I worked right up to when I went into labour – filming, researching, sending my out-of-office the day before my waters broke. I thought I had ticked all the boxes: a permanent position to return to, familiarity, stability, a plan.
Then I had a baby. A colicky baby who did not sleep. Suddenly, I was out of my depth in a “job” that was nothing like my old one, with no control, no certainty, and no way to work harder for a result.
“Sometimes I look in the mirror – hair unwashed, red-eyed, running late again – and wonder: who would sign up for this?”
I realised I needed support and moved back to WA to be near my mum. My boss said it wouldn’t work, I had to be in Sydney, in person.
I hung up the phone and felt my whole identity crack. The formula I built my life around – work hard, be rewarded – no longer applied.
I was a new mum, in a new life, with no job and no idea who I was any more. My world shrank to contact naps, feeding schedules and survival mode.
My postpartum anxiety was crippling. My partner only had two weeks of paid leave before he had to go back full-time to support us.
I called helpline after helpline, desperate for guidance, sitting on hold until I’d hang up in tears. Wait lists for months. Same with Centrelink – hours on hold.
It is the most challenging thing to advocate for yourself and your baby while you’re sleep-deprived and running on adrenaline.
Everyone said, “enjoy it, it goes so fast,” but I did not enjoy the newborn phase.
It was so hard, and it breaks my heart thinking back on how I felt. I spent hours bouncing on a fitness ball with my baby – because it was the only thing that soothed her – feeling helpless, invisible, and fuelled by instant coffee rationed carefully. Because, you know, breastfeeding.
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The truth is, the systems around us are broken. Australia “needs more babies” we’re told, while the system punishes the women who have them.
Sometimes I look in the mirror – hair unwashed, red-eyed, running late again – and wonder: who would sign up for this?
Women aren’t selfish for choosing not to have kids. They’ve seen the sleepless nights, the cost, the lack of support, the mental load – and they’ve decided they simply can’t do it all.
Sick leave and parental leave are never enough. Childcare costs more than rent. Waiting lists go on forever.
We talk about “choice”, but there is no real choice when the alternatives are burnout or financial free-fall.
If we actually want women to keep having children, we need universal access to affordable childcare, proper paid and legislated parental leave for both parents, and workplaces legally required to offer real flexibility – not just lip service.
I know this isn’t everyone’s experience. Some women thrive in early motherhood. Some babies sleep. Some families can afford to live on one income.
And some parents have it even tougher – single mums or dads doing it alone, parents of twins or babies with extra needs. They deserve even more support than our systems currently provide.
We’re still waking through the night, patting her back, holding our breath when she coughs on the monitor, hoping she won’t wake.
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And when she does, I’m up again: bleary-eyed, still breastfeeding, still functioning on scraps of sleep, still showing up, like countless other parents.
I work alongside other mums and dads now – people who get it, who understand the daycare calls and the mental load. It helps. But it doesn’t erase the guilt.
I love my daughter more than anything. She is my anchor in the chaos. But I want a better world for her – one that doesn’t see parenthood as a personal failing to be endured, but as a social good to be supported.
Where women don’t have to prove their worth through suffering. Where having a family doesn’t mean losing yourself. Where “having it all” means having peace – not exhaustion.
Because she deserves a world that values mothers the way it values their work – one that finally sees care as essential, not optional.
Carla Hildebrandt is a journalist at WAtoday and a mother to a toddler.
