As a kid, being a mom was the one and only thing that I knew I wanted to be when I grew up. I also said that I wanted four kids (joke’s on me). And then I became a mom, and everything changed. The caregiving tasks came naturally to me, but most other things felt… off. Was I supposed to be feeling this way about motherhood? Isn’t this supposed to be the most beautiful and rewarding thing that someone, especially a woman, could experience? This is what I had been told.

I didn’t feel fulfilled in the ways that other moms around me did (or looked to be, at least).

I loved this gorgeous little human more than anything, and this love was certainly unconditional — that much was true. But my patience for the everyday things was running thin:

Food refusals. Mealtime messes. The developmental stages that always seemed to change just as I was getting a handle on the previous one. Scream-cry car rides that jolted my nervous system into survival mode. Inconsistent naps that became a big source of stress and anxiety — counting the mere minutes of sleep before her next wake.

I had also spent the better part of 9 years obtaining my education, and my brain was used to being engaged, stretched, and challenged. Parenthood was challenging, no doubt. But the mundane was getting to me and the intensity of my emotions (over what seemed like small things) was mounting.

I saw it all unfolding right in front of me and, despite being a therapist myself, I couldn’t stop or slow what I was experiencing.

Add in other life stresses — like financial constraints, a ridiculously stressful move, my partner completing his own masters education in counselling, and both of us navigating our own mental health challenges — and we were stretched thin. Keeping our heads above water felt like the goal for a long while. Yet, I was beginning to wonder:

How many therapists does it take to thrive (not just survive) through early parenthood? Because there are two of us here and this is just about the hardest thing ever.

As our kiddo got older, and we started finding more life balance outside of being parents, parenthood itself got easier. We found space to create our own definitions of motherhood and fatherhood — because even though we are in a committed relationship and raising the same little human, we are still our own people with super different hopes, needs, and expectations for life, work, love, and parenting.

As you can imagine, this took a lot of hard work — intentional effort, lots of conversations (which weren’t always comfortable), oodles of trial and error, finding ways to build more trust than we ever thought possible, and lots of anxious but necessary ‘letting go’ along the way.

This is just a piece of my story. But this is why I help people navigate some of the wildest, most meaningful experiences of their lives: relationships (with or without kids), parenthood, major life changes, and all that comes with it.