Motherhood's Last Taboo

Having a baby turns any woman’s life upside down, but for some mums the overwhelming emotion is not joy but regret – and a yearning for the life they had before giving birth. Anna Moore examines motherhood’s last taboo

- Anna Moore

When Emma became pregnant at 32, everything seemed perfect. She had spent her twenties having fun and following her passion, building the portfolio career she wanted as a musician. She’d married at 30. Now she felt ready for the next stage. Her pregnancy was a breeze – no sickness, no stress, no signs of what was to come – and her son was born on a warm spring afternoon (a water birth, no pain relief). But in less than a week, she became aware of a new reality.

“It was this horrible sense that I’d made a mistake,” Emma says. “Instead of feeling happy or in love, as I’d expected, I just felt awkward around him, and everything was such an effort. And this feeling didn’t go away. When I remember the baby phase – my husband working long days to make up for my lost income, most of my friends off enjoying their lives – my main memory is just the loneliness and the horrible, heavy sadness of it all.”

REALITY BITES

“I remember one day putting him in a baby carrier and walking to the park,” she continues. “It was a really sunny day, and strangers were smiling at me and him, but I just felt so cut off. I didn’t want to be trudging round a park in the middle of the afternoon. I wanted to be the person I used to be – but knew I never could be again. I came home, drew the curtains and cried.” According to Emma, this wasn’t postnatal depression – it was regret, pure and simple. Even now, 14 years and another child later, she feels the same. “My career never recovered,” Emma says. “I’m a part-time piano teacher now, and this isn’t what I wanted.” It’s not a simple case that more childcare or more help from her husband would have fixed this. For Emma, the shift was more fundamental.