THEN

January 3, 2023 | New Years: Comparison Is the Thief of Joy

“As a nearly thirty-year-old woman, I feel like all eyes are on me and my husband, just waiting to see when we’ll start a family, and no one wants to talk about the if.

…At this moment, we don’t have plans to add any tiny humans to our family and I’m not ashamed to say that I love my childless life exactly the way that it currently is. I love the freedom that being childless allows. I love being career focused. I love sleeping in on my Saturday mornings and enjoying my coffee while it’s hot. I love having the gift of time and retaining absolute control over that time to do with as I please.  

The longer that I remain childless, the more difficult it becomes to consider wanting to change my life to something radically different. If the time comes that I’d like to explore expanding our family, then that time will be the most ideal time in my life because it was the time that I chose – even if that’s years after everyone else chose to add children to their families. And if we don’t choose to add any tiny humans to our family and instead continue to lead a childless life with our fur babies, then I’m extremely excited to continue with that path we chose. I refuse to feel guilty for not wanting children at this time in my life or to allow other people to make me feel like I’m any less valuable to society because I’m currently choosing not to be a mom and may not ever choose to be a mom.

Right now, I feel like I’m doing exactly what it is I was meant to be doing, leading the life I am meant to be living, with the people I’m meant to be living it with. All of this to say, I am a big believer in doing whatever it is that feels right for you on whatever timeline feels the best for you. Don’t let comparison steal your joy.” 

NOW

September 27, 2026

Well, for those of you that don’t know, the “if” did turn into the “when”. My husband and I welcomed our son-shine, Eli, in March of this year and I am thrilled (and relieved) to be able to say that I still feel like I’m doing exactly what it is I was meant to be doing, leading the life I am meant to be living, with the people I am meant to be living it with.

At the time that I wrote my January 2023 post, I was 29 years old, and at a very pivotal, exciting, and high-octane part of my career. I was months away from making partner at my firm, I was in the thick of my board work, and I was running full speed ahead. The idea of slowing down for anyone or anything was not on my radar in the slightest. And it remained that way, right up until I was forced to slow down because of my health in May 2024. As I’ve previously alluded to, I have had quite the journey health wise, but it wasn’t until that happened and I had to revisit who I was and what I wanted, that my mindset on motherhood began to shift.

For many high achievers (and I wrote an entire post in 2022 confessing to being one), the achievement is often born out of a childhood full of people pleasing and external validation and this carries through into adulthood. Sometimes in subtle ways and sometimes in not so subtle ways. It wasn’t until my health jumped into the driver’s seat that I had to start asking myself “whose expectation is it?” when I had a commitment that I was pushing myself to go to, when I was taking on another project, and when I was continuing to run at full speed ahead (despite really not being able to run, much less walk – metaphorically speaking – at the best of times).

The more I asked, the clearer it became that I lived most of my life through the expectations that I felt others had placed on me and with a view of disappointing the least number of people. As an aside, one of the most powerful perspectives I came across at the time on disappointment was the idea that you needed to “dis” appoint people from running your life or from dictating your decisions (I really wish I could recall the creator whose video I saw on this so I could tag it here).

During this time, I had started to untangle what I called my true feelings about my desire to be a mum and the “practical realities” of having a child. My anxiety focused so much on the practical realities that it overshadowed my desire. There were a lot of things to be anxious about and having a child is one of the most anxiety inducing things you can do because it’s all uncertain. You have no idea what your child will be like, whether they will arrive physically healthy as well as mentally healthy, or whether you will enjoy being a parent. And once you take the leap, you don’t get to just go back.

I did eventually figure out that I did in fact want a child, but the timing was still not quite right. I’m not embarrassed to admit that I family planned around my career. I took a look at my commitments on my boards, the goals that I had, and where I felt I was at and then started counting out the months. We eventually landed on a timeframe for the earliest we felt we would be okay having a child and started the journey.

Running parallel to this conclusion was the realization that I had been pushing my body further than I should and that I needed to do things at my body’s pace, whether I wanted to or not. I started slowing down, saying “no”, and being more deliberate about where I spent my time and energy. Despite this, spring of 2025 was extremely mentally taxing. I had hit a pretty low point and I was grieving a lot at the time. We’d suffered a loss early in the year, I was grieving a version of myself that I thought I’d never get back, and my entire identity was shifting in a way that I hadn’t planned nor wanted. By the time late spring rolled around, I was at my breaking point and ended up reducing my hours at work in an effort to avoid a full blown breakdown.

Thankfully, that worked and I started digging myself out of my hole just in time to be overjoyed with the news that I was expecting our little son-shine. The news couldn’t have come at a better time and I still remember the giddiness I was overcome with at seeing the faint pink line. If I had ever had doubts about whether I wanted to be a mum or not, that feeling confirmed it for me.

I’ll spare you the rest of my pregnancy timeline and skip to now. I’ve got the most beautiful 6.5 month old and being his mum brings me more joy than I can describe. I didn’t know what people meant when they said that they loved someone so much that it hurt. I always thought of it in the negative way, in the heartbreak kind of way. But motherhood is the first time I’ve experienced it in a positive way. There are moments when he does something and the joy that courses through me is so intense that it almost hurts. Like your heart is going to burst from the love. My favourite moment of this so far was the first time I made him laugh. I had been trying to elicit a larger laugh after his first little chuckles and I was just starting to get a few when I hollered to my hubby to get the camera. He managed to capture the laugh and my reaction – such a priceless moment.

I feel like I’ve stepped into a role and identity that was always supposed to be me, I just didn’t know it for most of my life. So if ever there was a time when I felt like I was doing exactly what it is I was meant to be doing, leading the life I was meant to be living, with the people I was meant to be living it with, now is that time.