2025 was by far the most significant year of my life. Yet, compared to previous years, I feel like I have the least to say about it. The year was not about life lessons I learned and not about achievements I collected – but it was about living the life I’ve worked so incredibly hard to build. In a way it feels that all the lessons, all the experiences, all the heartbreaks and triumphs of previous years led me to the year I had – ChatGPT would call it integration, I would call it… happiness.

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I entered the year several weeks pregnant. Carrying this little miracle with all the care and all the anxiety of things going wrong felt equal part daunting and wonderful. I got incredibly lucky – my experience of pregnancy ended up being so empowering for me, I felt like I’m flying on a cloud all the way through. Despite having gestational diabetes (which I was 99% sure I’d have due to my PCOS and insulin resistance), pelvic girdle pain and various fun side effects of carrying a baby, I’ve never felt as in awe of my body as I did during these 9 months. Considering that my relationship with it has been deeply fractured from late teenage years, pregnancy has healed some of the cracks and built additional appreciation which was not there before.

Before this pregnancy I had 2 early miscarriages – something I spoke about to a very few people. Pregnancy after loss is a beast of its own kind, it deepens anxieties and steals a lot of joys especially of early expecting. Though it made me feel that much happier seeing how different this pregnancy was going. It also gave additional sense of reassurance that my body knew how to carry a pregnancy during all 3 of them, but there were good reasons why first 2 didn’t progress. My body didn’t fail; it was just… choiceful.

It grew my little miracle into a healthy average-sized gorgeous baby and pushed him out exactly on the due date, with phenomenally fast, extremely painful and very natural labour.

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I spent many years being extremely clear about the fact that I’m not yet ready to have kids. There was so much inner work I needed to do before I was ready to bring someone else to the world. It’s very hard to explain in a few lines what this work was and I’m not sure it’s needed, but I knew I felt too broken and too limited & self-centered in my pains and challenges, that I wouldn’t wish my baby to have a mom like this. I was also not sure I’ll be able to survive motherhood without figuring out first how to live my life without frying myself just on my own.

I knew taking my time to get ready could mean I’d never have kids. But I also knew that I’d better not have kids than to have them before I could be a caring, present, supportive and stable mother.

My mom always told me that it’s “impossible to be ready” and “no one is ever ready” to have kids. I do believe it to be true in the way that no amount of preparing will make you feel truly ready to have a new little human in your 24/7 care, there is just nothing like it in pre-kids life. But I also believe that you can work on the version of yourself which this little human will meet.

It took years, and I have no regrets about waiting. Because now, on the other side of it, I am so grateful to myself for being patient and persistent. I built myself internally and built a life environment which felt supportive and safe to have kids in. And now I navigate motherhood with palpable awareness that I chose this, that I have support systems I need to not lose myself in the process, and that my world got so much bigger even if on a surface level it looks like it shrunk.

The only sorrow I sometimes feel is about how long it took me to get where I needed to be to meet my wonderful son, but I never feel sorrow that I decided to take this time. It was very needed.

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This year both Stepan and I did officially recognized assessment and got ADHD diagnosis. Neither of us was surprised about it but in the process of assessment I realized how much I used to think about my hyperactivity as the most prominent feature of my ADHD, while challenges with voluntary regulation of attention are probably even more foundational for me. Hyperactivity can be presented to the world as big personality, infectious energy, passionate drive and just overall brightness. Inattention, on the other hand, needs to be covered if you want to be perceived as fully functioning adult. I somewhat embraced & leaned in into my hyperactive side, but spent my whole life working on strategies to combat attention challenges – and succeeded as much that I managed to convince even myself that it’s not that big of a deal for me. But it is, it SO is.

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This year I’ve been yearning for a “village”. Living in the UK is great but not having that many people to lean in on is not easy. That makes people who are showing up and support you that much more precious.

Stepan has been my brilliant partner through & through, and after 15 years of marriage I couldn’t be more proud of the way we manage our communication, our load and how well we support each other in.. being adults. Bringing a little human into our family has expanded our world, deepened our relationship and brought an unexplainable level of tenderness and care into space which was already overflowing with happiness. I am so incredibly lucky.

My brother and sister-in-law came from Berlin to support us 3 times in 5 months and were here for Ari’s birth and early postpartum period – something I will never ever forget. Having siblings you can lean in on is not a given and I will never take for granted the relationships we’ve built. My appreciation for Kate & Lev has no bounds.

All the close friends who were checking in, visiting, sending messages or just thinking about us – you know who you are, and I treasure you and our friendship more than ever.

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Being a first time mother is hard, being a first time mother with ADHD is even more challenging. Caring for someone else 24/7 requires capacity I don’t always have and puts a heavy load on my already exhausted executive functioning.

These 30th and 31st of December I spent in a fever hell due to some random stomach bug which completely wrecked me. Ari is going through sleep architecture change and therefore wakes up quite often, and as I breastfeed, I’m the only one who feeds him at night.

I spent New Year’s in bed, nursing my son every two hours, settling him from frantic awake-ness into calm and peaceful sleep. I couldn’t do it for myself as my whole body was aching and my heart rate was at the level of cardio exercise, but I could do it for my son.

That was not how I expected to meet 2026… But I wouldn’t have it any other way 🩶