense that someone, somewhere, knew exactly what our family needed.

I’ve never felt particularly certain about what happens after we die. I still don’t.

But I do know this. Love has a funny way of finding us again.

Sometimes it comes back looking different.

For years, dementia took things from me.

It took my mum. It took certainty. It took innocence. It took the future I thought we’d have together.

But somehow, through my daughter, it has quietly given something back.

Perspective. Empathy. Forgiveness.

Not because I’ve forgotten what we lost. But because I finally understand what Mum lost too.

And that’s a heartbreak I’d never fully appreciated until I became a mother myself.

If she had known how her story would end, how early she’d have to leave us, how many milestones she’d miss, I know it would have broken her heart.

Not because she was afraid of dying. Because she loved us that much.

Now, every time I look at my daughter, I don’t just see the future. I see the past.

I see every sacrifice my mum made. Every bedtime story. Every packed lunch. Every school uniform she ironed. Every hug she gave before dementia slowly stole the chance to give another.

For the first time in a very long time, my grief doesn’t feel like a weight I’m dragging behind me.

It feels like a thread. One that stretches from my mum, to me, to my daughter.

Three generations of women connected by a love that even dementia couldn’t erase.

And somehow, that makes me feel less like I lost my mum.

And more like I’ve found another way to keep her with me.

There are some people who move through life blissfully unaware of what might be waiting for them around the corner.

And then there are people like me.

People who have spent decades carrying around a giant, invisible “what if?”

My mum was diagnosed with younger-onset dementia when she was just 51 years old.

I was 15.

At an age when most teenagers are worried about school exams, first crushes and whether their friends like them, I found myself learning words like Alzheimer’s, diagnosis and prognosis.

I’m 38 now.

Mum died almost seven years ago, but in many ways her diagnosis never really left me.

Because dementia didn’t just happen to my mum. It happened to our entire family.

And for a long time, it felt like it might happen to me too.

One of the questions I get asked most often is whether Mum’s dementia was genetic.

The honest answer is: we don’t know.

There was no known family history. No obvious breadcrumb trail stretching back through the generations. No definitive answer that tied everything up neatly with a bow.

What we do know is that younger onset dementia can sometimes have a genetic component.

Sometimes.

And when the word “sometimes” enters the chat, your brain gets to work.

Especially if you’re an anxious person.

Especially if you’re a catastrophiser.

Especially if you’re me.

Why did I walk into that room?

Why can’t I remember that actor’s name?

Did I already tell this story?

Is this normal?

Or is this how it starts?

When you’ve watched someone you love lose pieces of themselves over nearly two decades, your relationship with memory becomes complicated.

Every lapse feels loaded.

Every mistake feels suspicious.

Every forgotten password becomes a potential clue.

I know I’m not alone in this.

Whether it’s dementia, Huntington’s disease, breast cancer, heart disease or another hereditary condition, millions of people live with some version of the same question hanging over their heads.

What if I’m next?

It’s a strange way to live.

You’re healthy.

Nothing is wrong.

But there’s a shadow standing beside you anyway.

A future version of yourself that may or may not exist.

A possibility.

A threat.

A question mark.

For a long time, I let that question mark influence how I lived.

Partly because I thought I was being practical.

Partly because I thought I was being prepared.

As if fear itself can function as a preventative measure.

Spoiler alert: it can’t.

Worrying about a future event doesn’t stop it from arriving.

It just means you suffer twice.

The irony is that while I’ve spent years worrying about developing dementia one day, there are approximately a million other ways my story could end first.

I could get hit by a bus tomorrow.

A distracted driver could run a red light.

I could develop an entirely unrelated illness.

A coconut could literally fall on my head while I’m on holiday.

Statistically unlikely?

Sure.

Impossible?

Not at all.

And that’s the point.

The future has never come with guarantees.

Not for me.

Not for you.

Not for anyone.

The difference is that some of us have been given a more visible reminder of that reality.

Living through Mum’s diagnosis forced me to confront uncertainty far earlier than most people.

It taught me that life can change in a single appointment.

A single phone call.

A single test result.

But somewhere along the way, I realised that uncertainty isn’t unique to people with hereditary diseases lurking in the family tree.

It’s the human condition.

Every single one of us is operating without a guarantee.

We just pretend otherwise because it’s more comfortable.

And maybe that’s why I’ve become increasingly interested in the idea of living now rather than later.

Not in a reckless way.

Not in a “quit your job and move to Bali” kind of way.

But in a present-tense way.

A way that says yes to the dinner.

Books the holiday.

Makes the phone call.

Starts the project.

Buys the good wine.

Lights the expensive candle.

Wears the sparkly dress.

Takes the photo.

Because none of us know how many opportunities we’ll get.

As I prepare to become a mum myself, this lesson feels more important than ever.

The ferries run constantly.

The accommodation is terrible.

The weather is somehow always stressful.

And the return flights are outrageously expensive.

Meanwhile, my partner Ned seems completely uninterested in visiting either destination.

One of the things I admire most about him is his ability to stay where he actually is.

Not six months from now.

Not ten years from now.

Not inside a hypothetical disaster that hasn’t happened.

Here.

Today.

In reality.

It’s a skill I’ve spent years trying to learn.

And one I’m determined to practise as I enter this next chapter of motherhood.

Because if there’s one thing becoming a parent teaches you before the baby has even arrived, it’s that there will always be something to worry about.

The worries simply evolve.

Pregnancy worries become newborn worries.

Newborn worries become toddler worries.

Then school worries.

Then teenage worries.

I still don’t know what my future holds.

None of us do.

Maybe I’ll develop dementia one day.

Maybe I won’t.

Maybe science will continue advancing at a pace that transforms diagnosis, treatment and prevention.

Maybe I’ll live to 100.

Maybe I won’t make it nearly that far.

But what I do know is this:

I am here today.

I am healthy today.

I am loved today.

I am becoming a mother today.

And today is the only thing any of us have ever truly been promised.

So if you’re carrying your own genetic cloud, whatever form it takes, I hope you remember this.

The shadow is real.

Your fears are understandable.

Your uncertainty is valid.

But your life is happening right now.

Not in ten years.

Not after a diagnosis.

Not after a test result.

Not after you’ve finally achieved certainty.

Right now.

So, go live it.

This piece was originally published for Mamamia.

There is a version of my future I keep returning to at 3 am.

It’s quiet. Hypothetical. Slightly unhinged in that way only late-night, pregnancy insomnia thoughts can be.

In it, my child is grown. Sitting across from me at a kitchen table. Maybe a ropeable teenager. Maybe a bit older. And they ask, calmly but pointedly:

“Why did you put me online before I could say no?”

And I don’t yet know what my answer is.

Because for the first time in my adult life, I am stepping into something that doesn’t just belong to me.

For thirteen years, my life has been the content.

The highs. The humiliations. The heartbreaks. The kind of grief that rearranges your DNA. I have written about my mum’s dementia, my soul-destroying breakups, my egg freezing journey, my fertility fears. I have shared things that most people would struggle to say out loud, let alone upload to hundreds of thousands of strangers.

And crucially, I chose all of it.

That’s the distinction I keep coming back to.

I chose to go on Big Brother Australia at 25 years old without fully understanding the permanence of what I was signing up for. I chose to post the bikini photos. I chose to speak, to share, to build a career on being seen.

But choice, I am realising, is everything.

Because this baby growing in my tummy… doesn’t get one.

The Conversations Happening In Our House

This has not been some fleeting thought I had during a pregnancy hormone spiral and then moved on from.

Ned and I talk about this constantly.

And by “talk,” I mean me aggressively sending him TikToks, podcast clips, think pieces, news articles and Reddit threads at all hours of the day and night about the dangers of sharing children online.

One article about AI identifying schools from uniforms genuinely sent me into orbit.

Because apparently, even if you blur a school logo, AI systems can now identify schools based on colours, patterns, stripes, blazers, hats. The visual clues alone are often enough. Researchers have already demonstrated machine learning tools capable of identifying schools from uniforms in images.

And suddenly you realise: we are no longer just talking about “cute photos online.”

We are talking about data.

Metadata.
Facial recognition.
Image scraping.
Predictive technology.
Digital permanence.

We are talking about a version of parenting our own parents never had to navigate.

What’s been fascinating is that while I assumed Ned would be more protective than I, he’s actually fairly relaxed about the whole thing.

Which, honestly, I understand.

He hasn’t lived his life online.

