My First Year of Motherhood, in One Word

A year ago, if you’d asked me what my first year of motherhood would feel like, I would’ve given you a confident answer. I had a plan and an identity I’d known for so long. My identity was steady, certain, balanced. I thought motherhood would sit on top of that identity. It would be one more role added to a life that already made sense.

Oh, how I was wrong. What I didn’t have was any idea how much of that identity wouldn’t survive the year ahead. Moreover, I didn’t know how much I’d need to actually let it go.

This post—and the short vlog below—is about the word I finally landed on the night before I sat down to curate the video. I chose it after months of really feeling into what this year was like for me. It was in connection with the milestones, the memories, and the metamorphosis of motherhood. It wasn’t “blessed” or “grateful,” even though I am both of those things, deeply. Yet it was something else entirely, and it’s a word I think more mothers need permission to use. I don’t think I’m the only one who’s felt it and stayed quiet about it.

What Nobody Tells You About the First Year

There’s a version of the first year of motherhood that gets told in public—the soft-focus one, with all the lullabies, lavender baths, and gratitude captions. Those moments happened. But it’s not the whole story. I think we do new mothers a disservice by only telling the half that photographs well.

Here’s the part that doesn’t get said enough: becoming a mother is a journey of becoming and unraveling, both at once. Not one and then the other. Both, simultaneously, often in the same breath.

The identity I’d spent years balancing didn’t survive this year. And at some point, I stopped trying to hold onto it. That sentence took me most of the year to say out loud.

The Pieces That Fell Away

If I’m honest about what “unraveling” actually looked like, day to day, it wasn’t one dramatic collapse. It was smaller than that, and it happened over and over.

Some days it was my body, relearning what it was allowed to need—rest, food, boundaries, softness. Especially after three confusing years of fertility, conceiving, pregnancy, and then a traumatic birth experience.

Some days it was my voice, in rooms where people assumed they knew my daughter’s needs better than I did, simply because they’d been mothers themselves. They had louder perspectives and, simply put, they felt entitled to give unsolicited comments or advice. None of which actually support a new mother.

And some days it was creating intentional distance from people. This was to protect my own metamorphosis, and to protect this becoming as ours, mine and my daughter’s. It was not anyone else’s to author for us.

Every piece I let fall away, I let fall away on purpose. That distinction matters more than I can fully explain here. However, I’ve written more about it, in more detail, over at The Postpartum Voice, if you want the fuller version of that story.

Why Not Being Recognized Isn’t a Flaw

Here’s the part I wasn’t prepared for: I didn’t recognize myself most days. And most days, I didn’t feel like anyone truly saw me—not fully, not the version of me that was actually in progress underneath the one everyone still expected to see. To be honest, I’ve spent most of my life not feeling seen or heard. It’s one of the reasons why I’ve been called to the work I’m doing today.

I used to think that meant something was wrong. Now I think it meant I was standing in the gap between who I’d been and who I hadn’t finished becoming yet. No one can see you clearly while you’re still in that gap.

That’s not a flaw. That’s just what the gap looks like from the outside — for you, and for everyone watching you move through it. If you’re in it right now, I want you to hear that as permission, not a diagnosis. You’re not doing motherhood wrong. You’re doing the gap. It’s supposed to be disorienting. That’s how you know it’s real.

(Through years of soul-searching and self-discovery, I’ve also come to know and understand that people can only see you at the level they see themselves or choose to see and understand you, but that’s a story and thought piece for another day.)

Coming Apart vs. Falling Apart

Here’s what I know now that I didn’t know then: there’s a difference between breaking and being remade.

I didn’t break this year—even on the days it felt like it. I was being remade, slowly, in ways I couldn’t always see while it was happening. Remaking doesn’t announce itself. It doesn’t feel like progress while you’re inside it. It just feels like disorientation, until one day it doesn’t anymore.

One year in, I’m not who I was. I’m not who I thought I’d be. I’m who I had to become. There’s a real difference between those two things. I don’t think that difference gets talked about enough in conversations about postpartum identity.

The Word

So here it is. If I had to give this year one word, it wouldn’t be “blessed.” It wouldn’t be “grateful,” even though I am, deeply.

It would be unraveled.

And if unraveling is what it takes to become her mother and protector, and to become my highest, divine self, I’d choose it again—not because it was easy, but because I know now what I’m capable of overcoming. I know who I’m capable of becoming.

I don’t think I could have gotten to that sentence a year ago. I’m not sure I even fully believed it three months ago. But I believe it now, and that belief is why I wanted to put this into words. I also wanted to put it into the video above, instead of letting the year quietly pass into the next one.

If You’re in Your Own Unraveling Right Now

I won’t tell you it gets easier. I don’t think that’s true, and I don’t think it’s what you need to hear anyway.

I’ll just tell you this: you’re clearing space for whoever you’re about to become. What a beautiful space that is to be in. The gap you’re standing in has an edge to it, even if you can’t see it from where you are yet.

Happy first birthday to my daughter—and to the reason I finally met myself.

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If this resonated, I’d love to hear from you—what’s the one word that would sum up your own first year of motherhood, or whatever season you’re in right now? I read every comment.

This reflection is part of an ongoing conversation about postpartum identity, maternal authority, and the honest, unfiltered side of early motherhood. For more on this, I write frequently over at The Postpartum Voice.