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Tuesday, 1 September 2020

Let’s talk fertility

It’s September, which means it is PCOS awareness month. I wrote this text almost a year ago, but some things take time to speak about publicly. Especially those that affect your physical as well as mental health. 

Tuesday, 10 September 2019

I’m settled now


I did it, I settled down. Sort of.

Tuesday, 6 August 2019

The hormones made me do it


Every time I am without my baby, I feel like some sort of double agent with a secret life. Especially on public transport I look around at my fellow passengers. None of them know what my life entails now. It’s as if I have a dirty little secret although my secret is far from shady.

Tuesday, 25 June 2019

The struggles of maternity leave


Summer’s here, daily park strolls, boozy pub meetings at lunchtime (once a week - let’s not get crazy here with the boozy boob).

Despite all this, one question that is constantly popping up at the moment is: “Am I enjoying this enough“?

With “this“ I don’t mean motherhood, I mean being on maternity leave. Motherhood is great - hard work yes, but as rewarding as it could possibly be.

I wouldn’t call myself a full-time mum. I actually despise that term. Why aren’t you considered as one when you’re working? You are always a full-time mum. You never stop to be one just because you spend the majority of the day working. Technically, yes I am a full-time mum, but I am also a woman, partner, travel enthusiast and a pathological Netflix streamer.

It’s almost half-time of my mat leave and that’s probably why I am having these thoughts. I don’t feel any guilt - yet - that I am going back to work full-time in a few months. It feels as if time has flown by, as if I left work yesterday and in that seemingly brief time life has changed completely. However, and here comes my problem, I still think too much about work and career prospects.

My work life is not on hold for me. It might be that I am on the younger side to have become a mum among my peers, but I do have the feeling that I need to assess, evaluate and stay in contact with work while cleaning my baby’s back from a poo-nami.

I have always had a problem switching off from work. And especially now, I see it as a burden. It’s rather the “I want to progress further when I come back“ than the “I feel left out“ feeling.

Most mums I know go back to work after a year - or have no plans to return at all. This has never been an option for me. Firstly, we are going to split parental leave and secondly, I see my career as a part of me that I could not give up for long.

My initial plan was to work in some projects while on leave as well. Ambitious me - screw that. Even if I have a couple of hours per day free - broken up in 25-minute intervals because babies are demanding - that is not enough to give you headspace to bring your mind to something.

So I really should take this time as a break from my job. But when I try to do this, my mind wanders to autumn and I imagine going back to work while all other mums continue to meet up for coffee, lunchtime wine and sensory classes. I won’t be able to do this and this gives me a feeling of missing out.

Regardless what you do, you can never win. I guess that’s motherhood, innit?


Monday, 3 June 2019

Beware of the border agent


„You alright?“ Asked the border force agent. „Yes,“ we said, cautiously.

It was the first time we returned to the UK as a family, weary of questions the agent would ask. 

For the border force, we are a mismatched family with different surnames and different nationalities within the family.

Sunday, 14 April 2019

New environments

So. It’s done. The baby is here and I am overwhelmed, happy, anxious and feeling every emotion on the spectrum. Everything has changed, the world has been turned upside down. Our flat feels like a proper home. A home where a child lives. I have created a family and yet feel like someone who is too young for the responsibility. When I’m pushing the pram down the road, back in my pre-pregnancy clothes, sunglasses on, I wonder if this is all a dream that is going to end soon and the baby in front of me is just an accessory that I have to return after 28 days.

Tuesday, 5 March 2019

Brexit, Baby

Oh hello there. Yes, it’s been a minute.

Some of you will remember that I used to sporadically write about life as an Erasmus student in London, a reverse culture-shocked student/hanging-around-working-in-the-media-person in Berlin and as a journalist in Brighton.

So what happened? Apart from the obvious - Bowie’s death, the Referendum and Trump?