He hasn’t had images of himself resurface in dark places he didn’t consent to. He hasn’t read hundreds of vile, anonymous messages from strangers with too much time and too little empathy, troll comments dissecting his appearance, his body, his worth.

As a dentist, he gets to exist in this beautiful little bubble of internet naivety.

And I genuinely love that for him.

I just… don’t have that luxury anymore.

The Digital Footprint You Can’t Outrun

If there is one thing over a decade online has taught me, it’s this:

Nothing disappears.

Not really.

Not the screenshots.
Not the reposts.
Not the viral clips.
Not the versions of you you’ve long outgrown.

There are still images of me from ten years ago floating around parts of the internet that I wish I could bleach from my memory. Photos I consented to at the time that now exist entirely outside my control, out of context. Photos that have probably cost me jobs, opportunities, credibility, respect.

That’s the part nobody tells you when you’re young and internet-famous-adjacent.

The internet doesn’t just document you.

It archives you.

Forever.

And now, lying awake at night at 38 years old, I find myself thinking absurd but somehow plausible thoughts like:

What if this child wants to be Prime Minister one day?

Will some video I posted in 2026 of them doing something objectively hilarious and developmentally normal, like shitting their pants in the backyard, somehow follow them forever?

Will it cost them their dream job? Or a life they haven’t even had a chance to imagine?

Will they hate me for it?

It sounds dramatic until you remember that we are the very first generation of parents raising children in an era where every embarrassing moment can become permanent public record.

No one actually knows the long-term psychological impact of that yet.

Because we are currently living the experiment in real time.

The AI Question No One Has Answered Properly

And then there’s AI.

Honestly, this is the part that unsettles me most. The speed at which it’s growing, evolving, learning, progressing isn’t quietly concerning; it’s genuinely terrifying. It’s like some Japanese Pokemon who keeps evolving into a bigger, stronger, more powerful version of itself.

What it could do even a year ago compared to what it can do now is astonishing. And we’re only just getting started.

A 2024 report from Human Rights Watch found Australian children’s personal photos had been scraped from the internet and included in datasets used to train AI image generators, often without consent from either the children or their parents.

Reading that caused a sick feeling in my stomach. A heavy pit. A baby anxiety tornado.

Because photos are no longer just photos.

They are training material.

They are data points.

And the technology is accelerating faster than legislation can keep up. Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has repeatedly raised concerns about AI-generated sexualised content, deepfakes and image-based abuse involving women and children.

Even schools are beginning to respond. Some Australian schools have already stopped posting recognisable images of students online because of AI-related safety fears.

That’s not conspiracy theory territory anymore. This isn’t some crunchy mum from the park peddling Reddit forum discussions as facts.

That’s policy.

Reality.

Present tense.

And I think a lot of us are quietly trying to parent - or prepare to parent- through a technological revolution we don’t fully understand ourselves.

What Other Parents Are Doing

I’ve also been doing what every pregnant woman does: crowdsourcing.

Talking to friends. Especially other creators and mothers in my industry.

And interestingly, there seems to be this unspoken consensus that newborns and babies feel “fine” to share because they change so quickly.

Their features evolve daily. They’re less identifiable. Because, bluntly, they’re cute little blobs and kind of all look the same. Their features evolve daily.

There’s this unspoken grace period where it feels harmless.

But then something shifts.

Two years old seems to be the point where many of my friends suddenly start feeling uncomfortable.

That’s when the emojis appear over faces.

Which aesthetically, if I’m honest, I kinda… hate. I’m sorry! I appreciate the intent entirely, but the giant smiley face or white heart hovering over a child’s head gives witness protection program. If anything, it draws my eye straight to it and makes me wonder about the “why.”

Still, I understand why people do it. It’s the fastest solution to a deeply complicated problem.

I also know mums who used to share their children openly and no longer do.

But then what happens to all the old content?

It still exists somewhere.

And then there are the parents who have never shown their child’s face, not once. They’ve developed these incredibly thoughtful, creative ways to share motherhood without fully exposing their child.

A tiny hand gripping a finger.
The back of pigtails.
A silhouette.
A strategically placed toy.

It’s quite impressive, in my opinion. To still be able to convey the pure love and tenderness of a mother/child relationship without ever showing the child’s face.

And right now, if I’m being honest, that approach feels closest to where my gut is landing.

But I also suspect it’s significantly harder than it looks.

The Career Elephant In The Room

Of course, there’s another layer to all of this that feels impossible to ignore.

This is my job.

Content creation has paid my bills for over a decade. It has built my life. My home. My career.

And now that I’m pregnant, I have never had more interest from brands.

Baby brands.
Parenting brands.
Pram brands.
Sleep brands.
Nappy brands.
Bottle brands.

And so many of them are wonderful. Brands I’ve quietly followed for years already, brands I’ve had on my wishlists, brands I know from doing my research, I can trust.

But there is still an unspoken industry expectation that the child’s face is the “thing” that sells.

The cheeks.
The smiles.
The emotional hook.

Some brands are adapting beautifully to the changing conversation around children’s privacy online.

Others… less so.

And this is where the moral panic in my brain begins.

Because am I a bad mum if I turn down large-paying jobs that could genuinely benefit my child’s future?

Could those jobs one day help pay school fees? A house deposit? Opportunities I never had?

Or am I a bad mum if I accept them and allow my child’s image to become part of the advertising machine before they’re old enough to understand what that means?

I mean, is it really that different to me modelling for magazines like Girlfriend and Dolly at 15 years old, smiling into the camera while selling Clean & Clear blemish control?

I genuinely don’t know. It feels like a real moral and ethical dilemma.

And I think that’s the most confronting part of modern motherhood: realising just how many of these questions don’t come with clean, definitive answers.

The Perfectionism Of New Motherhood

I also know myself.

I know I am someone deeply motivated by wanting to do the “right” thing. The “best” thing.

ADHD and perfectionism are a potent combination because they create this constant low-level fear of getting something wrong. Of being irresponsible. Of failing some invisible moral test.

And motherhood has amplified that instinct tenfold.

Because this isn’t just about me anymore.

This is about protecting someone else.

More fiercely than I ever protected myself.

So Where Have I Landed?

Right now, my gut tells me this:

I don’t think we will show our baby’s face online.

Not casually.
Not consistently.
Not as content.

That doesn’t mean I won’t share motherhood. I know myself too well to pretend I suddenly won’t want to document what is likely going to be the most profound thing that’s ever happened to me.

But I think there will be a line.

A clear boundary.

A pause before posting.

Not out of judgment toward other parents. Not from fearmongering. Not because I think I’ve cracked some superior parenting code.

But because right now, with the information I have, protection feels instinctive. It’s what feels right for my family and me, in my gut.

And Still… I Don’t Know

The truth is, I still don’t have certainty.

Maybe I’ll evolve.
Maybe the technology will evolve.
Maybe society will.

Maybe I’ll change my mind. I don’t know what I’ll feel in six months. Or a year. Or when they’re old enough to express their own preferences.

All I know, is that for the first time in my life, I am making decisions not based on what feels good for me today, but what might feel good for someone else twenty years from now.

And maybe that’s motherhood in its purest form.

Not certainty.

Just care, love and a woman just trying to do her damn best.

I almost didn’t reply.

If you’ve spent any time with a public profile on social media, you develop a pretty efficient triage system for your inbox. You learn fast which messages deserve your energy and which ones you close, breathe through, and move on from. (Or laugh at, block and pretend your feelings weren’t hurt.)

After years on reality TV, a career as a social media content creator, a columnist, a podcast host, and now - somehow - a pregnant person on the internet, I’ve seen a lot.

But this one stopped me. And now it has me up at 3am.

Which, as anyone who has ever received a message starting that way knows, is the universal signal that you are absolutely going to take it the wrong way, because something is coming.

Here’s what she wrote:

I could feel the blood rushing to my face as my jaw tightened. My partner was halfway through telling me a story, but I’d already mentally checked out. My brain was caught somewhere between deep empathy and absolute outrage.

Because I could feel the pain underneath it. A 37-year-old woman, finally finding the person she wanted to build a life with, then being blindsided by an endometriosis diagnosis. That is gutting. That is the kind of news that rewires everything you thought you knew about your future. I have enormous compassion for that.

“Don’t engage. Don’t add fuel to the fire. Just ignore it,” my partner pleaded. Which, honestly, only enraged me further.

