I Used to Think Motherhood Was a Problem to Solve and it Left Me Chronically Exhausted.

I’m Lou and I solve problems.

I’m a mum of three strong-willed children, including twins. I’m a recently solo parent. And by trade, I’m a professional problem-solver.

From building hostels in Indonesia, to running business-critical projects for the Ministry of Justice, I’ve built a career on making things work. Give me your vision and I’ll make it real. Give me a problem and I’ll solve it.

For years, that’s how I approached motherhood.

As one ever-evolving, unrelenting problem to solve.

I went all in. Down every 2am rabbit hole. Every system. Every optimisation. There wasn’t a parenting challenge without a practical solution or a perfect product. I became a fountain of knowledge, equipped with the spreadsheets to prove it.

And I was chronically exhausted.

I was doing a lot of parenting. But I was rarely just being a parent.

It didn’t help that I got off to a rocky start. An unexpected pregnancy. Birth trauma. A discriminatory redundancy on maternity leave. A global pandemic. A baby who never slept and a partner who, mostly said the right things but did very little.

Still, I pushed forward.

University. Another baby?

I fell pregnant with our twins while juggling work, study, a three-year-old and relentless morning sickness. Then came the fight for the birth I wanted as a high-risk pregnancy with a previous C-section. I researched. I advocated. I stood my ground. And I’m proud and grateful to say I got the healing birth I’d hoped for.

For a while, there was calm and contentment.

On my very first day back from maternity leave, my daughter had her first seizure.

Down the rabbit hole again. Research. Advocacy. Appointments. Answers.

Shortly after, our childcare collapsed and we couldn’t find an affordable alternative for two. Trust me, I tried. My partner refused to flex his work. So I said goodbye to the promise of promotion and the brief return to life outside the domestic sphere, and started rebuilding again from our bedroom. Grafting at dawn, during naps and late into the night with one-year-old twins at home, taking on whatever digital work I could find.

After weeks of side-hustle gigs as the main course, I finally secured freelance work that used my professional skills.

I felt capable. Productive. Resilient. Even proud of myself for a while.

But I was completely running on fumes. Distracted, burnt-out and never fully present with my children.

I could overcome any challenge motherhood threw at me. But at what cost? And what was I trying to prove and to whom?

It dawned on me then that I’d spent my life bringing other people’s visions to life, yet I’d rarely been intentional about my own. I was moving from one challenge to the next, overcoming each with tenacity and skill, but never pausing to experience the moment or to question where I was heading and why.

Less than a year ago, I ended my eight-year relationship with the father of my children. The rational reasons are still unfolding in hindsight, but I knew it was right. The certainty came from somewhere deeper, a quiet knowing that couldn’t be ignored, no matter how hard I tried to suppress it. It was the most difficult and intentional decision I’ve ever made.

It felt like shedding a skin that no longer fit and returning to myself.

There have been challenges since, of course. And in the early days, there was fear. A lot of fear.

But there has also been joy. Lightness. Space to breathe.

And I’ve felt more alive in my life than ever before. More alive, even, than the ‘glory days’ of my twenties spent travelling the world.

For the first time, I don’t feel like I’m performing motherhood.

I’m just living it.

These days, the problems I’m solving look different. They’re no longer crises to survive, but questions about how I want to live.

• How do I find outlets for my creativity? Enter the blog.

• How do I support my mental health and wellbeing?

• How do I create more connection and spontaneity with my kids?

• What kind of life do I actually want to create?

• And what kind of mother am I when I only need to rise to meet my own expectations?

I’m seven years into motherhood now. I’ve done the deep dives. The grunt work. The optimisation. I’m settling into something softer. But some of you are just starting out. And there are of course, problems to solve. Sleep. Feeding. Childcare. Work. Money. The invisible load that keeps you up at night.

This blog is a space to give voice to the unseen parts of motherhood and to share what I’ve learned, so you can save yourself some of the heavy lifting.

Not so you can do more.

Not so you can take up someone else’s slack.

But so you can spend more time with yourself. Or with your children.

Because our children won’t look back and say, “My mum was so…..efficient.” They’ll remember how it felt when we were with them, and whether we really were.