What I Learned the Second Time: Motherhood Without Pressure

by Kerry Camisa Pollak

The first time I became a mother, I struggled with almost everything in the beginning. I think it was because I assumed motherhood would come easily to me. That my body would perform. I had romanticized those early weeks with my baby boy.

When New Motherhood Doesn’t Feel Like You Expected

But making milk, breastfeeding, getting him down for the night—really anything that required care—stopped me in my tracks. The simplest rhythms felt daunting. The reality was that I was lonely, isolated, and anxious all the time. I spent so much energy trying to make my body cooperate and my mind stay afloat that, in hindsight, it feels like I missed the first six months of his life. There is grief in that. I didn’t feel proud of how I showed up for myself or for him. Grief for the moments I didn’t enjoy, for love I couldn’t access, for a version of myself that felt buried under expectations and shame.

I remember bringing my baby to my nipple and bracing myself. My jaw clenched, shoulders tight, knowing it was going to hurt. Not the tender, stretching discomfort people talked about, but a deep, toe-curling pain that made me dread every feed. I remember crying silently while my baby latched, telling myself to push through because that’s what “good moms” did.

Breastfeeding Struggles and the Pressure to Keep Going

I spent countless hours Googling how to latch, timing feeds, power pumping, tracking ounces, telling myself it would get better, all while feeling profoundly alone. Somewhere in that fog of pressure, I slipped away from myself, and it took a really long time to find me again. I knew if I was lucky enough to get a second chance at motherhood, I didn’t want to carry that heaviness, the worry, the sense of inadequacy.

Two years after my first was born, I learned I had a thyroid condition that helped explain so much about my low milk supply and the intense anxiety I experienced postpartum. My body wasn’t failing me; it was dealing with something I hadn’t known about. It wasn’t something I could push through or fix with more effort. So when my daughter was born, something truly different happened. With my levels corrected, my supply was strong. My body felt calmer. I figured out how to work the damn pump. I still couldn’t make breastfeeding work, but this time, I let that go. I found a different way forward. And most importantly, I decided I was done performing motherhood for anyone else.

Choosing Exclusive Pumping the Second Time Around

I chose to exclusively pump. Not because I had to—I knew formula would be just fine—but because this felt right. Because it felt steady and I had the supply. Because I could feed my baby and still feel like myself. In the beginning, it was an intense sacrifice. Pumping every two hours around the clock is no small commitment. But this time, the choice didn’t feel loaded with shame. I shut out the noise and stopped listening to what breastfeeding was supposed to look like. I stopped measuring my success against other women’s bodies. I stopped turning feeding into a referendum on my worth as a mother. And in that quiet, something released. Was this finally my oxytocin hit?

Breastfeeding can look so many different ways, yet still in 2026, there seems to be only one acceptable version. As if endurance equals love. As if suffering is proof of devotion. What we don’t say enough to mothers is this: Pressure doesn’t nourish anyone. Not babies. And certainly not mothers.

Feeding Your Baby While Honoring Your Mental Health

The second time around, feeding became about presence instead of performance. About mental health. About being able to look at my baby without resentment, without dread, without that constant voice telling me I was doing it wrong. Letting go of the grief from my first experience didn’t mean erasing it. It meant honoring it and choosing differently anyway. Second chances don’t always come as do-overs. Sometimes they come as permission. Permission to do it your way.

If you’re a first-time mom in the thick of it—exhausted, lonely, questioning yourself—I see you. If you’re a second-time mom rewriting the story with softer hands and stronger boundaries, I see you too. There is no single right way to feed a baby. But there is a way that honors a mother’s well-being. And choosing that the second time is sometimes the bravest, most loving sacrifice of all.

Kerry Camisa Pollak
Mom to Shafer and Piper