“That’s easy for you to say! And frankly feels wildly unsupportive. Aren’t you supposed to be on my side?”

He was, of course, on my side. He always is. But he was also trying to stop me from spiralling. Trying to prevent me from disappearing into a furious back-and-forth on my phone for the next hour, thumbs flying, heart racing.

But this stranger in my DMs had hit a nerve.

And I wasn’t about to let it slide.

I’ve spent 38 years getting to this moment. Thirty-eight years. And the reality of being pregnant - the unglamorous, un-curated reality - is that your body changes faster than your wardrobe can keep up with. I’m not posing with my stomach out for content. I’m wearing the clothes I own, which no longer fit the way they used to, because growing a human being does that. The alternative is buying an entirely new wardrobe every few weeks as my body shifts, which is neither practical nor something I’m particularly interested in doing.

On top of that, at almost 34 weeks pregnant, I’ve reached the stage where I genuinely cannot tolerate anything pressing on my stomach.

The high-waisted Lululemon tights that served me so well for months now feel tight and restrictive. Honestly, every pair of pants I own feels vaguely suffocating at this point.

The only time I’m remotely comfortable is in my pyjamas, which are approximately four sizes bigger than what I’d normally wear and feature a drawstring waistband that I wear, you guessed it, underneath my bump.

In fact, I’m writing this in them now.

My current “uniform” consists of an oversized long-sleeve top that naturally rolls up and settles somewhere beneath my boobs, paired with very loose drawstring pants intentionally worn under my stomach. It is currently the one and only outfit I can tolerate for more than about seven minutes at a time.

(I hate that I even feel the need to defend or explain that.)

So yes. Sometimes my stomach is visible. That’s not a statement. That’s just Tuesday.

I wrote back. I was honest - maybe more direct than she expected. And to her credit, she came back with something that surprised me. She acknowledged that she’d overstepped. She apologised, twice. She admitted she has no real understanding of what it’s like to live publicly online and how that shapes the way you receive messages like hers.

That took something. I respect it.

But here’s what’s woken me up at 3:04 am and driven me to the couch, laptop glowing in the dark whilst my cat stares at me expectantly, convinced it’s somehow breakfast time in the middle of the night.

We are living through an era where pain has become currency. And I don’t mean that cynically - I mean that we are all, collectively, carrying so much.

Grief, health scares, fertility journeys, relationship losses, diagnoses that arrive like a kick to the guts.

Social media holds all of it simultaneously, in one endless, churning feed. Your joy sits next to someone’s devastation. My pregnancy announcement lands in the same scroll as someone’s fifth failed IVF cycle. That is genuinely hard to navigate… for everyone.

I don’t say this lightly, I say it as someone who lost her mother to early-onset dementia, who has done her own fertility preservation, who has had her most vulnerable moments dissected publicly - other people’s joy is not the cause of your pain. It can trigger it. It can illuminate it. It can make it feel suddenly, unbearably loud. But it is not the cause.

And when we redirect our pain outward, toward the person whose life looks like the one we wanted, we are not protecting ourselves. We are just finding somewhere softer to land.

I’ve done it. I’d be a liar if I said I hadn’t.

The difference is what we do when we notice it.

This woman noticed it. Eventually. And she said so. That’s not nothing - in fact, in the landscape of internet interactions, that’s actually quite rare and quite beautiful.

So I’m not writing this to shame her. I’m writing this because I think so many of us are navigating some version of this exact dynamic, every single day.

My suggestion - and take it or leave it - is to feel it without firing it.

Journal it. Call a friend. Sit in the discomfort of wanting something you don’t have yet, without making someone else responsible for the wanting.

Because the internet is full of people living their lives. Pregnant people, engaged people, people who got the job, the house, the baby, the diagnosis that turned out okay. You cannot curate your feed into a space that never hurts you. Life will find a way through.

What you can do is get a little more curious about the hurt. Ask it what it actually needs. Nine times out of ten, it’s not asking someone to put their stomach away.

It’s asking you to keep going.

And you can do that.

Blooming late is still blooming.

Thank you so much for reading Blooming Late. Subscribe for free to be kept up to date with my new posts.

This week’s TTTL is inspired partly by my own experience of being single at 35, but mainly by my dear friend Boogs, who is currently out there living her absolute best bloody life and documenting it online in a way that I think a LOT of women quietly need to see.

Somewhere along the line, women got sold this idea that if you’re single in your mid-30s, you must be:
A) deeply miserable
B) having a crisis
C) “still figuring things out”
or
D) moments away from panic-freezing your eggs while sobbing into a Whispering Angel.

Meanwhile, Boogs is:

• travelling

• building community

• expanding her business

• prioritising herself

• saying yes to spontaneous adventures

• romanticising her life

• looking hot while doing all of it

TBH, she’s kinda living the dream.

Just because I’m now heavily pregnant and in a long-term relationship does not mean my life is somehow fuller or more meaningful than hers. It also doesn’t erase the fact that some of the happiest, most expansive, most FUN years of my life happened when I was single in my 30s.

So here are my top 10 reasons being single at 35 is actually Hot Girl behaviour.

1. You Stop Treating Your Life Like It Hasn’t Started Yet

This is the big one.

When you’re younger, singleness can feel temporary. Like your “real life” is waiting somewhere just beyond the next relationship.

Then one day you realise: …this IS your life.

And suddenly you stop postponing things.

You book the trip.

You buy the brown velvet modular couch.

You move suburbs.

You start the business.

You stop waiting for a man to co-sign your happiness.

Watch: “Nobody Wants This” because it captures this beautifully. Kristen Bell’s character has a full, rich, chaotic life BEFORE romance enters the picture. As she should!

2. Your Nervous System Gets Quieter

I cannot explain how peaceful life becomes once you’re no longer:

• decoding texts

• wondering where you stand

• overanalysing mixed signals

• trying to convince yourself “he’s just busy”

The absence of confusion is underrated.

You stop spending emotional energy on people who are inconsistent and start redirecting it toward yourself, your friendships and your actual life.

Listen: “The Psychology of Your 20s” episodes while walking. Free therapy.

3. You Become The Main Character Again

Relationships are wonderful. But they can also quietly make women smaller. Not intentionally. Just slowly.

You start compromising. Considering. Consulting.

Factoring someone else into every decision.

Being single at 35 means rediscovering what YOU actually like.

What restaurants do YOU love? What movies do YOU want to see? Where do YOU want to travel?

Boogs is currently in her “yes” era and honestly? Watching her reminded me how powerful it is when a woman centres herself again.

Read: “All Fours” which absolutely cracked my brain open recently.

4. Your Friendships Deepen In The Best Way

When you stop funnelling all your emotional intimacy into one romantic relationship, your friendships become richer.

Your world expands.

There’s something so beautiful about women in their 30s building intentional community:

• dinner parties

• girls weekends

• voice note therapy

• emergency wine nights

• friends becoming family

I genuinely think modern female friendships are one of the great love stories of adulthood.

Watch: “The Bold Type” immediately.

5. Solo Travel Stops Feeling Sad And Starts Feeling Luxurious

There is a VERY specific confidence that comes from navigating the world alone.

I used to think solo travel sounded terrifying.

Then I did it and realised: “Oh. This is just peace.”

No negotiating. No waiting around.

No compromising on dinner reservations.

Just you, your little oat latte and your own itinerary.

Book: If you’re curious but nervous, Riparide is genuinely great for easing into solo weekends away without committing to a full Eat Pray Love spiral.

Or if you’re ready to go balls to the wall- book a PE Retreat in Indonesia. You will not regret it, still to this day one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself.

6. You Stop Seeing Yourself As “Behind”

This one took me YEARS.

There is no universal timeline.

There is no cosmic leaderboard for womanhood.

Nobody gets bonus points for getting married first.

And to be frank? Some people who hit milestones early are deeply unhappy. Some people who are single are having the time of their lives.

Comparison loses its grip once you realise everyone is improvising.

Read: “The Defining Decade” gets discussed a lot online, but I actually think women in their 30s should read it differently: not as pressure, but as permission to build intentionally.

7. Dating Gets Funnier

At 35, first dates become less “potential husband interview” and more:

“Well. This will at least be a good story.”

The stakes lower dramatically.

You realise a bad date cannot ruin your life because your life is already good.

That realisation changes your energy and the way you show up, and in turn, that changes everything. You stop chasing validation and start assessing compatibility.

Watch: “Colin From Accounts” immediately.

