I always wanted to have a family but I wasn’t too particular about when. Though I must admit, as I’ve matured and have now had a baby I can see why that outdated, toxic advice to have babies as young as possible ever existed. Growing babies is exhausting. Then again, if you are too young perhaps you may not be ready, or even have found someone to have a baby with (should you not want to have one on your own). It is a double edged sword. Either way, given I would have liked to have had children at some point, and thanks to my biology I knew it would probably have to be me who grows and births the baby (there’s no fifty/fifty with mother nature), all in all having a baby was a plausible reality at some point in my life.

Up until motherhood, I waxed and waned between the kind of lifestyle I wanted. I’m sure most women do. We want to be successful, have a thriving career but we also want to be housewives, do nothing and be a woman who is well kept by our partners….and everything else in between. We want it all. But unfortunately what ‘all’ consists of is contradictory; how do I manage to have a thriving career AND be one of those ‘ladies who lunch’. How can I be independent but also completely reliant on a trusting, loving partner…and on that note… where exactly do I find a trusting, loving partner who wouldn't mind me being reliant as and when it suits me? And it doesn’t help that what we want changes from moment to moment… or is this really just me? Can’t say I have any shame even if it is. I love feeling everything and desiring everything.

When young, the possibility of having children was far into the future. Should I be fortunate enough to not only be in a position to get pregnant with someone I love and care about, but also to be able to get pregnant at all (I’m not the presumptuous kind) it was way off in the future. And I knew when the time came I would have to take a career break in some shape or form. And I knew when I resume my career, it will be completely different post babies. But it wasn’t now. That was the future. And when the future comes, it’ll be fine. Not something I need to think about now.

I didn’t have any particular kind of plan for the position I wanted to be in before I had children either, I know some people do. But I didn’t think so much regarding at which point in my career I would have children because for me, my career was a living organism with no end goal and therefore no real time sensitive points. I’m ambitious and driven, but I’m not controlling. I want to do ‘this’ and have ‘that’ but I’m not going to beat myself about it if I’m ‘this’ many years old and still don’t have ‘that’ (as I once mentioned in 30 life lessons from turning 30); the sign posts can change but the goal doesn’t as they say. And that’s not because I’m laid back which is how it's often misinterpreted. It’s because I understand I’ve got to work with life, not against it. Don’t get me wrong, I have many, many…and I mean many,  frustrating moments. But I do my best to not let those moments affect my relationship with the bigger picture or the here and now. 

And so, after having been engaged for one year and married for three, Sahir and I decided to try for a baby. I remember when I first found out I was pregnant, it was an ineffable experience. Because finally, my ‘far into the future baby’ was real. Not to mention my life-long gripped fear of childbirth now right around the corner (I’ll leave my birth story for another time. But in the words of practically every woman, regardless of how difficult or easy her birth has been, it was eventually totally ‘fine’. Women truly are magical.)

During the first trimester I didn’t think much about anything, especially as I was experiencing every pregnancy symptom under the sun, and as we all know the first twelve weeks are the most sensitive when anything can happen. Again…I’m not the presumptuous kind. 

When I entered my second trimester, that’s when I started to think about my career progression. I was in the midst of trying to put together a career path with my Director just before I became pregnant, and I wasn’t very confident that much of that would get firmed up, if any, over the next six months before I went on maternity leave. And even if it did and I took a 12 month break, who knows how the conditions might change when I return.

I’m very fortunate to be part of a company and work with a leadership team who do not see pregnancy as a hindrance (I’ve come across my fair share of men of the patriarchy). I had no fear or hesitation sharing that I was pregnant, and I had no fear around my job being at risk (at that point in time anyway. I'm due to return from maternity leave around September so I guess we'll find out). What I did have was a lot of frustration around how on Earth do I now push my career forward when I’m clearly going to need a ‘bit’ of a break from it. I know there are women who go straight back to work after having a baby. I mean…going by my experience of my first ever post-partum, these women are supernatural to be at their desks straight away. But I was hoping to take out at least six months if not 12 (a real luxury either way) to be with my baby and adjust to, as well as enjoy, motherhood. 

If you’re only going to have one baby, I suppose this one career interruption is not so bad. But I’m hoping to have three (maybe four if we’re lucky enough. I’d love a big family). So… what is the career math behind that? 

