I became a mother without really knowing what motherhood looked like up close.
Not in the gentle, guided way some women do.
There wasn’t a blueprint handed to me.
No long conversations preparing me for breastfeeding, recovery, emotional overwhelm, or the quiet identity shift that happens after you become someone’s mother.
A lot of my early motherhood years felt like figuring things out while already drowning in them.
And because I had spent so much of my life learning how to survive independently, I genuinely thought doing everything alone was normal.
Maybe even expected.
So when people offered help, I struggled to accept it.
Not because I didn’t need it.
But because I didn’t know how.
I think there’s a certain kind of loneliness that happens when you become a mother while still learning how to receive care yourself.
You become the caretaker before fully understanding what being cared for even feels like.
I remember when I first started breastfeeding, I was honestly lost.
But my sister-in-law gently guided me.
She shared the benefits of breastfeeding with me.
She taught me foods that could help with milk production.
Small things, maybe.
But when you’re overwhelmed and trying to keep a tiny human alive, small kindnesses become enormous.
My mother-in-law and father-in-law were always offering help too.
Cooking.
Watching the kids.
Making things easier.
But for the longest time, I kept declining.
I wasn’t used to people showing up for me like that.
Some part of me still believed that needing help meant I was failing.
So I kept trying to carry everything myself.
Until eventually, slowly, motherhood softened me enough to realise:
accepting help is not weakness.
It’s trust.
And trust takes time when you grew up believing survival depended on handling everything alone.
I think one of the moments I’ll always remember happened after my fourth child was born.
I was still in confinement when my husband had to leave for reservist.
And without hesitation, my PIL came over and stayed with us.
They helped cook.
They helped send the older kids to school.
They helped carry the household when my body was still healing.
And I remember quietly realising something that felt unfamiliar to me at the time:
I wasn’t doing this alone.
Even now, that memory still sits gently in my heart.
Because sometimes healing doesn’t arrive loudly.
Sometimes it arrives through warm meals.
Through someone helping with the school run.
Through people who continue offering help even after you’ve rejected it many times before.
I think motherhood changed me in many ways.
But one of the biggest was this:
it slowly taught me that being supported does not make you less strong.
Sometimes, it finally allows you to rest enough to become soft again.
Ummi Noi