8. Your Relationship With Your Body Evolves

Not perfectly. But differently.

You stop viewing your body solely through the lens of desirability and start appreciating it for:

• strength

• pleasure

• health

• comfort

• experience

You wear clothes because YOU like them.

You move because it feels good.

You stop trying to become the coolest girl in the room.

Trust me, ageing out of the male gaze a little bit can feel deeply freeing.

9. You Learn Loneliness And Solitude Are Different Things

Take note: Loneliness is disconnection.

Solitude is peace.

And one of the most emotionally mature things you can do is learn how to enjoy your own company without needing constant distraction.

Some of the loneliest people I know are in relationships.

Meanwhile, some single women I know are building deeply joyful, connected, intentional lives.

There’s a difference.

Read: “Single at Heart” for this conversation because it challenges so many outdated narratives around partnership being the ultimate goal.

10. You Build A Life That Actually Fits YOU

This is the real gift of being single at 35.

You finally stop asking:

“What kind of life am I supposed to want?”

…and start asking:

“What actually makes me happy?”

For some women, that absolutely includes marriage and children.

For others, it doesn’t.

For most of us, it’s probably some messy combination of both independence and intimacy.

But the beauty of your 30s is that you start becoming far less interested in appearances and far more interested in authenticity.

And that’s where life gets really good.

Final Thoughts

I adore my partner. I’m deeply excited to become a mum.

But I reject the idea that my life only became meaningful once those things arrived.

Being single at 35 wasn’t some sad waiting room before my “real life” began.

It WAS my real life.

And it was full, joyful, sexy, expansive, complicated, emotional, hilarious and deeply worthwhile.

Just like yours is now.

There’s a version of me that still lives on the internet somewhere. She’s doing a bit on Big Brother. She’s dancing up a storm at a brand event with a drink in her hand. She’s the loudest one in the group photo, head thrown back, completely unbothered. She looks like a person who has never once lain awake at 3am wondering if she’s fundamentally too much - or somehow not enough.

For a long time, being the fun one felt like a personality. Like something I’d earned. I was good at it - genuinely good - and people responded to it in a way that felt, at the time, a lot like being loved. You walk into a room and people light up. You make someone laugh on their worst day. You become the person everyone wants at the table, in the group chat, on the couch when everything falls apart. For years, people told me I had this ability to make whoever I was speaking to feel like they were the only person in the room.

And I loved that. I was proud of it. It felt like a skill set, a superpower. It made me feel valuable, important, maybe even a little bit special.

What nobody tells you is that “fun” is also a job. And like most jobs, it comes with conditions of employment nobody bothers to put in writing.

The dinner party tax

For most of my late twenties and (well) into my thirties, I was the last single person standing in my friend group. And if you’ve been there - properly been there, not a-few-months-between-relationships there, but years-deep, watching everyone else pair off and breed and renovate their kitchens there - you’ll know it comes with an unspoken set of expectations.

Your job, as the single one, is to be entertaining about it.

So I was. God, I was so fucking good at it. I’d rock up to dinner parties armed with material. The latest terrible date. The guy who stole money straight out of my wallet. The absolutely unhinged thing someone made me do in bed. I laid myself bare - and I mean bare - in ways that make me cringe now when I let myself think about it. Sex stories. Humiliating stories. The kind of stories where I was always the punchline, always the one being done to rather than doing, always performing my own embarrassment for a table of coupled-up people who got to go home together afterwards, while I Ubered home alone.

I told myself I didn’t mind. That I was just a good storyteller. That I was owning it.

But there’s a specific feeling I remember from those nights - climbing into a strange car after a dinner where I’d essentially performed a one-woman show of my own romantic failures - and feeling completely hollowed out.

Like I’d been invited to the table specifically to be the entertainment, and I’d delivered, and now the gig was up, and I could go.

A court jester. That’s what it was. Underpaid, undervalued, turning my own loneliness into content so everyone else could feel better about their lives - or at least have a good laugh before the babysitter’s curfew hit.

The worst part wasn’t that they let me do it.

The worst part is that I volunteered. Every time.

The unspoken contract

Here’s how the wider thing works. You establish yourself as the one who’s always up for it - always down to go out, always ready with the story, always the one who makes hard things feel lighter. And people love you for it. They do. But slowly, almost imperceptibly, it becomes the only version of yourself you’re allowed to be in certain rooms.

Remember Jasper from the Twilight series? (Of course you do! If you’re reading this, chances are you’re also a millennial.)

His special power in Twilight is “pathokinesis—the ability to sense and physically manipulate the emotions of those around him. He can calm tense situations by inducing peace, project courage, or overwhelm enemies with paralyzing fear.”

That was me. Well, everything except that last part.

I clocked the slight shifts in energy. The vague discomfort. The way someone made a joke to move the conversation along. So I’d make the joke first. I became fluent in deflection. I performed lightness so consistently that people stopped checking whether I actually felt it.

I was processing some of the hardest years of my life - watching my mum disappear slowly to dementia, navigating the particular grief of losing someone who is still alive, busting my ass to build a career in an industry that rewards performance above almost everything else- while also being extremely fun at parties. The cognitive dissonance of that would take me years to actually reckon with.

FebFast and the identity crisis nobody saw coming

The first time I decided to do FebFast in 2021, the reaction from my friends was telling.

Not supportive-telling. More like - are-you-serious-telling. A few people laughed in my face. Someone said they’d believe it when they saw it. The general consensus was that this was a fun bit, and we’d all be back to normal by February 3rd.

Reader, I did the whole month.

And it broke me. Not in a dramatic, rock-bottom way - in a much quieter, more unsettling way. Because somewhere around week two, at a girls’ dinner, I sat in my chair with my sparkling water, and I had absolutely no idea who I was.

The stories weren’t coming. Or rather - they were there, but without the wine loosening everything up, without that particular social lubricant that made oversharing feel like confidence, I couldn’t access them the same way. I sat there and felt the familiar pressure to perform and felt, maybe for the first time, how much the performance had always depended on being three glasses of rosé deep.

The anxiety of it was real. I didn’t know how to show up to a party or a work event. Didn’t know what to do with my hands. Didn’t know how to be funny without the armour, how to be warm without the looseness, how to just exist in a social setting without the version of myself that alcohol had always helped me access on demand.

It sounds like I’m describing a dependency and I want to be careful here - it wasn’t that, exactly. It was more that I had built an entire social identity on top of a particular set of conditions, and when I removed one of them, the whole architecture wobbled. I suddenly didn’t know who I was at a dinner table if I wasn’t performing.

And that was scarier than any hangover.

The ex-boyfriend who accidentally changed everything

About three weeks into that February, I bumped into an ex at an event- someone who had known me well enough, for long enough, to have a reasonable read on me.

We got talking. I was sober, quieter than usual, probably a little flat. I made some comment about being boring company lately, doing the self-deprecating pre-emptive strike I’d gotten so good at.

And he looked at me and said, genuinely - not as a line, not to be kind - that he actually preferred this version of me. That I seemed more like myself than he’d ever seen me. More present. Less like I was working the room.

I’ve thought about that moment a lot since. Because it landed differently than a compliment usually does. It didn’t make me feel good, exactly - it made me feel seen, which is a completely different thing, and honestly more confronting. If this quieter, less performed version of me was more myself - what did that say about all the years I’d spent being the other one?

The cost nobody puts on the invoice

Here’s what being the fun one actually cost me.

It cost me being known. Not liked - I had plenty of that. Actually known. There’s a profound difference between a room full of people who enjoy your company and one person who genuinely understands what’s going on inside you. I confused the two for a very long time.

It cost me permission to be complicated. When you’re the fun one, your difficult feelings are a burden. Your grief is awkward. Your anger is confusing - wait, but you’re always so... you know. You internalise the idea that you need to earn your seat at the table every single time, and you pay for it in stories. In exposure. In the quiet humiliation of making yourself the punchline so everyone else can feel comfortable.

It cost me some friendships - or at least, it cost me the ability to see clearly which ones were real.

What I know now

Ned - my partner - is the first person I’ve been with who I don’t perform for. I’m not the fun one with him. I’m just me, which turns out to be a lot quieter and more interior than the version I’d been presenting for years. He finds me funny - genuinely funny - but he’s not there for the show. He’s there for the actual person.

I didn’t know how much I needed that until I had it.

