Every few days, I bake bread, which makes the house smell cozy, slightly sweet and toasty. My husband and daughter love eating a warm slice of rustic bread straight from the oven. Being a family manager is the mission I’m called to do right now; though, it wasn’t always the plan to be this way.
When I was pregnant with my daughter, I had planned to return to my office job after my maternity leave was completed, however, after the birth of my daughter, my health quickly derailed. After four days into motherhood and the excitement of having a baby at home, my husband had to take me to the hospital.
I was quickly diagnosed with post-partum depression along with mania and psychosis. This diagnosis completely changed the plans of my family. I didn’t want to be at the psychiatric ward where I felt alone and missed my new family. It was a very dark time for both my husband and I. He was solo parenting—making all the decisions around feeding, changing, and getting up in the middle of the night. I, on the other hand, was trying to get enough sleep and become healthy again in my hospital room.
The separation from my daughter and husband created a wound in my heart that I am still healing from. Feeling like a failure and a burden, every night in the hospital ward, I hung on to the hope that I would get better as I held a picture of my newborn daughter close to me.
My brain needed a lot of time to heal as it was an intense episode and the medicine took a while to be effective. After a month in the psychiatric ward, I was scheduled to use a virtual unit for a few weeks. I would check in with a nurse at least twice a day and once a week with a doctor. My family and l were adjusting to new routines; however, the illness was not getting any easier and the symptoms kept cropping up.
Six months after giving birth, my doctor, my husband and I decided that it would be better for my health and wellbeing to stay at home with my daughter and not go back to work. I was not fit to work in the state I was in, even though I was released from the hospital. I felt that I was letting my husband down again because I wanted to have an equal share in providing for the family. I had worked with that employer for twelve years and saying farewell to my colleagues that I had grown to love and care for was a difficult choice. I was struggling with my identity – the pain of not experiencing the typical entry into motherhood, compounded by the inability to return to a career I loved, made me feel like a failure once again.
My prayer life suffered from the trauma as well. I found it was hard to talk to God without being angry, but over these last few months, I have started to rebuild that relationship.
Even though I do not see myself returning to work anytime soon, I still feel that my best life is happening while learning about potty training, figuring out what to cook for dinner, and folding clean laundry. Every household chore and family responsibility is a prayer of thanksgiving. I look to the Lord for the right words to share and how to love and nurture my family. Staying at home has allowed me to grow closer to my daughter and build those attachments that we missed out on in her first month of life.
My mission is closer to me than I thought. Reading story after story, drinking imaginary tea, and helping construct towers with blocks are my latest work projects, and they have become opportunities for me to teach my daughter about how God is working in our life. Having play dates with children my daughter’s age are other opportunities to talk about faith. Parent-to-parent, we talk about our prayer life in the busy season of having toddlers and how we manage our children’s behaviour at Mass. These activities do not pay the bills, but they do help the relationship I have with my daughter to grow a stronger connection. With an open heart and a healing mind, I embrace the call that God has directed me to right now. As much as I wish I could work in a job that can contribute to our finances, I know that I am helping in a different way. Provision from God is not answered by financial means alone but by emotional, spiritual, and physical means too.
My days are counted by the joys and trials of being a mom and homemaker. From Administrative Assistant to Domestic Engineer my motherhood journey has been rocky at first feeling alone and away from my family in that psychiatric ward, but now I see it is a mountain I can climb with the Lord leading the way. When I was discharged from the hospital, I wanted to thank a psychiatric nurse for his care so I gave him a copy of a book I wrote and published about my journey with mental health. He was so grateful to receive it, for he also has a young daughter who may have been wrestling with her mental health.
As Pope Leo XIV said, “Your story is not stalled; it is being rerouted. Your life is not collapsing; it is being reconstructed. What lies ahead is not merely recovery, it is renewal. God is not finished with your dream, your calling, or your prayers. The same hand that allowed the door to close is the hand that holds the key to the next one. Trust Him!”
