Coming Home To Myself

Celebrating one year of motherhood

The clock hadn’t quite chimed midnight yet to signal the new day, but our home was heavy with anticipation. With each tick, we were closer to completing one whole year as parents.

One year. 12 months.

It feels like it’s passed in the blink of an eye.

Like many who celebrate their baby’s first year, we were up late putting the final touches to ring in the celebration. All his favorite stuffies had party hats on, check. Balloons were blown up and put out of reach of Lobo, check. The birthday cake was made and decorated, check. Presents wrapped and put on display for his inquisitive hands, check.

All that was left was to enjoy what remained in our glasses of wine as we put the final touches on what would hopefully become a treasured memory for him when he woke up: reflective letters detailing the last 12 months around the sun.

“What do you think your biggest takeaway was?” my husband asked me as he licked his envelope closed. I took one more swig of my glass and stood up to put our glasses in the dishwasher. “The ability to come home,” I replied.

Home, I have learned over the years, is not a physical place. Not always. We were still in Australia, not in Puerto Rico or Mexico (where I was originally from). But I was home, after a year of learning to embrace both the familiar and the new aspects of myself that have evolved over time.

“Coming home” to yourself is a profound and often unexpected journey.

I always knew that when one became a mother, one would be surrendering to the unknown. Not just in the way you care for a new life but in how you begin to care for yourself, or perhaps, how you begin to rediscover who you are amidst the changes. I just didn’t realize how confronting it would all be. What I didn’t know then, but understand now, is that coming home to yourself isn’t always a straightforward, celebratory return. Sometimes, it’s a quiet, reflective process that involves facing the parts of you that you’ve left behind… as well as the parts of you that have grown in ways you never expected. One year after my little boy’s birth, I find myself grappling with a mix of emotions — joy, loss, love — and a deep reflection on the shifting sands of identity.

Before: the self I thought I knew

Before becoming “mami,” I had a clear vision of who I was: an ambitious wildlife educator and marine scientist, with a passion for our wild spaces and animals and a strong commitment to conservation. These were the pieces of my identity that anchored me. I was proud of them; they felt solid, defined, and above all, mine. They gave me a sense of purpose, a direction. I could see the path ahead, and it was one I had spent years carving. There was no ambiguity. I had my goals, my priorities, and my daily routines.

But the arrival of our son shifted the ground beneath my feet in ways I couldn’t have anticipated. It was as if a new layer was added to my identity. A layer that was both exhilarating and terrifying.

The first few months felt like a blur, where survival became the only goal. Everything is new, overwhelming, and, at times, completely exhausting. There’s no roadmap to this period, and it’s easy to feel like you’re running on fumes as you navigate sleepless nights, constant feedings, and the intense emotional and physical demands of caring for a tiny human. Each day became a cycle: getting through the next nap, the next feeding, the next diaper change. You learn to let go of expectations and just focus on meeting the basic needs of your baby and yourself. There’s little room for anything beyond the essentials, and yet, amid the chaos, there are small moments of grace — like the warmth of your baby’s hand or the first time they lock eyes with you — that remind you that even in survival mode, something profound and beautiful is unfolding.

I struggled to hold on to the version of myself that existed before motherhood. That identity felt so firmly etched in my memory, so integral to who I thought I was, that letting it go to make room for this new norm seemed almost like a betrayal. I mourned the quiet mornings when I could sip my tea while reading new research papers, the afternoons spent writing freely without needing to check on a little one’s needs. Lobo had gotten me partway there to getting used to a new rhythm, but this was different. There was a part of me that felt I had lost something vital… the sense of independence, of clarity, of self-direction. And in its place, there was a new, foreign role that demanded everything from me, but left so little space for who I had been before.

A dance between who I was and who I am becoming

As the months went on, something began to shift within me. It wasn’t immediate, and it wasn’t easy. At times, it felt like an uneasy truce between my old self and the new responsibilities that came with my title as “mami.” But gradually, I started to see that the changes weren’t about losing my identity at all; they were about expanding it. The tension between the old and the new wasn’t a battle, but a dance. A delicate negotiation between honoring the person I was and embracing the person I was becoming.

I’ve never been a great dancer. In fact, I’m pretty awful at it. I stumble, my movements are awkward, and I tend to overthink every step. Sometimes, I can keep a beat if I’m paying close enough attention, but that’s hard to do when exhaustion takes over. And these days, being constantly tired, makes it feel like my body is moving in slow motion. There’s a strange disconnect between what I want to do and what my body is willing, or able, to do most days. There’s a quiet sadness that lingers in that realization. Because in embracing this new identity, I also had to acknowledge that I couldn’t be who I once was, at least not ever in the same way.

The path forward was different, and I had to let go of some of the old ways of being. Like, I’m not able to work as I once did, driven by an urgency to prove myself in my field. The late nights spent crafting articles or chasing leads have been replaced with midnight feedings and whispered conversations with a little boy who needs me. That shift is bittersweet, for while I’m filled with a love that is beyond measure, I also mourn the pieces of myself that fade into the background. The person I was before doesn’t fully exist anymore. She’s still there, but she’s softened. And I wonder if she will ever fully return, or if she’s meant to evolve into something different.

