Becoming a parent is a huge shock to the system, and it affects every part of your life. First time parents basically go from having 100% freedom to asking your parents if you can go out again, like a teenager. I was not expecting the life altering experience of becoming a mom. It is so hard to be truly prepared for the lack of freedom, sleep, identity, and control over your life. Being able to sit by myself on the couch to have my morning coffee is a luxury I get once a week, if I am lucky. Small luxuries like that are a thing of the past when you have small children.

One change to our life that is a struggle for moms after having a baby, is our career. We face an immense amount of pressure to choose our careers or our families. It really isn’t fair. Before becoming a mom, my major life focus was my teaching career. Much of my life was spent in my classroom or thinking about my classroom if I was at home. When I found out I was pregnant with my first daughter, Caia, I never really thought how much having a baby would impact my teaching career. I only intended to take a year off to stay at home with her, then I was going to go back. I felt so much guilt in that decision; like I was doing my daughter a disservice by leaving her to teach, so I quit permanently.

My decision to quit teaching turned out to be the best life decision I have made, but it did not come without hardship. I felt like my identity was gone when I quit teaching to be a mom. The only identity I really had before becoming a mom was a being a teacher. It was all I knew to do. My entire life was spent in preparation to be a teacher. Losing that role was another huge shock to my system. During my time off from teaching was when I started the spiral into severe postpartum OCD. So many factors contributed to how severe my postpartum OCD was, but losing my identity after becoming a mom was one of my biggest contributors. I felt that I was no longer a useful member of society by staying at home and only being a mom.

Luckily, it turned out quitting my teaching job was a blessing in disguise. I found my true passion during my year of postpartum OCD and therapy: being an advocate for maternal mental health. I never want a mom to feel the way that I did during that year. My horrible experience with postpartum OCD helped me turn my life into something I am really proud of, and I feel like I found my life purpose. I get to be a mom AND help other moms who have been through the same thing as me. I want my daughters to grow up seeing their mom doing something that makes her feel happy and fulfilled. Just because we are moms, doesn’t mean we have to lose our entire lives. We deserve to have something for ourselves too.