All it took was one question and my whole perspective on my motherhood experience changed.

“Why did you want to be a young mum?”, he asked.

“Because I knew it would be an exhausting experience and I’m so glad I did because it has been more taxing than I ever imagined”, I replied.

“But it wouldn’t have been so hard if you had a partner who was actually there for you.”

And just like that it hits me like a freight train barrelling past the station at god knows how many km/h — you see and hear it coming but the sheer magnitude of its power takes you by surprise.

This conversation was weeks ago but still to this day it bounces around my head like a rouge ping pong ball you can’t quite catch.

My experience of motherhood would’ve been entirely different if I had someone else as my partner.
This thought had, not once, crossed my mind.

These 5 years I endured each day thinking “This is it. This is what motherhood is. This is how exhausting and tough it is.”

I conditioned myself to believe that I had to be the only one getting up multiple times a night but also be the one to wake when the baby does at the crack of dawn.

I conditioned myself to believe I was the only one who could feed, clean and care for the baby.

I conditioned myself to believe I was the only one responsible for making sure the baby was vaccinated, that the rash was just a rash and not something worse. That I was the only one who knew how to put the baby to sleep and their daily routine.

I conditioned myself to believe I was not allowed to have any time alone and if I wanted to I had to ask permission so he would “babysit” his own child.

It did occur to me that this baby was half his and that he should’ve been helping. But knowing and getting are two very different things; so I took it on, all of it.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was when he decided he’d rather sleep on the couch than to share a room with the screaming newborn. HIS screaming newborn.

And if the baby screamed, which babies often do, he would charge up the stairs and demand I did something about it.

I can’t change how my motherhood experience began but I can find that person who’s willing to muck in, even with kids that aren’t his own, and change how my motherhood experience will be.