In this quiet transformation, I’ve learned that coming home to yourself doesn’t mean becoming who you were “before,” nor does it mean being flawless¹. It’s the acceptance of imperfection and the surrender to a more complex and fluid identity. The pressure to “get it right” all the time… to embody some ideal version of motherhood and career success… can feel suffocating. At the start, I was determined to balance everything perfectly — nurturing my babe with as much care as I poured into my work, never allowing one to slip. But that ideal quickly crumbled, and in its place, I realized that trying to be perfect in every aspect of my life only served to diminish the joy and fulfillment I could experience.

Instead, this year taught me to embrace the chaos, the exhaustion, and the moments of doubt. It’s a humbling experience to realize that sometimes, the best thing you can do is to show up, even when you don’t have everything figured out. I have moments where I feel like I’m failing. At work, at home, as a wife, as a mom, as a friend, as a person… failing. But I’m beginning to see that those moments don’t define me. They are fleeting, and they are part of the landscape of becoming. I’m accepting the mess, not rushing through it or pushing it away, embracing the notion that being “good enough” is often more than enough.

Developing new relationships

One year. 12 months. It feels like it’s passed in the blink of an eye.

I think one of the most profound shifts has been in my relationship with time. The days before felt endless, filled with time I could allocate as I saw fit (work, exercise, socialization, rest, exploration). But now, time feels more fragile.

Fleeting.

The minutes slip by so quickly, and I often feel as though I’m chasing them, trying to squeeze everything into a small window of opportunity. There’s a melancholy in that. An acknowledgment that the time I once had for myself is no longer as abundant as it once was.

I urged myself to soak in every moment, especially the ones that felt like they might stretch on forever — the middle-of-the-night feedings, the soft cries that echoed through the stillness of our home, the moments when my only role was to comfort, hold, and nourish. I would tell myself, "This won't last. Don't rush it. Hold him a little longer. Watch his tiny fingers curl around yours. Let the exhaustion become the backdrop to something more important." I sacrificed work deadlines, moments of productivity, and the semblance of a routine because I knew that one day, he would no longer need me in the same way. One day, he wouldn’t fit so perfectly in my arms or fall asleep with his head nestled against my chest. One day, he'd be too big for contact naps, too independent to allow himself to be rocked to sleep. And in those quiet, stolen moments, I found a depth that made everything else feel trivial.

Time, though, moves swiftly and without remorse. It’s a thief, quietly stealing the days when you weren’t looking. I would hold on to these fleeting moments as tightly as I could, knowing that they were already slipping through my fingers like sand. The late nights and early mornings, though exhausting, have started to come to an end (at least for this phase of his life). Every tear he shed, every soothing hum I sang to him, every quiet sigh from him in my arms felt like an urgent plea to slow down, to savor it before it vanished. And yet, even as I urged myself to be present, I knew the inevitable would come… he would grow, and these moments would be memories. And when that time comes, I’ll ache for just one more, just one more moment when he needed me in that way.

As he turns one, I find myself caught in this bittersweet space. He’s not truly grown yet, not by any means (he’s still so small, still learning how to walk, how to talk, how to understand the world around him). But he’s also the oldest he’s ever been, and that in itself is a strange marker.

One year. 12 months.

It feels like it’s passed in the blink of an eye.

And in this moment, I can’t help but reflect on how quickly it all went by. It’s almost as if I’ve blinked and suddenly my newborn is no longer so tiny, no longer so dependent on me for every need. There’s a quiet grief in watching him grow, not because I want him to stay a baby forever, but because I can already feel time slipping away. Every day, every little milestone, every tooth that pops through or every new word he tries to say, marks another moment I’ll never get back. And yet, here I am, already mourning something that hasn’t even truly gone yet. I know he’s still a baby, but it’s impossible not to feel the weight of how quickly those 12 months passed. It’s a strange thing, this paradox of time. How it can stretch and warp, how it can make you feel like you’re holding on tight to something only to watch it slip away.

At one year into motherhood, I’ve come to understand that both of us will continue to be in a constant state of evolution. Him, slowly becoming the person he is meant to be. And me? Taking each day as an opportunity to integrate the person I was before motherhood with the person I am becoming. As I pour my heart into nurturing Leo, I’m discovering that I can still honor the person I was before him, the one who needs her own space, her own time, her own moments of quiet.

In this continuous cycle of change, I’ve found a quieter, more peaceful version of myself. It’s not the person I was, nor is it the person I thought I would become. It’s simply me, in this moment, learning to be both a mami and the person who holds her own heart — gently, imperfectly, and fully.

The clock chimes, alerting us it is midnight. My husband and I look at each other, eyes damp with unshed tears. One year. 12 months. It feels like it’s passed in the blink of an eye.

Feliz cumple, nuestro tesoro.

1. God, I hate that word. There’s a pressure to be flawless that’s so pervasive, it almost feels like it’s woven into the fabric of motherhood itself. The expectations are everywhere: to be the perfect mom who can seamlessly balance work, homemaking, and raising kids with a smile on her face. There’s an unspoken belief that you should be able to cook homemade meals, keep a spotless house, excel in your career, be an attentive partner, have a thriving social life, and be present for your children every moment of the day. And if you’re tired or fall short in any of these areas, somehow it feels like you’re failing. But the truth is, no one can sustain that. We’re not meant to be flawless; we’re meant to be human.