Being a mum has taught me so much. Taught me how much it is possible to love someone and how little I knew about love and sacrifice before Harry came along.

I know, I know, I’m not supposed to say that. I’m supposed to keep on about how amazing it is and how I wouldn’t change it for the world. And it is. And I wouldn’t.

I became a mum at 23. I was nowhere near ready to look after another human being, I could barely look after myself. Becoming a mum forced me to grow up and quickly at that.

Being a mum means I can’t be selfish. I can be spontaneous anymore, not that I ever really was, but before Harry, I had that option. I can’t just wake up in the morning and decide I want to go out all day, I can just decide to nip to the pub with friends after work because I need to make sure someone is there for Harry. I always need to have things planned well in advance and even then they might not happen because my babysitter falls through or Harry becomes ill. My leaving the house depends on so much now, where it never used to depend on anything.

When I became a mum, I was over the moon, but I couldn’t help feeling that I had lost my freedom.

I also really struggled with finding a balance between ‘Mummy’ and ‘Kat’. For so long I didn’t understand that there was a difference. But there is, and I am more than just Mummy. I am also more than just Kat but for the longest time I felt like I had changed into a mummy, I had completely lost my identity. I still struggle with the balance sometimes but I am making more of an effort to really embrace the Kat in me. Work certainly helps with that, but I’m pretty sure that my work friends are sick of hearing my Harry stories because let’s face it, I don’t really have much else to take about.

The pressure to be a perfect mum made parenting so much harder. I had pressure from right when I first found out I was pregnant. But its never good enough. Breastfeed, bottle feed, wean at 4 months, wait until 6 months, don’t use this, don’t do that.

And then there is the money side of it. Kids are expensive. Like really expensive. It’s not just the nappies and wipes and milk and clothes, it’s the childcare fees and the gas bill that shoots up because you have to now keep your house at a certain temperature to make sure the baby is healthy. It’s not having enough money to buy yourself the desperately needed clothes because once again your child has gone through a growth spurt and none of his clothes fit him.

If we didn’t have Harry, Sam and I would be in such a better situation financially. Thankfully Harry now gets free hours at nursery and the bill is slowly decreasing, but when I first went back to work I was pretty much working to pay his childcare. I will always be a big advocate for nursery and would never dream about taking Harry out of nursery because they have truly been and continue to be an amazing support for not only Harry but us as well as parents who clearly have no idea what we are doing. But gosh it’s expensive.

I know this post has seemed really negative about being a parent, but I don’t want to lie. I don’t want to pretend being a mum is all rainbows and kittens because it really isn’t. There are some days when I sit there and think, I just can’t do this anymore. Your life is not your own anymore and its something that when thinking about having a child you really have to be willing to accept.

There are some truly magical moments being a mum, and these make the sucky moments worth it.

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WRITTEN BY KAT HUGGINS FOR HER BLOG, RAISING HARRY.