The irony is that retiring the performance made me a better writer. The columns I’m proudest of are the ones where I just told the truth - no punchline at the end, no neatly wrapped lightness to make the reader comfortable. Just the actual thing.

I’m thirty-eight now. About to become someone’s mother. I’ve got a dog who sheds like it’s his entire purpose on earth, a cat who does not care about my emotional journey, and a life that looks almost nothing like the one I was performing my way through a decade ago.

You are allowed to be tired, complicated, grieving, uncertain, dull on a Tuesday - and still be worth showing up for.

The people who only loved you when you were on? They were never really loving you.

The ones who stayed when you went quiet - those are your people.

I am, for the first time in a long time, genuinely fun to be around.

Because I no longer need to be.

My first Mother’s Day but you’re not here yet,
just a belly full of glitter, kicks I won’t forget.

Stuck-on gems and letter stickers, very 2003,
the kind of craft that screamed “I made this just for me!”

A disco ball of longing, a bump that holds a world,
all rhinestones and all rainbow, all waiting to unfurl.

Not a card, not a cuddle, not a small hand in mine,
just a body full of magic and a love that’s by design.

So here’s to the in-between, the almost, and the soon,
to carrying you through autumn like you’re my favourite tune.

My first and not my last one, though you’re still on your way,
you made me a mother long before today.

Every time something objectively terrible happens in the world…and lately it feels like we can’t get through a Tuesday without a fresh apocalypse, the same argument inevitably pops up.

A celebrity dies and suddenly you’re not allowed to feel sad because there’s a war on.

A local missing persons case captures public attention and someone in the comments decides to remind everyone that children are starving elsewhere.

A natural disaster strikes and before anyone has even had time to process it, the Grief Police arrive with clipboards, ready to audit the emotional priorities of the internet.

It is such a bizarre modern phenomenon. This idea that all compassion must be funnelled into one approved channel at a time, lest we be accused of caring incorrectly.

As though empathy is a shared Netflix password and too many simultaneous users will crash the system.

Somewhere along the way, we have started treating compassion like it’s finite. Like each of us was handed a little bucket of care at birth and if you dare spend some of it crying over one thing, there’s now less available for another.

Sorry, you used your tears on the celebrity obituary. No flood victims for you this week!

But that is not how human emotion works.

Or at least, I sincerely hope not. Because if we’ve reached a point where every feeling has to pass through some kind of moral triage before it’s allowed to exist, we are all going to need a very long nap.

(Trust me, I say that as the household empath whose family had to ban the evening news when I was a child because I found all of it far too upsetting.)

You can be heartbroken for families displaced by violence overseas and also feel gutted by the death of an artist whose work soundtracked your twenties.

You can donate to a humanitarian cause and still cry because your friend’s dog died.

You can feel sick over a political decision, worried about your own mortgage, stressed about your fertility, moved by a documentary, and irrationally devastated that your favourite cafe changed hands, all before 11am.

But social media has done this strange thing where it collapses every world event into the same scroll. One second you’re looking at a bombing, the next a gender reveal, then a missing child, then a sponsored ad for anti-frizz serum.

And because it all sits in one endless feed, we’ve somehow convinced ourselves that our emotional response to it should also be neat, singular and morally ranked.

As if there is one Correct Thing To Care About at any given time.

And if you publicly express concern about anything else, you are somehow failing the global empathy exam.

It’s absurd when you say it out loud, but we do it constantly.

We monitor who posted what.
Who acknowledged which tragedy.
Who seemed sufficiently upset.
Who smiled too soon afterwards.
Who cared, but perhaps not in the approved order.

It is grief policing disguised as moral superiority, and social media has made amateur hall monitors of us all.

There is also, if I may be a little blunt, something deeply performative about demanding everyone else prove they care in exactly the same visible way that you do.

Compassion is not made more legitimate because it is loudly displayed online.

Nor is it invalidated because someone happened to also care about something else.

The people I admire most are never the ones loudly rationing their concern based on what is currently trending in the outrage Olympics.

They are the people who care expansively.

Freely.

The ones who can be devastated by a humanitarian crisis, deeply moved by the loss of a public figure, worried about their struggling friend, and still stop to ask the barista if she’s okay when she looks like she’s had a rough morning.

Those people have not somehow “used up” their compassion.

If anything, the opposite seems true.

The more they exercise it, the more available it becomes.

Which makes sense.

Compassion is not a budget spreadsheet.

It is a muscle.

And I would argue one of the only things making modern life even vaguely bearable.

So no, caring about one thing does not mean you care less about another.

Feeling sadness over a smaller loss does not insult someone enduring a larger one.

Posting about one issue does not mean you have personally declared every other issue irrelevant.

We are allowed to have layered emotional lives.

In fact, I’d say the ability to do so is one of the most human things about us.

The world is relentless enough without us turning empathy into some kind of competitive sport.

You do not need to ration your compassion.

You do not need permission to feel multiple things.

You do not need to submit your grief for peer review.

Care about the big things.

Care about the small things.

Care about the faraway things and the things happening on your own street.

Care often. Care generously.

You will not run out.

And frankly, in a world increasingly determined to make us numb, I’d say refusing to do so is half the battle.

Let’s talk about egg freezing.

And I mean, actually talk about it. Not the sanitised, pastel-infographic version you’ve been served by fertility clinics on Instagram, but the real, unglamorous, occasionally overwhelming reality of it.

I froze my eggs for the first time at 35. I was in a long-distance relationship that looked fine from the outside but was quietly falling apart. We weren’t on the same timeline. Honestly, I don’t think we were even reading the same calendar. I was on iCal, and he was working off one of those dusty baby-animal calendars you see at Australia Post.

So instead of waiting for someone else’s life plan to catch up with mine, I booked myself into a fertility clinic in Melbourne and started the process completely on my own.

Every appointment. Every blood test. Every awkward moment in a waiting room full of couples. Just me.

Then we broke up. And suddenly, the thing I’d done almost instinctively felt like the best decision I’d ever made.

I went back for a second round as a newly single woman (after getting back from an “eat, pray, love” wellness retreat in Bali… but that’s a Substack for another day), largely because I’d done my research.

I knew that if I wanted more than one child, and this ended up being my only path to motherhood (which at the time felt like a very real possibility), I wanted more than one shot at it.

More eggs. More options. More breathing room. Two rounds, two completely different emotional landscapes, same underlying motivation.

Now, I need to check my privilege here, because it matters. I was incredibly fortunate to have both rounds covered through a brand partnership. I need to say that plainly, because the truth is I couldn’t have afforded this on my own. Not a chance. And the fact that cost remains one of the biggest barriers for Australian women wanting to freeze their eggs is something that genuinely keeps me up at night.

We’re incredibly lucky to have access to world-class healthcare here in Australia, but the system is still flawed, particularly when it comes to women’s reproductive health… but again, that’s a Substack for another day.

So consider this your no-BS, been-there-done-that-twice guide. Not medical advice (always consult your GP). Just everything I wish someone had told me before I started.

*Disclaimer: Nothing in this post constitutes medical advice. Everything I've shared is based on my own personal experience and research. Every body, situation, and fertility journey is different, so please always consult your GP or medical team before making any decisions about your health.

Tip 1: Get your AMH levels checked. It’s the simplest, smartest first move.

If you take one thing from this entire piece, let it be this: go and get your AMH levels checked.

AMH, or Anti-Müllerian Hormone, is a simple blood test that gives you a rough snapshot of your ovarian reserve. Translation: it tells your doctor approximately how many eggs you’re working with. It’s not a crystal ball, but it’s infinitely more useful than anxiety and guesswork.

The best part is, you can do it through a standard GP appointment. No fasting, no cycle timing, no waitlists. Just a blood test.

In Australia, it’ll cost you roughly $50 to $80 out of pocket. That’s a brunch. A candle. Less than your streaming subscriptions.

For full transparency, below are the results of mine at 34 years old, the year I first got them checked:

And the findings, as written by my doctor at the time:

All that worrying. Years of putting it off because I was scared of the result… only to be told I was fine. I could relax, at least for a year, before checking again.

I wish I’d done mine years earlier. Not because anything was urgently wrong, but because the second I had actual data, all that free-floating dread just… softened.

Information is the antidote to panic.

Book the test. Honestly. Tomorrow.

Tip 2: You don’t need to be “ready” to start the conversation.

I convinced myself I needed to have made a decision before I was allowed to ask questions. As if curiosity required commitment.

It doesn’t.

