(Part I—this is part of a series)

Honest lessons from my motherhood journey—what no one told me, the emotional challenges I faced as a first-time mom, and what I’m still learning along the way.

This—being a mother—is the hardest job on Earth. Hands down. No joke.
And no one really talks about how hard it actually is.

I didn’t know.
Not when I was dreaming of becoming a mother during those early years of marriage.
Not when I was imagining what kind of mom I’d be—probably a “work outside the home” mom, not the stay-at-home kind.

But life had different plans.

I didn’t know the road to pregnancy would stretch so long, so emotionally layered, that my ideas of motherhood would evolve with every twist. The chapter of becoming a mother? It was filled with tears, angst, stress, anxiety, jealousy, excitement, and… yes, more stress. Because it just wasn’t happening.

Eventually, I sat across from a reproductive endocrinologist who told me I had endometriosis. That, along with my age, was likely the reason I wasn’t conceiving. I was otherwise healthy—eating well, exercising, practicing and teaching yoga. I was even working my dream job as a Cardiac Rehab Nurse. Still, no baby.

Maybe it was the pressure I was under—the high-cost-of-living, commuter-heavy, hustle-hard life I was living in the Bay Area. I used to joke that I drove better than the Uber drivers in San Francisco. I could navigate those streets like a pro—but that daily stress? It piles on your body.

Then… I was pregnant.
(Still deciding when and how much of that pregnancy story I want to share.)

But once I was, something shifted.
Mama Bear Mode kicked in.

I became protective—not just of my body, but of my energy. I withdrew, a little, from the world. Emotionally, psychologically, mentally—I’d already been through so much to get to this point, and I wasn’t willing to risk it.

Protect.
That was the first lesson I learned.

I didn’t even feel like a “mama” yet at the time, but looking back? All the signs were there. It started with that single word.

Protect.

It’s a word I still think about every day in parenting.
But protect from what, exactly?
Why do I feel the need to stand guard, even when there are no literal bears around?

It’s a question I continue to ask myself.

Maybe that’s the hidden job of a mother: to guard the unseen.
Not just from harm, but from noise, from pressure, from the parts of life that might dim our children’s light before they’ve even learned how to shine.

This is just the beginning.
More soon…

Featured image by Stella Musleh Photography.