The Woman I Was, the Mother I Am: A Reflection on Losing Myself After Baby

There’s a photo I can’t stop looking at lately. It’s from my honeymoon in Barcelona, just before the sun dipped behind the city’s skyline. My hair is wild, lips painted deep red, and I’m laughing with my whole body like I’ve just heard the funniest joke in the world. I don’t remember what was said that day, but I remember her. That woman in the photo? She was electric.

Now, I can barely find her.

After my daughter was born, the vibrant pieces of myself seemed to scatter, like beads from a necklace that snapped under the weight of something heavy. The transition into motherhood was like stepping into a role I had studied but never fully understood. I knew the basics — diapers, sleepless nights, lullabies — but nobody warned me about the quiet erosion of identity that would come with it.

It started with the obvious changes: My body felt foreign, stretched and reshaped in ways I wasn’t ready to embrace. My days blurred into an endless loop of feeding, changing, and trying to figure out if I was doing any of it right. But what hit hardest was the shift I couldn’t name — the moment I realized that the woman I had spent 30-some years becoming had slipped away, almost imperceptibly, and I didn’t know where to find her.

I love my daughter with a ferocity I didn’t know was possible. But there’s a tension in motherhood that no one talks about enough: the duality of deep love and profound loss. It feels selfish to mourn who I was when I’ve been gifted something so precious, but there’s a part of me that quietly aches for her.

She was bold and curious, chasing dreams that felt bigger than her tiny apartment and student loans. She read poetry late into the night, went dancing with friends until her feet blistered, and believed that the world would always bend to her ambitions. She wore leather jackets and winged eyeliner and swore she’d never lose herself in someone else — not even in a partner, not even in a child.

But now, there are days I feel like a shadow, watching my reflection in the bathroom mirror as I wipe spit-up off my shoulder and wonder if I’ll ever feel that vibrancy again.

I’ve tried to put words to this identity crisis, but it’s hard to articulate to anyone who hasn’t felt it themselves. When I tell people I don’t feel like myself, they rush to reassure me: “You’ll bounce back.” “This is just a phase.” “You’re still you.”

But am I?

The truth is, motherhood changed me, and maybe that’s okay. Maybe the point isn’t to find my old self but to weave her into this new chapter.

So, I’ve started asking myself a different question: What does it mean to be me now?

Some days, the answer feels elusive, but other days, it comes in flashes. It’s in the way my daughter looks at me, her tiny hands gripping my finger as if I’m the whole world. It’s in the moments I steal for myself — the first sip of coffee when the house is still quiet, the book I pick up after she’s asleep, even the way I still swipe on red lipstick before heading out to the grocery store.

I’ve realized that becoming a mother didn’t erase me; it expanded me. It forced me to confront parts of myself I didn’t know existed — my resilience, my capacity for love, and yes, even my grief.

I’m learning to hold space for both. To grieve and celebrate. To miss who I was while embracing who I’m becoming. And maybe that’s the most radical act of self-love I can offer myself right now: permission to be both lost and found.

That photo of me in Barcelona still sits on my dresser, a quiet reminder of the woman I was. But next to it, there’s a new picture — one of me holding my daughter, her cheek pressed against mine as we watch the sun set behind our own little skyline.

I’m not the same woman anymore. I never will be. And maybe that’s the point.