I haven't had a day alone since May

This weekend, that changed. An essay on motherhood: what I expected it to look like by this stage, what it actually looks like, homeschooling, neurodivergence and feeling lonely when in company.

When I had my first baby, people would say: it’s so strange taking them home from hospital, isn’t it? It feels like you shouldn’t be allowed.

A lot of people said this, and it never resonated. It made total sense to me that I had grown and birthed this baby and that now, I’d tend to her every need, alone.

I’d planned this part of motherhood in my mind for many years.

It would be just me and my daughter, moving through life at her pace. I’d show her art, play music to her, read poetry aloud and tell her about different flowers.

I bought dozens of secondhand poetry books during pregnancy: Christina Rossetti, Anne Sexton, Wordsworth, Keats - and committed to reading her a poem a day.

It all went to plan.

My husband was with us, at home, for the first two weeks (of self-imposed paternity leave) and he did the cooking, cleaning and made cups of tea.

I loved those first two weeks.

After that, it was just me and my baby. I was with her from the moment she woke until I fed her to sleep at the end of the day. Often, through the night, too.

I don’t remember ever resenting the loss of time to myself, not then.