MICHELLE BATTERSBY: 'It's been 3 months since I had my baby and it's nothing like I expected.'

Alfie is 13 weeks and I've only just started to feel real happiness and like I'm enjoying motherhood.

I felt happiness, awe, and amazement for a really brief moment (four days) at the start — that disappeared pretty quickly once I came home from hospital and the reality of parenting hit me. It was nothing to do with Alfie — it was all to do with me.

I underestimated the weight a woman carries — feeding a baby from her body, the three hour feeding cycle, the anxiety around your baby's weight gain, the identity crisis, realising how hard it is to leave the house and not recognising yourself in the mirror.

Watch: Here's Phoebe Burgess on identity, motherhood and 'getting on with it'. Post continues below.

Before becoming a mother I'd spent a lot of time thinking about pregnancy and birth, but I didn’t think about that fourth trimester. It was too much at that time — something I didn't want to hear or know about. I was in denial. The thought that there could be something harder on the other side of birth is not something you want to hear about when you're pregnant as you're already dealing with so much change.

For me, I was so desperate to get to the other side, but I wasn't aware of what that other side may mean for me.

Disclaimer: this will not be everyone's experience.

I don't want to scare anyone away from having a baby or worry any woman who's currently pregnant as this was just my reality and everyone has unique circumstances that may make this period harder or easier.

For me, my partner was living in another city. What I've learnt is that we all have our thing (or things) — none of us experience the journey of motherhood completely smooth sailing.

Some of us love breastfeeding, others hate it. Some of us could keep moving through pregnancy, others were on bed rest. Some of us loved birth, others were traumatised. Some of us have babies that sleep through the night, others don't. That's why you have to consume all pregnancy and motherhood content with a grain of salt.

I'll never know if it was postpartum depression or the 'baby blues' but I want to share that I wasn't feeling much joy as I know I'm not the only one. That doesn't mean I wasn’t committed to Alfie. That doesn't take away from our bonding or the memories of those first few months. That doesn't mean I'm not maternal or less of a mother. I don’t want this being taken out of context but I was completely numb, on auto pilot trying to survive and make it from one day to the next.

It's taken me until around 12 to 13 weeks to feel joy and happiness. I lay in bed at night looking at photos of him and I feel like I can accept I am a mother as well as the things I was before. I'm learning how our lives intertwine, feeling the benefits of the patience he's brought me, the hyper-focus I've had to develop, the productivity, the multitasking, the joy and smiles that seep into me by simply being around him.

I want to expose that it's normal for your 'baby bubble' to be a messy, complex, complete head f**k full of some of the highest highs and the lowest lows — but you will get to the other side. It really does get much better and once you're there, you'll look back and realise that it was magical even though you may have been too tired, emotional and bewildered to have realised it at the time.

Michelle Battersy is the founder of Sunroom. You can reach out to her on Instagram here.

How did you feel after the birth of your child? Tell us in the comment section below.

Feature Image: Instagram @michellebattersby.