The Mummy Diaries 1.1

My beautiful baby girl is now one (what?!), and I have been wanting to write about my experiences as a (now no longer) new, working mother since before that photo of me by the bathtub was taken.

The Mummy Diaries aims to be a series on my blog, going through thoughts, feelings, recommendations and questions about motherhood, and navigating a career (and life) simultaneously.

I always wanted to be a mother, but never really gave it a second thought. I knew in the back of my mind that I would eventually be a mom, and sort of assumed that once I was married, babies would be the next natural step.

At this point in my life, I was in my 30s and a lot of my girlfriends were trying to conceive, or opening up about their yearning for a family, and so I definitely know how difficult the journey to motherhood can be. My own mother spent years and years trying to become pregnant, and so I sort of fell into the belief that I too, may experience the same.

I wasn’t the same. I fell pregnant almost instantly, which I know is a total blessing- and I feel blessed, I swear! My pregnancy was smooth and easy, and I went skiing when I was 19 or 20 weeks in (which in hindsight I would not recommend to anyone, and definitely not do again). I was sort of blissfully unaware of everything going on inside and around me. I didn’t know many babies (in fact, before I held my daughter, I had never held a baby before), and those mom-friends of mine that did have little ones didn’t really share their stories in a way that I understood what was about to happen to me - or maybe I was just ignorantly deaf when it came to hearing what they had to say?

The only thing I was concerned about was looking pregnant for work related events.

Weirdly, I remember attending a jewellery discussion at the now sadly closed Matches Fashion Townhouse with the Shay Jewellery founders, wondering whether anyone would notice that I am pregnant.

Looking at the photo I illegally snapped in the Annabels bathroom after the talk now, it seems ridiculous that I thought I could conceal this very obvious fact to my work colleagues and network, and Ladan touched my stomach and fairly openly congratulated me on being ‘with child’.

My priority during the 38 weeks of my pregnancy was to work as much as possible, so I could get my business into a position where it could cruise for a little bit, whist I gave birth.

I had worked with women in the industry for years, and remember one particular moment, buying a crocodile Hermes bag from a supplier, and her picking up the phone telling me calmly ‘give me 30 minutes, and I’ll call you back to confirm the bag, I’m just having my cesarian section now’. It seemed funny at the time, and I assumed I would be the same. I would easily work when the baby was sleeping, and bounce back to personal shopping appointments and meetings in London a few weeks after she was born. That was the plan.

Up until a few weeks before I gave birth- when it just became too warm in late June to leave the much cooler country side, I was regularly traveling into London to meet friends, work and brainstorm with my team. 

What I definitely was not doing, was reading up on babies and birth. Looking back, I’m not sure what I was thinking. I didn’t know what I needed to buy, what clothes were good, or practical, what machines helped make formula, what pumps would become a necessity. I had no idea that the plan of keeping the nursery as an office space until she is much older was a really bad one, and that I desperately needed a comfortable nursing chair to sit in.

In true German fashion, my hospital bag was packed weeks prior to my scheduled C-section at Chelsea Westminster Hospital, and I ordered every single item an influencer on instagram swore by in her ‘hospital bag story’. It turns out that influencers’ recommendations can be taken with a fairly large pinch of salt, and perhaps some common sense would have been appropriate also.

Needless to say, my business was in order, my accounts were done, my VAT return was handed in on time, but I was not ready for the baby to arrive.