You can walk into your GP today and say, “I’ve been thinking about egg freezing, and I want to understand my options.” That’s it. That’s the script.

Your GP can run initial tests, check your health, and refer you to a specialist. Some of this is covered by Medicare, which makes the information-gathering phase far more accessible than people assume.

The earlier you start the conversation, the more runway you give yourself.

Tip 3: Get very clear on the cost.

A single cycle in Australia will typically cost between $7,000 and $15,000. That includes consultations, hormone medication, monitoring, the retrieval procedure, and anaesthesia. The full picture can feel overwhelming, so here’s how to break it down.

Does Medicare cover it?

Sometimes, and it depends entirely on your situation. Medicare is not designed to cover elective egg freezing, meaning if you’re freezing your eggs purely as a lifestyle choice or for social reasons, you’ll largely be paying out of pocket.

However, Medicare can cover parts of the process if there is a medical reason involved. Some examples of when you may be eligible for a Medicare rebate include:

• You have been diagnosed with cancer and are about to undergo chemotherapy or radiation that may affect your fertility

• You have been diagnosed with premature ovarian insufficiency or another condition that threatens your future fertility

• You have endometriosis or PCOS and a specialist has documented that your fertility is at risk

• You are about to undergo surgery or medical treatment that may damage your ovaries or reproductive function

• Your specialist classifies the procedure as medically necessary rather than elective

In these situations, Medicare can rebate some of the consultation fees, blood tests, ultrasounds, and certain parts of the procedure itself. The gap will still be significant, but it can meaningfully reduce the total cost.

If you’re unsure whether your situation qualifies, ask your GP for a referral to a fertility specialist and have an honest conversation about how the procedure would be classified. It’s worth asking the question.

Private health insurance may help with some hospital costs, depending on your policy. Call and ask specifically about elective egg freezing, because the answer varies widely between funds.

If you’re paying out of pocket, ask for a full itemised quote before committing. A good clinic will provide one without hesitation. Ask about payment plans. Ask what’s optional. Ask everything.

This is a major financial decision. You deserve total transparency.

Tip 4: The hormones can be intense. They can also be anticlimactic.

Nobody does egg freezing because it sounds like a fun thing to sign up for.

(“What are you gals up to on the weekend? Should we all chuck on a cute fit and go get our eggs frozen?”

One day, maybe… a girl can dream.)

The stimulation phase involves 10 to 14 days of self-injecting hormones to encourage your ovaries to produce multiple eggs. Your body will have opinions about this.

I was bloated to the point of looking pregnant. I felt like an overstuffed turducken. Generally uncomfy and sore.

Some days, I felt completely fine. Other days, I cried over a Qantas ad.

But for me personally, it wasn’t wildly different to a bad period. I wasn’t screaming at strangers or collapsing into an inconsolable heap at home.

The second round was easier, not because the symptoms disappeared, but because the fear did. I knew what to expect, and I knew I could handle it.

The injections themselves? A tiny needle into the stomach. Not exactly fun, but far less dramatic than I’d built it up to be.

The first one takes a moment. You hover, you hesitate, you give yourself a quiet pep talk. And then you do it, and realise it’s… so fine.

By the end of the week, you’ll feel slightly ridiculous for how much you stressed about it, and oddly proud. The kind of pride that has you thinking, “Maybe I am the kind of person who could get a tattoo after all.”

Tip 5: Your calendar is not your own for two weeks.

Monitoring appointments come around every one to three days. Blood tests. Ultrasounds. Early mornings. Constantly reshuffling your schedule.

The first time, I completely underestimated how consuming it would be. The second time, I cleared my calendar.

Social plans paused. Work adjusted. Life slowed. And like women so often do, you just make it work.

One night I took my evening injection to a restaurant in a little blue freezer bag. Another day, I was in an aeroplane bathroom somewhere between Melbourne and Sydney, doing what needed to be done.

You just get on with it.

Then there’s retrieval day. You’ll need someone to drive you home, and you’ll want at least a day or two to recover.

If you can, time your cycle around a quieter period. It makes a huge difference.

Tip 6: Choose your clinic carefully. The vibe matters.

You’re about to spend an intense, vulnerable few weeks with this team. You need to trust them.

Australia has several major providers, but the experience varies wildly. From how you’re greeted to how clearly things are explained.

Book multiple consultations. Pay attention to how you feel.

Do they listen? Do they rush you? Do they make your 101 questions feel silly or validate your concerns?

This matters even more if you’re doing it alone.

Because your clinical team becomes your support system. I had nurses calling to check in on me, who I ended up crying to, oversharing my entire life story.

You want the best in the business, of course. But you also want kindness. Care. People who make you feel held, not just treated.

Tip 7: Let people in.

You don’t owe anyone an explanation for your reproductive choices.

But doing this in complete isolation is harder than it needs to be.

You’ll need someone to pick you up after retrieval. (Trust me, I tried booking an Uber; legally, they won’t allow it.)

But more than that, you’ll need people who understand why you’re tired, emotional, or cancelling plans.

I told a small circle of people, and they were incredible.

They checked in. They dropped off snacks. They didn’t make it weird.

When you’re doing this alone, your people matter more than ever.

Let them show up.

Tip 8: The egg number will mess with your head if you let it.

After retrieval, you’ll be told how many eggs were collected, and later, how many were mature.

You will want to Google it. Compare it. Rank it.

Don’t. Do not, for the love of God, do that. Because I did, and it resulted in a full-blown, hysterical, existential meltdown.

The number doesn’t tell the full story. Quality matters more than quantity, and only your specialist can interpret your results properly.

Close the browser. Call your clinic. Talk to someone who actually knows your case.

Just because your friend or that random woman on Reddit collected 33 eggs, and you came away with four, doesn’t mean she’s guaranteed a baby, and you’re somehow doomed.

The numbers are not the full story.

Never forget: “comparison is the thief of joy”… and it will unravel you if you let it.

Tip 9: Storage fees add up.

Once frozen, your eggs need to be stored. This usually costs $300 to $600 per year.

It doesn’t sound like much until it becomes ongoing.

Ask about multi-year discounts. Again, for full transparency, my facility offers a $23 discount on the standard Frozen Storage Fee for patients who authorise automatic direct debit payment of their Frozen storage invoices.
This reduces my 6-month storage fee from $290 to $267.

Understand the terms. Budget for it.

It’s the quiet cost nobody talks about.

Tip 10: Recovery is not optional.

The procedure is quick (about 15-30 minutes… it’s basically just a really great power nap followed by a snack). Recovery isn’t.

I felt physically and emotionally flattened for days. Cramping, bloating, fatigue, and a strange hormonal comedown I wasn’t prepared for.

The second time, I did it differently.

I cancelled everything. Lived in track pants. Ate easy food. Let myself rest.

Don’t push through. Don’t minimise it.

This is a big deal. Treat it like one. Take care of yourself.

Final thoughts

If you’ve read this far, you’re already ahead of where I was when I started.

I spent years in the “I should probably look into that” phase. Paralysed by overwhelm, cost, and the quiet fear that taking action somehow meant admitting my life hadn’t gone to plan.

Now I’m on the other side, currently in my third trimester at 38, four years on from that first AMH blood test, and I can honestly say it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself. Right up there with Invisalign and laser eye surgery. It didn’t just change my options; it changed my mindset. It changed the way I dated. It took the pressure and panic out of it, and I truly believe it played a role in me meeting Ned, the love of my life.

I went back into dating feeling more confident, more grounded, and a whole lot less desperate to lock something in before the imaginary clock in my head started screaming.

Egg freezing isn’t a guarantee. But it is one of the most self-respecting, empowering, and genuinely smart things you can do for your future.

I did it at 35 in a failing relationship. And again, single.

Two rounds. Two very different chapters. Zero regrets.

It didn’t feel like a medical procedure. It felt like taking control.

And the best part? Your first step is smaller than you think.

Book a GP appointment. Ask for the AMH test. That’s it.

You don’t need a plan.
You don’t need a partner.
You don’t need permission.

You just need to start.

Reminder: This post is based on my own personal experience and independent research and is not intended as medical advice. I am not a doctor or medical professional. Please always speak with your GP or fertility specialist before making any decisions about your reproductive health. Your situation is unique and deserves personalised, expert guidance.

For every woman in her mid-late 30s who keeps saying “when things calm down” while life quietly sprints past her in Hokas, this one’s for you.

At some point, many of us accidentally move into what I like to call the “Waiting Room Era”.

