I didn’t think I needed a new mum plan – I was wrong

My head was pounding to the repetitive echo of wailing. 

I was pacing back-and-forth in our apartment. I tried rocking, shushing, patting – nothing worked.

I looked out of the vast window, which spanned across two walls of our corner flat. I don’t know who or what I was looking for. Living on one of the busiest streets in London, Commercial Road, there was nothing but anonymous, passing traffic.

My husband, Mushfiqur, was at work and my family were over 200 miles north of London. I had a transient lifestyle where there was no community. 

I was truly, truly alone. And the thought terrified me. 

My daughter, Hannah, had been crying non-stop for an hour. She was a newborn and I was a first-time mum. Call me naive, but I never, ever expected it to be like this.

I was so excited when I found out I was pregnant with my first child in August 2017. I was one of those annoying, symptom-light people who only had a slight bit of nausea in the first trimester – it was a breeze.

I had a plan, of sorts. I envisioned a set up where I’d have a nanny that would look after the baby, while I’d continue working as a PR consultant. It would be business as usual.

Being a second-generation British Bangladeshi, most women in my family didn’t go back to work after having children. Or, they would take a substantial gap and revisit their careers when the children were in school. 

I didn’t want that – I had worked hard for over a decade to build my career and I wasn’t planning to give that up. 

Mum had always been so supportive and proud of my career but wasn’t so keen on the idea of me leaving my baby with a stranger as it wasn’t the done thing. Truthfully, neither was I – but I didn’t see any other way. 

I read a few baby books and they suggested routines to get your baby to sleep with some tried and tested methods. It seems naïve now, but I thought I’d have parenthood nailed with the help of these books.

After an easy pregnancy, the labour didn’t go as planned. I lost a lot of blood and needed some emergency treatment.  

The baby books hadn’t prepared me for that.

I remember lying in the high dependency unit, with a drip in each arm and no feeling in my legs, unable to feed my daughter. I asked for some help but I was in a unit with women who had more pressing needs and there weren’t enough staff. 

I remember being told by a nursing assistant, rather pointedly, that I’m a mum now, and I had to figure out how to take care of her. I felt helpless and inadequate because, at that moment, I couldn’t even take care of myself. 

I think that incident led to my anxiety, and the pressure of looking after a small person was overwhelming.  

After leaving the hospital, everything felt difficult. I began to hate the London underground – the idea of having to take a pram down so many stairs stopped me from travelling altogether, unless it was on foot. 

At night, I wouldn’t sleep, Googling why my baby wouldn’t sleep.

For any other aspect of your life – going away to university, starting a new job – there is a settling in period. When you become a mum, there’s no smooth segue into it. You go from not having a child and being able to go out on a whim, sleeping undisturbed through the night, to suddenly being tethered to a baby 24/7.

My friends that didn’t have children would come over and it would punctuate my week. We’d talk about work stuff (or in my case, the career that felt like another world away). We’d go for lunch or we’d just sit in my flat. They were happy to hold Hannah and I was happy for the break. 

But, what I think I really needed was for someone to hold me. I don’t mean literally, but I wanted someone to say: ‘We know this is crap. We know you’re feeling lost and bewildered. We know you don’t feel like yourself. So take the afternoon, I’ll watch the baby and you go to sleep for a few hours. Or take a long, uninterrupted bath. Or have a long cry. Whatever you need right now.’

I couldn’t ask that of friends, as much as I loved them. They had their own jobs and their own lives. I realised I couldn’t rely on them all the time, as much as I would want to.

My husband tried his best to take care of Hannah when he wasn’t working but I’d often find myself rescuing the situation at the first sound of tears. I couldn’t stand the sound of her crying, knowing she wanted me to comfort her.

Eventually, stopping my usual activities and not seeing the usual faces I would day-to-day, led to a deep sense of loneliness. Occasionally, a whole day would go by, and I wouldn’t have had a proper adult conversation beyond, perhaps, pleasantries with the person at the supermarket checkout.

It turns out I wasn’t alone. A study by the British Red Cross found that more than 8 in 10 mums (83%) have feelings of loneliness at some point, though I didn’t know this at the time.

But as I was struggling, my daughter got five-star treatment – and rightly so. She was weighed regularly, checked upon. Every visitor would want to cuddle her – but what about some comfort for me? 

My health visitor, who would come see me every few weeks after I gave birth, suggested I speak to a therapist, if I felt comfortable. 

I always felt therapy was for people who were severely depressed and saw no other option but I agreed to go to talking therapy and was referred via the NHS. 

I soon realised the best thing about talking to a therapist was that I was talking to someone I didn’t know, and wouldn’t judge. He just listened, and it helped. 

I had weekly calls for about six weeks, and it felt great to do something that was purely just for me.

I began delegating more to my husband and we moved to the suburbs. I attended all the playgroups I could find and I found a tribe of other mums who I’m still friends with now.

My husband and I eventually moved back up north, where our families live, and I gave birth to my son in March 2020, just as the world went into lockdown. 

I was a lot more emotionally ready the second time around and I didn’t mourn my career the way I did when I first became a mum.

In terms of career, I took a huge step back – I decided I didn’t want to be away from my kids while they were so small. 

Turns out it was the best thing I could have done – my career break led to something amazing.

I wrote a book called The Secret Diary of a Bengali Mum, which chronicles all the experiences I went through. 

It’s an unfiltered story about what it’s really like when you become a mum.

The anxiety, the loneliness, but I also wanted to show that, though it doesn’t seem like it at the time, you do get through it. 

Mums, there’s no shame in admitting you’re lonely and need some help. It could change your entire life. 

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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