Becoming, Slowly
My daughter was eleven months old when Milk & Mummies Podcast began.
By then, the fog of the early months had started to lift. I was deeply, achingly in love with my child. Curious. Reflective. Wanting to share what I was learning — and more than anything, wanting to connect with other women who were quietly navigating this same transformation.
Motherhood had cracked me open in ways I hadn’t anticipated.
My birth experience didn’t unfold as I’d imagined. Nothing terrible in comparison to the stories I’ve now heard, by the way. The hospital didn’t have the equipment they had assured me would be available (a wireless monitor and a birthing pool), and I remember being struck by how knowledgeable and grounded the senior midwives were — so much so that they had to override a junior midwife who was responsible for my care. It was confronting, but also deeply empowering. In that moment, I saw just how much women hold, know, and carry — often without being fully centred in the systems designed to support us.
What I wasn’t prepared for, though, was what came after.
I wasn’t prepared for how much I missed having my baby inside me. How, in those early weeks, I felt she had been safest there — with me. That separation, even in joy, carried a quiet grief I hadn’t heard spoken about.
And then there was the loneliness.
I remember thinking, ” Why didn’t anyone tell me how lonely this could feel?” Not all the time — but enough to catch you off guard. Enough to make you question yourself in the quiet moments.
What I craved most in that season was honesty. Real conversations. Women speaking openly about the emotional shifts, the identity stretch, the contradictions of deep love and deep exhaustion existing side by side.
It was around then that I first heard the word matrescence, shared by a doula. It landed immediately — the perfect descriptor. A developmental transition. A becoming. Not something to rush through or “bounce back” from, but something to move with.
That understanding made me feel powerful.
Motherhood didn’t shrink me — it expanded me. It became my superpower. I found myself braver, more decisive, more fearless than I had ever been before. I began to excel in ways I didn’t know I could, or would. Not despite becoming a mother — but because of it.
Milk & Mummies Podcast grew from that place.
Not as a business plan, but as a response. A space for honest conversations with motivated, thoughtful women who are raising families while also building businesses, careers, and their own definitions of success.
Through the podcast, I learn constantly. I’m inspired by the perseverance I see in other women — the quiet resilience, the recalibration, the way we keep going even when the path looks nothing like what we imagined. Again and again, I’m reminded that while our circumstances differ, so much of what we carry is shared.
We are all navigating the same questions in different ways: Who am I now? What matters? How do I honour both my ambition and my tenderness?
And perhaps most importantly — how do I stay connected to myself while showing up for everyone else?
If I could speak directly to a mother who feels behind, overwhelmed, or unsure, I would say this:
You are amazing. You’ve got this — even when it doesn’t feel like it. Your goals and dreams are still achievable. Your baby hasn’t erased them; if anything, they may deepen them. Even in your darkest, loneliest hours, this season will pass. And one day, you’ll look back with gratitude — not just for what you built, but for who you became along the way.
Milk & Mummies Podcast is… simply an extension of that belief: a space for honest conversations about motherhood, identity, and becoming — for any woman who resonates.
Leave a Reply