The Most F*cked Up Week as a Mum

The Most F*cked Up Week

Equally full of love and joy

My daughter had hand, foot and mouth.

My husband got sick.

I left them both to attend a two-day work conference.

I dropped my son at daycare before the sun came up, drove away from my unwell family, and

I felt my heart physically ache in my chest. That kind of guilt doesn’t sit in your head — it lives in your body.

Here’s the thing though. I loved the conference.

I loved it, and that made everything so much harder.

I’d missed so much while I was pregnant and then on maternity leave — the connection, the

energy, the feeling of being part of something. Walking back into that room reminded me

who I am outside of nappies and night feeds and the endless beautiful grind of early

motherhood. I felt inspired. I felt ambitious. I felt like myself.

And then I felt immediately, devastatingly guilty for feeling all of that.

At the trivia night, I stayed. I drank. I laughed. I bonded with new team members and felt

something lift in me — my self-esteem, my sense of direction, something I hadn’t realised I’d quietly set down somewhere.

I went to bed that night feeling full and empty at the same time.

Full from the day. Empty because I’d left my people.

At some point in the night I genuinely considered getting in my car and driving home to the hotel. I didn’t. But I thought about it.

Day two: I enjoyed myself again. And yet I spent every single minute of it counting down to going home. My leg didn’t stop tapping. I fidgeted through every session. My body was present and my heart was somewhere else entirely — in my house, with a sick baby and a sick husband and a little boy being dropped at daycare too early.

I ended the conference on a high. Stood up and told the room how glad I was to be back after maternity leave, how much I’d missed this, how ready I was — even naming the burnout and the mum guilt out loud, because it felt true and because someone else in that room needed to hear vulnerability too.

Then I went home and held my family so tight.

The next morning, I went in for surgery.

Endometriosis ablation. Tube removal to reduce my risk of ovarian cancer.

Major surgery. The kind where they ask you to stay an extra night to recover. I came home anyway, because of course I did.

I had planned to spend the day in bed.

Then my son came home from Auskick and climbed in next to me and fell asleep, and for one small moment everything felt okay. And then he woke up and vomited. All over our bed.

The rest of the day was cleaning, and managing, and being needed by a four-year-old and an eleven-month-old who simply could not understand that their mum had been cut open less than 48 hours earlier. My husband — who had been sick all week, who had held everything together while I was away — needed support too. He’d carried it all. He deserved more than I had left to give.

I lifted things I shouldn’t have lifted.

I didn’t stay in bed.

I just couldn’t.

Now it’s late and I’m in bed alone, and my husband is on the couch with my son, on top of a waterproof mattress protector, and the house is finally quiet.

I feel numb. That particular numb that sits just above breaking — where you know if you let yourself actually feel it all, you will fall apart completely. So you just… don’t. Not yet.

I chose this life.

I chose the person I married — the best person I know — and I chose to try for children and I was blessed with them against so many odds. I know that. I hold that.

They are joy. Pure, exhausting, breathtaking joy.

Tomorrow is another day. I’ll try again.

I’m proud of us — my husband and me — for surviving this week as a team. For not losing each other in the middle of it. That’s not nothing. That’s actually everything.

I’m ready for a boring week. A stable, unremarkable, nobody-is-vomiting kind of week.

This is life.

And somehow, despite all of it — I still love mine.

If you’re in a week like this, you’re not alone. Keep going.

My Saturday night: A mix of the things I might need. Toilet paper for tears ( we have no tissues) . Salad and chocolate because why not?

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Originally published on Substack.