The Day I Decided Motherhood Wouldn't Mean Giving Up Myself
An unexpected conversation on the way to giving birth changed how I thought about becoming a mother.
It was in the ambulance, on my way to the hospital to give birth, that I made a promise to myself.
I would not give up my entire life, my dreams, or the woman I wanted to become simply because I was becoming a mother.
What prompted that decision?
A nurse with a happy, round face who cheerfully told me that she'd given up her dreams the moment her first child was born.
Her second and third children had confirmed it. Dreams belonged to the past.
She hadn't traveled the world as she'd once imagined. The lovely, sexy, intimate relationship she'd enjoyed with her partner had changed. "We became parents instead," she explained.
And rather than pursuing the career she'd dreamed of, she'd chosen nursing because it allowed her to combine work with motherhood. She didn't sound regretful. Quite the opposite.
She seemed happily resigned to the life she'd created.
Perhaps she was simply preparing me for the enormous changes that were about to come. But as I listened, something happened inside me.
I knew that her version of motherhood didn't have to become mine.
I wanted to become a mother. And remain myself.
That conversation stayed with me. I wanted to love my child wholeheartedly. But I also wanted to keep growing as a unique woman. To nurture my relationship with my partner. To travel the world. To explore, learn, develop, and pursue the dreams that mattered to me.
And now, somehow, I wanted to do those things with a child in my life.
Not necessarily in the same way as before.
But I wasn't prepared to believe that motherhood and personal dreams had to cancel each other out.
I wanted motherhood to become part of my life, not the end of the life I had imagined.
And then I held my daughter.
After an exhausting birth, I finally held this little person I didn't even know yet.
And the love I felt was overwhelming.
If someone had told me that I needed to walk from California to southern Chile the following day to protect her, I think I would have done it.
No questions asked!
Suddenly, I understood something about the enormous power of loving a child.
And I began to understand why the nurse had made the choices she had.
But within weeks, another realization arrived.
Loving my daughter didn't automatically mean I knew how to be her mother.
Love gave me the passion.
The determination.
The willingness to do whatever I could for her.
But love alone didn't teach me how to communicate when I was frustrated.
How to remain patient when I was exhausted.
How to understand her needs without losing sight of my own.
Or how to avoid repeating patterns from my own upbringing.
Knowing what I didn't want to repeat wasn't the same as knowing what to do differently.
And that was quite a discovery!
Becoming a mother meant learning to lead myself.
I began to understand that if I wanted to become the mother I envisioned, I would need to develop myself.
Not just learn about children.
Learn about me.
My beliefs. My reactions. My expectations. My emotions.
The kind of relationship I wanted to build with my daughter.
The kind of woman I wanted her to know.
And the kind of example I wanted to become.
I didn't need to abandon myself to become a loving mother.
I needed to learn how to lead myself while growing into motherhood.
And that became a journey of its own.
Thank you, nurse!
That cheerful nurse in the ambulance probably has no idea how often I've thought about our conversation.
She didn't give me parenting advice.
She gave me something perhaps even more valuable.
An opportunity to decide what motherhood would mean to me.
I could love my daughter deeply without giving up the responsibility to live my own life intentionally.
And I could continue becoming the woman I wanted to be while helping my daughter become who she was meant to be.
That decision became one of the foundations of my journey into intentional parenting.
And it all began in an ambulance.
Thank you, nurse!
What kind of parent do you want to become without losing sight of who you are?
The Intentional Parent Blueprint™ helps working parents develop self-leadership, emotional intelligence, and intentional communication so they can grow alongside their children.
Connect with Mooniek Seebregts for an exploratory conversation.