Pamela, like so many women has many roles in life: she is a career woman, a wife, a mother. The juggle and struggle is real. But she has always found a way to find herself within these roles and listen to her desires, despite of what she thought or other people think is “best”. I think that is very inspiring and that’s why I would love for you to meet Pamela, a London mom, and her beautiful daughter Vicky.

I always knew that I wanted to be a mummy. When I was younger I thought I’d have my first child by the time I am 30 years old – that’s when my mum had me and my grandmother had my mum, so I kind of thought that this was how things should be for me as well.

The Career Woman

I also always knew that I wanted a career. Ever since I left uni and started to work, my job was very important to me. Too important, probably as I was prioritising it over almost everything. And whilst I was busy chasing my career I suddenly hit 30. But even though I was in a long-term relationship I didn’t feel ready. Like at all. I was loving my job, still wanted to achieve so much and travel the world. So I decided 35 was the new 30 for me.

In 2012 my employer at the time offered to send me on a secondment to the UK. I was 31 then, an age where most of my friends were settling down, getting married and started families. I accepted and shortly after I relocated to London, leaving my boyfriend of 7 years behind in Germany and started a long-distance relationship. If we were meant to be, our relationship would be able to withstand this, I thought. To cut a long story short: it didn’t.

The Wife

Not long afterwards I met my now husband and somehow the idea of having a baby got less scary. We wanted to start a family, however my career was still very important to me and I just wanted to take one more step on the career ladder before becoming a mummy. So shortly after our wedding I started a new job.

I really enjoyed the new role but when my manager left the company after a few months and the whole management team got swapped, the atmosphere in the company changed for the worse and I seriously questioned if it was worth putting off starting a family for a company that didn’t really care about the people working for them.

The Mother

However, when I fell pregnant shortly after, whilst being overjoyed I still felt guilty towards my employer. I was dreading to tell them for a long time, but when it got more and more difficult to hide my bump, there was no way out. By that time the atmosphere in the company had tensed so much that I decided to not come back after my maternity leave but find myself a new job in a company with a culture that would suit me better. This decision felt both scary and liberating at the same time, but it was probably a blessing as this way I was going to be able to fully focus on my baby and not be tempted to constantly check my emails, trying to keep on top of things etc.

Our daughter Victoria was born on the 30^th of August 2017 and to us she couldn’t be more perfect (well…she would be even more perfect if she slept better at night but #mumlife I guess, right?) Sometimes I still can’t believe that she is here now and that she’ll be a part of our lives forever. The first few weeks with her were incredibly hard as I had some birth related complications. All I really wanted was to enjoy the time with my little baby girl but at the same time I was in so much pain that even getting up at night to pick her up for a feed was agony. I don’t think I had postnatal depression, but I sure wasn’t far from it. But once I felt physically better I started to really enjoy the time with my baby. I take her to different baby classes, we go for walks in the park, meet up with other mummies – time just really flies, and it never seems to get boring to see my baby grow and learn new things every day.

The Working Mom

I originally planned to go back to work full time around April/May this year when Vicky will be around seven months old. I have recently started looking into different opportunities and already had my first interview. Leaving the house in business attire and a normal handbag without all the baby equipment felt very strange. The interview went really well, and my pre-baby self would have said that this role would be the perfect next step for my career. But when I thought about what taking this job actually meant, I realised that I couldn’t do it.

The requirements of long hours and travel were just too much. It would mean dropping off my baby girl at nursery early in the morning and picking her up just in time to give her dinner and put her down to sleep. What if she got ill and can’t go to nursery, or when I have to travel or work late unexpectedly? My family is in Germany, my husband’s parents live in Nigeria, so there isn’t really anyone who can help us out looking after her. When I was pregnant I naively thought that I would be able to juggle that all. That I wouldn’t mind leaving her with someone else whilst I went back to work. I realise now that the sacrifice would be too big for me at this stage.

I do have so much respect for all these working mummies (and daddies) out there as I now fully appreciate how hard it is to leave your little one for the day. I am however just not ready yet to leave her with someone else 5 days a week. I can’t just live for my job anymore as I have a responsibility for my daughter.

Also read Working Mom Shannon’s Day in a Life!

This is me now

Since becoming a mummy my priorities and my definition of happiness have changed and a career is not on top of my list anymore. Sure, I want to go back to work into a job that challenges me, but my number one priority will now have to be my baby girl. So I have revised my plan and I am now looking for a part-time or somewhat more flexible role that still challenges me but allows me to spend some time during the week with my little daughter. These roles seem to be rare unfortunately, but I am not giving up hope that there is a job out there for me somewhere that works for us as a family. And when she is a bit older there’s still enough time to focus on my career again.

So for now I will enjoy my time at home with my baby and will trust that everything will fall into place somehow.

If you’d like to follow Vicky and me on Instagram you can find us @my_mixed_up_world. We’d love to see you.Taking daily snaps of her has become somewhat of an addiction.

Love, Pamela