Life feels so hopeful

Volume 10 of Unspoken Words: Ellie Nova

Welcome to the Unspoken Words series, held at Being in Motherhood. This series focuses on giving mothers space to share their unspoken words about motherhood; the things that are hard, taboo, scary to admit, etc., I ask mothers to share with me and I share them with you.

If you want to share you own words, click here to fill out the form.

I am excited to introduce

Ellie Nova

, you can connect with her here.

About Ellie

I live in Lewes with my husband and our three year old son River. The past four years have been a time of huge change for me: I quit my job in fundraising and did an MA in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths; something I'd wanted to do for 10 years. I got married. Quit drinking (I'm 4 years sober). Got pregnant - then the pandemic hit! Gave birth during lockdown in November 2020.

And in October last year we moved out of London to Lewes - a really creative, eco-minded, vibrant and beautiful town in East Sussex that we love. I'm currently training to be a sober coach and support people to break free from alcohol, build a loving relationship with themselves and live the life they were truly meant to live. Alchemising what I've been through to help others!

What is one thing that is hard for you to admit about motherhood?

How much grief has been a part of this experience. Mostly grief for what I thought motherhood would be like. It started from River's birth - I had a homebirth, which is what I wanted, but the so-called golden hour and immediate post-partum period was not what I had expected.

I had hoped it would be a time for feeling held and looked after but I felt very let down by my doula. Having lost my mother when I was 14 I had hoped that this would be a time of ME finally being looked after, especially when I was so vulnerable. But it was not to be and I cried a lot in those first few weeks, grieving that.

There's also been huge amounts of grief for the experience of these early years of motherhood- again, it's not been what I expected, it's been so so much harder than I ever could have imagined (not least because my son woke me up 1 - 2 hours a night until I finally night-weaned him when he was 2.5 years old). I spent so much of that time beating myself up and asking what's wrong with me?, why am I finding it so hard?, telling myself no one else seemed to find it as hard as I did.

What is another thing that is hard for you to admit about motherhood?

On the same theme of grief: having a child has impacted my relationship with my husband so much. He had a mental health crisis when River was just 4 weeks old and so I had to be strong and support him from that point on very intensively for about 6 months.

And then of course, 2.5 years of sleep deprivation made me so angry and distressed. I didn't feel safe and loving and the love I was able to feel was all poured into my son. People say your heart just gets bigger when you have a child and you make space, but that's not what I've found at all.

And I feel very alone in how my relationship with my husband has suffered because I don't really hear people talk about it. I expected it to be hard for the first few months but then we'd find one another again. Things are much better now but I still feel like our relationship is totally different and will take so much work and time to be back to anything like it was before. I feel so much grief and sadness when I look at our wedding pictures because we were so in love and it's like looking at a completely different person, in a different world.

Share any other thoughts that are hard for you to admit about motherhood.

That I feel jealousy and anger and (yep, once again) grief when people I know get pregnant with a second child or birth a second child. Because I always thought we would have two children but it's just been so hard, we have no plans to have a second. That's been a real journey for me.

What comes up when I see people having a second children is the belief that they must have found motherhood easier than me, and I feel like it isn't fair - that that was 'supposed' to be me - happy in motherhood, adjusting to it all, loving it all, and then having a second. I have so much more acceptance of it now but as I say, that jealousy and anger and grief still pops up - and I feel ashamed of that. Like I should be able to say 'congratulations!' and mean it.

What truth(s) has motherhood taught you?

How my whole life I’d been prepared to excel academically and in the workplace, and no one had ever prepared me for motherhood. I'd been trained to do research, write essays, work hard, and get A*s. NONE of that is remotely useful in motherhood and has caused me a lot of suffering - trying to do it all 'right' and being quite distraught at the messiness of it all, and how invisible this work feels, even though it's the hardest work I've ever done.

And even deeper than that I realise how, over the 33 years before giving birth, the belief I had internalised was that motherhood isn’t valuable, that work is where your worthiness comes from. It's an ongoing journey for me in bringing that in for myself, and changing that belief - but it's hard, when our capitalist patriarchal culture doesn't send us the message that it's valuable. It's like motherhood shouldn't affect you - you have a baby, take a year off and then get back to work as if nothing has happened. Thank god we're now learning about matrescence and there are so many powerful voices questioning these notions.

Also, can you believe Substack has just underlined with red dots the word 'matrescence'?? Not recognising it as a word!

(Emma here, sadly I can, Substack is a US company, and I am finding this term of matrescence seems to be more talked about in the UK, so thank you to all you UK mamas for bringing it more into my awareness, because I only heard of it once or twice before getting on this platform).

What does it feel like to be in motherhood in this season?

Since River turned 2.5 I fee like, after a long, long winter in my matrescence journey, I am finally emerging into spring. I found the baby/early toddler stage so chaotic and stressful and, of course, surviving on broken sleep. But since I've had my sleep back I feel so much better and that critical voice saying 'why do you find this so hard? what's wrong with you?' rarely pops up because it's SO much better now.

River is so adorable and fun and he'll sit down in restaurants and on the train, which he would never do before - I was always the mum inhaling my food then running round after him, feeling like everyone was staring at me disapprovingly! We can go for walks on the nature reserve and have little chats and it's wonderful.

And because of getting enough sleep, I've been able to start my career again (can't believe I thought I'd be able to do that when he was a year old...) and am training to be a sober coach. I'm reading, writing, and doing so much more of the things that light me up. Life feels so hopeful and I have so much more energy.

What advice, words up support, or encouragement would you give to other mothers out there?

Ah - the words I have told myself since Day 1 and really try to believe: if you're finding it hard, impossibly hard, it's because it IS hard.

Modern motherhood puts impossible expectations on mothers, we have so little support, so few wise women to guide us, so little community... Of COURSE it's hard. There is nothing wrong with you. You are doing amazing.

Is there anything else you feel called to share about your experience of motherhood?

I feel like I've been quite negative and angry in everything I've shared! I feel like I want to put a bow on it and say something positive like 'but it's all worth it...' and yet that feels totally inauthentic and untrue.

So....I will say that I am so, SO grateful that mothers of our generation are now sharing with each other the truth of what modern motherhood is like. I think previous generations just had to push it all down and 'get on with it', and even now, they don't feel they can share how hard it was. It makes me feel so much less alone, so normal, to know that other mothers feel the way I do.

And even if we don't have the community so many of us long for - I wish all my friends lived in the same town as me! - I'm grateful for messages and voice notes and women's circles and spaces like this where we can share our experiences and share our love for one another. It eases things, just a little.

Thank you Ellie for sharing your words with us.

This one hit differently for me, because there is so much of this I could have written. I am swimming in your hope, we start night weaning in a few days and I am ready to get some sleep and enter my spring of matresence, as Ellie so beautifully put it.

I feel called to share how hard becoming a mother and caring for a little being was on my marriage. There were many times I thought I would leave, and other times I wasn’t sure we would make it. Things have shifted with a lot of intentional communication. This is a topic I definitely want to bring into Motherhood Musings, because know I feel we are not talking about it enough.

Kylie-Ann

your words will be shared next!

Love,

Emma

Please share in the comments or reply to this email your own reflections and/or support of Ellie sharing her words.

This is a space where we can say the hard things about motherhood and life, while lifting each other up in love and support. I have found this community of mothers to be extremely compassionate and welcoming.

I invite you to share this post with a mother who may needs these reminders.

If you are looking for more of the Unspoken Words series, you can find other pieces here.