It’s that strange, vague season of life where you’re technically functioning. You’re going to work. Paying bills. Seeing friends. Posting the occasional “grateful” Instagram Story from brunch.

But internally, you’ve convinced yourself that your real life, the good bit, the confident bit, the bit where you finally feel sorted and sexy and in control, starts later.

After the busy patch.
After the breakup.
After you lose five kilos.
After you earn more money.
After Mercury stops being in the microwave or whatever excuse we’re using this quarter.

Here’s the issue: that magical “later” is a scam.

And while you’ve been sitting in life’s departure lounge waiting for your boarding call, three years have quietly disappeared and suddenly everyone around you is either married, pregnant, launching businesses, moving overseas, or at the very least buying expensive olive oil like they have their shit together.

This is not me yelling at you. This is me lovingly grabbing you by the face and saying: babe. We need to go.

Here are ten actually doable ways to stop living like your life is about to begin, and start acting like it already has.

01. Figure out what the hell you’re actually waiting for

Most of us are “waiting” for something we haven’t even properly named. We just have this floating sense that once one mysterious thing clicks into place, we’ll finally allow ourselves to exhale and begin. So what is it?

A boyfriend? A smaller dress size? A bigger savings account? A sign from the universe delivered via an aesthetically pleasing Pinterest quote? Write it down.

Because nine times out of ten, once you see it on paper, it stops looking like a legitimate prerequisite and starts looking like a story you’ve repeated so often you mistook it for fact.

02. Conduct a deeply humbling waiting audit

Go back over the last six months and count how many times you’ve said: “When work settles down...” “When I have more money...” “When I feel less tired...” “When summer is over...” “When I’m in a better headspace...”

Congratulations. You are not delayed. You are professionally procrastinating your own joy. This list is useful because it shows you exactly where your life is sitting in neutral.

And spoiler alert: if every meaningful thing is parked behind a condition, you are going to be waiting until the sun burns out.

03. Stop confusing comfort with happiness

This one is uncomfy because it tends to expose things we’ve been calling “fine.”

Comfort is seductive. Comfort says:

“This job is okay.”

“This relationship is okay.”

“This suburb is okay.”

“This version of me is okay.”

And okay can hold you hostage for years.

Because nothing is actively on fire, you never feel urgency. But comfort is not the same as contentment. Contentment has expansion in it. Pride. Choice. Aliveness. Comfort is just emotional track pants. Soft, familiar, and deeply resistant to change.

04. Identify the thing you keep circling at 11pm

You know the one.

The business idea. The course. The move. The Substack. The IVF appointment. The conversation.

The thing you Google in bed like a little raccoon of possibility and then close because “it’s probably too late anyway.” That thing.

Your brain keeps returning to it for a reason. I am not saying quit your job tomorrow and move to Tuscany. I am saying maybe stop treating the recurring thought like an intrusive pop-up ad and recognise it as information.

05. Borrow confidence if yours is currently on backorder

There are seasons where self-belief feels impossible. That’s okay - borrow someone else’s. Find the friend/sister/partner who looks at you like you’re capable of more than the beige little life you’ve currently accepted.

Tell them the thing you secretly want. A good egg will do one of two things: tell you to go for it, or become so annoyingly encouraging that you do it just to shut them up.

Either way, useful. This is not weakness. This is outsourcing.

06. Allow yourself a brief, tasteful mourning period

At some point you may realise you’ve spent years waiting. This can produce a very specific kind of grief. Not dramatic floor-sobbing grief. More like staring into the fridge grief.

The “oh wow, I really did lose a lot of time to fear” grief. Feel it. But do not unpack and live there.

You are allowed to mourn the years you spent hesitating without deciding that hesitation gets the next five too.

07. Redefine “ready” because she’s a lying bitch

Ready is fake. Nobody feels ready.

People who change careers don’t feel ready.

People who have babies don’t feel ready.

People who launch businesses, leave marriages, move countries, publish books, freeze eggs, start over, do not feel ready.

They feel nauseous and underqualified.

They just eventually realise waiting to feel calm is costing more than being scared. That’s the only difference.

08. Make the goal stupidly small

“I want to reinvent my life” is enough to make anyone lie face down on the floor. Too big. Shrink it.

One email.

One phone call.

One appointment.

One walk.

One saved draft.

One application.

Your life rarely changes in one cinematic montage. It changes because you did one boring admin task repeatedly until suddenly things looked different. Annoying, but true.

09. Tell someone (because shame is occasionally useful)

Nothing motivates like not wanting to look flaky.

Tell one person: “I’m doing this by Friday.”

Suddenly, you are no longer just a woman with a dream. You are a woman who made a statement. And most of us would rather chew glass than have to admit we simply... didn’t do the thing. Weaponise that.

10. Accept that this messy version of you is the one who has to start

Not the future organised version. Not the skinny version. Not the partnered version. Not the mentally pristine version who drinks green juice and answers emails immediately.

This one.

This tired, overwhelmed, slightly chaotic woman currently reading this while ignoring three texts.

She is the main character.

Unfortunately. You do not get a replacement. So she has to go.

Final thoughts...

The waiting room feels safe because it’s familiar. But familiar is not the same as fulfilling.

And there comes a point where endlessly preparing for life becomes a sneaky way of avoiding it.

You do not need a sign. You do not need perfect timing. You do not need to become a shinier woman before you’re allowed to begin.

You just need to stop acting like the door is locked when it’s been open this entire bloody time.

I didn’t expect pregnancy to come with a commentary track.

Not the physical side. Not the hormones. Not even the existential “holy shit, I’m about to be responsible for keeping a tiny human alive” spiral. I was prepared for all of that.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the constant, low-level hum of advice. Opinions. Warnings. Corrections. The relentless chorus of “just you waits” that seem to follow every single thing I share.

And the most surprising part?

It’s not coming from where you’d think.

It’s not random men on the internet. It’s not trolls.

It’s other mums.

The other day, I posted a photo of my breakfast, dippy eggs. A comfort meal. A nostalgic little moment that reminds me of slow Saturday mornings with my dad.

Within minutes: “That yolk looks a little runny! Be careful!!!! You shouldn’t be eating undercooked eggs!!!”

And just like that, I was back in the headspace of a woman who feels like she’s doing something wrong.

I’m 38. A first-time mum. And I’ve spent the last 13 years building a life online, sharing it with over 235,000 people who, in many ways, feel like an extension of my real world.

That’s the magic of it.

But it’s also the complication.

Because when you’ve shared your life for that long, people feel like they know you. And in many ways, they do. Some of these followers, 76% of whom are women aged 25 to 44, have been with me since day one. They’ll make comments and observations that genuinely feel like they know me better than some of my closest friends.

They’ve watched me grow, grieve, unravel, rebuild, fall in love again and again. There’s a real connection there, and I don’t take that lightly.

It’s the greatest privilege of what I do.

But it also means that when I share something, especially something as loaded as pregnancy, it doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

Every post becomes an open invitation for commentary.

And without fail, every single time I share anything about this pregnancy, there’s a flood of it. Comments. DMs. Well-meaning messages that land as advice, warnings, or subtle corrections.

And look, I know.

I know it comes from a good place. Mostly.

I know it’s women wanting to help. To share. To feel useful. To say, “I’ve been where you are.”

But here’s the part we’re not supposed to say out loud…

When you’re pregnant for the first time, everything already feels like a test you haven’t studied for.

Your body is changing. Your life is about to change. You’re making decisions daily about something you’ve never done before, with stakes that feel… astronomically high.

And when you’re someone like me, A-type with ADHD- heavy on the Rejection Sensitivite Dysphoria (see below), deeply wired for perfectionism and allergic to “getting in trouble”, even one comment can land harder than it should.

It doesn’t feel like a passing opinion.

It feels like you’ve failed something you didn’t even realise you were being graded on.

I can receive hundreds of kind, supportive messages… and one “you should” will sit in my chest like a stone.

Not because I’m fragile.

But because I care.
Because I’m trying.
Because I want to do this well.

And suddenly, I’m second-guessing something I felt completely fine about five minutes earlier.

Now multiply that by ten. By fifity. By a hundred slightly different, slightly conflicting opinions.

It becomes… noisy.

Overwhelming.

More often than not, anxiety-inducing.

There have been moments where I’ve hesitated to share at all. Not because I don’t want to, but because I know what will follow.

The opinions. The advice. The inevitable “just you wait.”

