There is a version of early motherhood that gets talked about a lot. The one with the soft light and the quiet wonder and the overwhelming love that makes everything else fade away.
And that version is real. Those moments exist.
But there is another version that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough. The one that is exhausting in a way that goes bone-deep. The one where you love your baby completely and still grieve the life you had before. The one where you lie awake at 3am feeling alone in a way you didn’t expect, wondering quietly whether you’re doing it wrong — or whether something is wrong with you.
This post is for the mothers living that second version. The one nobody fully warned them about.
The Gap Between Expectation and Reality
Most women arrive at motherhood carrying a picture of what it will be like. That picture is shaped by a lifetime of cultural messaging — films, social media, the way other mothers present their experience in public, the things people say when they find out you’re pregnant.
“Enjoy every moment.” “It goes so fast.” “There’s nothing like it.”
All of those things can be true. And they can sit alongside experiences that are equally true but far less spoken about.
The exhaustion that makes you feel like a different person. The sense of losing yourself inside a role that asks everything of you. The moments of resentment, frustration, or despair that arrive without warning and then bring guilt crashing in behind them.
The gap between what you expected and what you’re actually living is one of the most common — and least acknowledged — sources of distress in early motherhood.
Things That Are True That Nobody Tells You
You can love your child and still mourn your old life
Grief and love are not opposites. You can feel both at the same time, with full force, and neither cancels the other out.
Mourning the life you had before — your freedom, your sleep, your sense of self, your body, your relationships, your career — is a completely normal response to one of the biggest transitions a human being can go through. It doesn’t mean you made the wrong choice. It doesn’t mean you don’t love your baby. It means you are human and that something real has changed.
The invisible load is real and it is enormous
There is a version of motherhood that is visible — the feeding, the settling, the appointments, the school runs. And then there is everything that lives underneath that — the mental load of tracking, planning, anticipating, worrying, organising, and managing that never fully switches off.
Many mothers carry this load largely alone, even in partnerships where the practical tasks are shared. The cognitive and emotional weight of being the person who always knows — who notices, who remembers, who holds it all together — is exhausting in a way that is genuinely hard to communicate.
Touched out is a real thing
There are days when you have been held, needed, climbed on, fed from, and touched by small hands from the moment you woke up. And by the end of those days, the idea of more physical contact — even from people you love — can feel unbearable.
This is not a sign that something is wrong with you. It is a normal neurological response to sensory overload. And it doesn’t mean you love your child or your partner any less.
You are allowed to find it hard even when it’s wanted
Some mothers feel an added layer of guilt because their pregnancy was planned, or longed for, or came after difficulty conceiving. The logic goes: “I wanted this so much — I don’t have the right to struggle.”
Wanting something deeply doesn’t make it easy. Loving something completely doesn’t make it uncomplicated. The difficulty of early motherhood is not proportional to how much you wanted it.
Identity loss in motherhood is real and it matters
Before you became a mother you were a person with a particular sense of who you were — your work, your relationships, your interests, your way of moving through the world. Motherhood reshapes all of that. Sometimes gradually, sometimes overnight.
Many women describe a profound sense of not knowing who they are anymore — not who they were before, not yet fully at home in this new version of themselves. That in-between place can be deeply disorienting, even when the love is real and the life is good.
The pressure to appear okay makes everything harder
There is enormous social pressure on mothers to present as coping — to be grateful, capable, glowing, and fulfilled. This pressure doesn’t come from nowhere. It comes from a culture that has very narrow space for maternal ambivalence and struggle.
The performance of okay-ness is exhausting. And it keeps women isolated — each one believing, in private, that everyone else is managing better than they are.
When the Hard Parts Become Something More
Everything described above sits within the range of normal human responses to the extraordinary demands of early motherhood. Hard, real, and deserving of acknowledgement — but not necessarily a sign that something is clinically wrong.
But sometimes the difficulty tips into something that needs more than acknowledgement. Sometimes the anxiety becomes relentless and won’t respond to reassurance. Sometimes the low mood persists beyond the adjustment period. Sometimes the sense of disconnection or loss of self becomes so significant that it starts to affect your ability to function or to feel present with your baby and the people you love.
If that’s where you are — please don’t wait. Speak with your GP, a midwife, or a maternal health nurse. Or reach out to a counsellor who works with women in the perinatal period.
You don’t have to be certain about what’s happening to ask for support. You just have to know that something feels hard and that you’d like help.
What Counselling Can Offer
Counselling isn’t about fixing you. There is nothing to fix.
What perinatal counselling can offer — particularly in early motherhood — is a space that is entirely yours. Not your baby’s. Not your partner’s. Not your family’s. Yours.
A space where you can say the things you haven’t felt safe saying elsewhere. Where the complexity of your experience — the love and the grief, the gratitude and the resentment, the joy and the exhaustion — can all exist at once without any of it needing to be resolved or justified.
Many mothers find that being genuinely heard — perhaps for the first time since becoming a mother — is itself a profound relief.
You Are Not Failing
If you have read this far and something in it has landed — this is for you.
You are not failing. You are not broken. You are not ungrateful. You are not a bad mother.
You are a person navigating one of the most demanding, identity-reshaping, emotionally complex experiences a human being can go through — often without enough sleep, enough support, or enough honest conversation about what it actually asks of you.
The fact that it’s hard doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It means it’s hard. And hard things deserve support.
Support for Mothers in Warwick and Perth’s Northern Suburbs
Esther English is a registered counsellor based in Warwick, Perth’s northern suburbs, with a deep personal and professional understanding of the emotional complexity of early motherhood. She works with women navigating the gap between expectation and reality, identity loss, postnatal anxiety, and the quietly heavy parts of motherhood that don’t always have a name.
Her approach is warm, unhurried, and completely non-judgmental. She creates a space where you can say the things you haven’t felt safe saying elsewhere — without explanation, without guilt, and without the pressure to be okay.
Sessions are available in person at the Wellness Zone, Warwick WA 6024 — accessible from Greenwood, Kingsley, Duncraig, Hamersley, Padbury, Woodvale, Hillarys, Joondalup, and surrounding Perth northern suburbs. Online appointments are available Australia-wide.
Evening and Saturday appointments are available. No GP referral required.
Book a Session with Esther | Free 15-Min Fit & Next-Steps Call
You don’t have to love every moment. You just have to know that support is available for the ones you don’t.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it normal to struggle in early motherhood even when everything looks fine from the outside? Yes — and it’s far more common than most mothers realise. The gap between external presentation and internal experience in early motherhood is significant. Many women who appear to be coping beautifully are carrying experiences they haven’t felt safe sharing. You are not alone in this.
How do I know if what I’m feeling is normal or something I need support for? If what you’re experiencing is persistent, is affecting your daily life or relationships, or simply feels like more than you can carry alone — that’s enough reason to reach out. You don’t need a diagnosis or a clear label. Read more about postnatal anxiety here.
Can I bring my baby to a session? This is worth asking when you book — Esther understands the practical realities of early motherhood and will do her best to accommodate what you need.
Do I need a referral to see a counsellor for support in early motherhood? No. You can book directly with As You Are Counselling without a GP referral or Mental Health Care Plan. View our fees and FAQ here.
What if I’m not sure counselling is right for me? Start with a free 15-minute Fit & Next-Steps Call — a no-obligation conversation to talk about what’s been going on and whether it feels like the right fit. There’s no pressure and no commitment.
As You Are Counselling · Warwick WA 6024 · Perth’s Northern Suburbs · Perinatal & Motherhood Counselling · In-Person & Online