I know there are so many successful women who have children. So we know it’s possible. And even if it transpired that a lot of successful, career oriented women didn’t have children (or barely had a relationship with their children as can often be the case), that’s not to say it wasn’t possible. But it definitely isn’t going to be smooth sailing.

And in all fairness, no kind of career building towards whatever ‘successful’ means to you is smooth sailing (success is subjective, let's not forget). Even for men. But at least as a man you don’t need to take breaks from your career to have a family. Even paternity leave doesn’t equate to the kind of interruption maternity leave introduces (and that’s assuming your partner wants to take leave or their company even offers the possibility). And see the thing is, I know we're living in an age of a new generation of men, especially that of Pakistani men living in the West. Unlike the previous generation, there are more men today who support their women. There are men who will cook, clean, do the laundry, the shopping and play an active, hands-on role in raising their children (I don’t think they will do everything on that list and at the same time the way women have to, but I guess even Rome wasn’t built in a day). However, despite how involved your other half may be, they are not the ones going on stretches of maternity leave after the first child, then the second, then the third. They’re able to tackle the not-so-smooth-sailing career challenges without any interruptions so their progression is fluid, allowing one opportunity to organically make way for the other.    

And the reason why these interruptions (may) implicitly matter, is because every time you go back to work it will almost be like having to start from zero again to rebuild your outstanding track record and pray that the stars align for there to be progression possibilities when you’re back from maternity leave. I’m aware this may not always be the case, after all it’s all relative and everyone’s journey and career experience is different, but there’s no denying that maternity leave puts a temporary pause on what was once a full steam ahead operation.

I once had a manager in one of my previous companies tell me what I did a year ago or even six months ago, was irrelevant. I have to prove myself every month, through every opportunity before I can progress. I agree with the latter, not the former.

I couldn’t quite make out whether they thought this way because they came from a sales background (go figure), were trying to pacify me from the career progression I was asking for (predictable. After that conversation I knew it wasn’t coming so I left) or whether they genuinely thought this way (which I didn’t agree with, another reason to leave. Because then how do you decide where to draw the line before you incentivise and help your employee grow? As a woman who has had an eclectic career, I’ve learned that the not so great employers use your ambition against you; expecting you to stay in one place and wait it out - which is all well and good if you have given your employee a clear path of progression. And if they haven’t, they somehow still expect you to stay and penalise your drive as a sign of not being able to ‘commit’.) In a professional culture of this kind, having babies and maternity breaks will bleed your career into a slow coma. And then people wonder why there are so few women who get ahead.

Then there is the flip side. The companies, leadership and teams who would bend over backwards to keep you, keep you on your career path, and make your transition into motherhood as baggage free as possible. 

And then there are the in-betweeners. There is no real material support or career progression on paper, but they mean well and they are trying.

Regardless of what values your company’s marketing team have plastered on their website to come across as an upstanding organisation, the truth emerges when you’re about to become a mother. At best, all any woman can hope for is not having to fight once again for what she has tirelessly worked so hard for pre-baby.  

I don’t feel any different having become a mother (other than sleep deprived). I know there are women who lose themselves along the way with whom I empathise with, but that has not been my reality. I did the hard work of rebuilding and reconnecting with myself and coming into my own as a woman from the ages of 25 - 30. (Although, what's interesting to note is that even though I haven't lost my way, a baby inevitability changes the dynamics of all relationships it touches so even if I haven't changed, I may still be caught up in this whirlwind as other people around me change.) And so whilst I settle into this new role of a mother, and add it to my current list of roles which formulate my identity, I’m already preparing for the new role and identity of a ‘working mother’, and of being a colleague who is now a mother. 

Some mothers have no choice but to work. For some mothers it’s their choice to want to go back to work. And then some are in limbo; wanting to go back but then kind of not wanting to go back. It’s a real luxury to be in the latter two categories. Irrespective of these challenges, or maybe even because of these challenges (because the more challenges you have can actually equate to the more options you have) I love being a woman.

And whatever category we fall under, some truths remain. And they are; Women are desperately needed in the workplace to help introduce a new way of looking at the world, to help reshape and elevate how much profit a company makes and how it makes it. For both women and men, having children truly is a blessing. And finally...women truly are magic.

Another life lesson or two…