And that’s been confronting.

Because sharing is what I do. It’s how I connect. It’s how I’ve built my career.

But pregnancy has made me pause in a way I didn’t expect.

I’m trying to establish boundaries early. Before the baby arrives. With friends and family, absolutely, but also with my online community.

To gently say, “I know you mean well, but please don’t give me advice unless I’ve asked for it.”

To create a little space where I can just… experience this. Without feeling like I’m being assessed in real time.

And I won’t lie, it’s really bloody uncomfy. Because I hate feeling like the bad guy. I hate the idea of shutting people down when I know it’s coming from care.

But I’m learning that boundaries aren’t about rejection. They’re about preservation. And I’m going to need that.

Because the truth is, I will need advice.

To try. To learn. To figure some of it out without a chorus of voices telling me what I should be doing before I’ve even had a chance to think.

And I know I’m not alone in this, because my DMs are full of women saying the same thing.

Women who aren’t online. Who don’t have a platform. Who are still navigating the exact same pressure.

From parents, in-laws, friends, co-workers or a random woman in the supermarket who has clocked your bump, the unsolicited advice machine does not discriminate.

It’s not just an “influencer” problem.

It’s a new mum problem.

And maybe more specifically, a “first-time-mum-trying-her-damn-best-to find-her-footing-problem”.

So far, the best thing I’ve heard came from a high school girlfriend, Hast.

We were staying with more friends in this beautifully boujee beach house, celebrating our 20-year high school reunion, up early the next morning, slightly dusty, in our pyjamas, debriefing life.

Hast has two daughters in primary school. I was talking about trying to conceive… completely unaware I was already five weeks pregnant at the time.

She told me that if I ever wanted to chat about a particular topic, she was there. That she had some experience and insight into it, she’d done some research. And then she simply… stopped.

She didn’t dump it on me. She didn’t launch into it unprompted. She just let me know the door was open, and left it entirely up to me to walk through it.

I cannot tell you how much I needed that. How relieved I felt. How grateful. To know I could go back to her whenever I was ready, without feeling ambushed by information I hadn’t asked for yet.

Maybe that’s the shift we all need to make? Be available, not overwhelming. Offer support, not instruction. Let people come to you when they’re ready.

I’m going to try to do the same.

Because I know one day I’ll be on the other side of this, absolutely bursting with hard-won wisdom and desperate to pass it on. To relate. To help. To show solidarity.

I’ll just try to remember what it felt like to be here first.

Information overloaded. Trying my best.

Just wanting a little space to figure it out on my own.

For us late bloomers, there is an unspoken promise that gets made to you, quietly and often, long before you ever fall pregnant.

It’s not written down anywhere. No one formally agrees to it. But it lives in the subtext of every baby shower you attend, every lasagne you drop at a new mum’s door, every time you sit on the edge of someone’s bed holding their baby while they cry from exhaustion and overwhelm.

“When it’s your turn, we’ll be there. We’ve got you.”

And you believe it. Of course you do. Because you’ve been there for them.

You’ve shown up with flowers. You’ve sent the check-in texts. You’ve offered help in a hundred small, practical ways. You’ve fussed over their newborns, held their toddlers, listened to their stories and rearranged your schedule to celebrate their milestones. You’ve participated in the quiet, invisible economy of friendship where care is given freely, with the understanding that one day, when you need it, it will find its way back to you.

I’m now in my third trimester of pregnancy, and I can tell you, with a clarity that has surprised even me: it hasn’t.

No hand-me-downs passed along with a “we’ve been saving these for you.”
No quiet gestures that say, we see you, we remember what this time is like.

Nothing.

Please don’t get me wrong: it’s not that I expected grand gestures or constant attention. I’m not keeping a ledger of who has done what. This isn’t about tit-for-tat friendship accounting. It’s something softer and somehow more painful than that.

It’s the absence of being held in a moment where you thought you would be.

Because the truth is, I did show up for them.

I showed up enthusiastically, instinctively. I didn’t do it because I expected anything in return. I did it because I loved them, and because it felt natural to wrap around someone who was stepping into something as big and life-altering as motherhood.

But somewhere along the way, I think I quietly assumed that when it was my turn, that same energy would circle back. “It all comes out in the wash”, as my mum used to say.

Instead, it’s been… tumbleweeds.

The only bunch of flowers I’ve received came from a girlfriend who has very recently become a mum herself. Someone still in the thick of it, still navigating the fog and the fatigue, who somehow found the time and the thought to say, I see you.

The only person who has offered to help with my baby shower is one of my queer, childless friends. The one who has never been pregnant, who has no personal frame of reference for this experience, but who instinctively understands what it means to show up for someone you love.

And the only person to pass along a bundle of beautiful baby clothes is the wife of one of my partner’s best friends, who lives on the other side of the world in New York. Someone I don’t even see regularly. Someone who, from across an ocean, thought of me.

That’s it.

And if I’m being honest, it stings.

Not in a dramatic, friendship-ending way. Not in a way that makes me want to call anyone out or demand anything different. It’s a quieter kind of hurt. The kind that sits heavy in your chest and makes you recalibrate what you thought certain relationships were, or what you thought they would be in moments like this.

There’s no one to call for the small, practical questions. No one to say, “this is absolutely normal,” or “try this,” or “you’ll be okay.” No inherited wisdom is being passed down in real time. No maternal safety net to fall back on.

I’ve made peace with that in many ways. It’s not new. It’s been my reality for a long time now.

But pregnancy has a way of bringing that absence into sharper focus.

You notice it in the quiet moments. In the appointments. In the decisions. In the in-between spaces where you realise you’re navigating something entirely new without the one person who, in another life, would have walked you through it.

So when the wider “village” you thought might step in doesn’t quite materialise either, it feels like a kind of double abandonment.

Not dramatic. Not catastrophic. But undeniably there.

A subtle but constant feeling that something, or someone, is missing.

Because pregnancy, particularly as a first-time mum later in life, is a strange and vulnerable space to inhabit.

You’re straddling two worlds. Not quite who you were before, not yet the version of yourself who has arrived on the other side with a baby in her arms. There is excitement, of course. There is gratitude. There is wonder; “I can’t believe it’s finally my turn!”

But there is also uncertainty. Physical discomfort. A low hum (or occasionally a loud scream) of anxiety about everything that is to come.

And in that space, you notice who leans in.

You notice who reaches out without being prompted. Who remembers. Who asks the second question. Who offers help before you’ve even articulated that you might need it.

You also notice who doesn’t.

I’ve turned this over in my mind more times than I’d like to admit, trying to make sense of it. Pregnancy insomnia has a way of giving you far too much time alone with your thoughts.

Rationally, I know they’re busy. Who isn’t at our age?
Maybe they’re deep in their own lives, their own children, their own exhaustion.
Maybe they assume I’m fine. Capable. Independent. Not someone who needs any help or guidance.

Maybe if I’d arrived here sooner, found the right person earlier, fallen pregnant before 38…
Maybe if we were doing this together, at the same time, in the same season of life… it might feel different.

All of those things can be true.

But so is this: showing up doesn’t require perfect circumstances. It requires intention.

And intention, I’ve learned, is not evenly distributed… or reciprocated.

Not because they don’t care. I don’t think this is about a lack of love.

It’s about a lack of pause. A lack of awareness. A lack of asking, what might she need right now, based on what I needed then?

And perhaps that’s the greater, quieter lesson sitting underneath all of this.

That the “village” we’re told will surround us doesn’t always arrive in the form we expect. Sometimes it looks different. Sometimes it comes from the people you least anticipated. Sometimes it’s smaller. More surprising. More intentional.

And sometimes, it’s something you have to build consciously, rather than something you inherit passively.

There is something unexpectedly moving about being shown up for by people who don’t share your exact experience, but who choose to meet you in it anyway.

There is something humbling about receiving care from those who owe you nothing… and who give anyway.

And there is something clarifying about understanding that support is not guaranteed, even from those who once stood where you now stand.

I don’t feel angry. I don’t feel bitter.

But something has definitely shifted.

I’m more aware of what it actually means to show up for someone. More intentional about the kind of friend I want to continue being. More conscious of the fact that care, when it is given, should never be taken for granted.

And perhaps, most importantly, more committed to remembering this feeling.

Someone standing exactly where I am now, wondering quietly if anyone is going to wrap around her in the way she once wrapped around others.

And I will know exactly what to do.

I’ll send the flowers.