Monday Musings: The Things Mothers Give Up

I was scrolling through Best of the Best Manila, one of my favorite Facebook groups, when I came across a post that stopped me in my tracks. An anonymous woman shared that she had been training for a marathon for a whole year—twelve months of early mornings, sore muscles, and pushing her limits. But now, she’s 13 weeks pregnant. On a recent training run, she started to bleed. The baby is okay, but her OB told her she had to stop. No marathon. No finish line. No moment of triumph after all that work.

She turned to the group, probably hoping someone would say, Oh, I ran a marathon while pregnant! It was totally fine!. But the response was almost unanimous: Don’t risk it. It’s not worth it. You can always run a marathon later, but you can’t replace a lost baby.

And look, they’re right. If she were my friend, I’d tell her the same thing. But I still feel gutted for her. Because it’s never just about the marathon, is it? It’s about the fact that she had a dream, she put in the work, she was so close—and now, her body is no longer her own.

I’ve never been a mother, so I can only see this from the outside looking in. I can only imagine what it must feel like to have to constantly renegotiate your sense of self for the sake of someone else. From what I’ve observed, motherhood has a way of demanding that you give up pieces of yourself. Not just physically (though, let’s be honest, that’s a whole thing with ligaments stretching, bones shifting, and your internal organs playing musical chairs), but in ways that are more invisible, more insidious. There’s this unspoken understanding that when you become a mother, your time, your energy, your ambitions must come second. First comes the baby.

It starts with little things, like skipping sushi and retinol because you're breastfeeding, or adjusting your entire schedule around nap time. Then one day, you wake up and realize that the person you used to be, the one with big plans and boundless freedom, has slowly faded into the background. Maybe you don’t even know when it happened.

Fathers sacrifice too, of course. But let’s be honest: their bodies remain intact. They don’t have to pause their lives in quite the same way. They don’t wake up one day and wonder, Wait, who even am I now? (Or do they? You tell me.)

So I grieve a little for this woman I don’t even know. Because she’s not just losing a marathon—she’s losing a part of herself. Is it worth it? That’s the million-dollar question. For some women, it’s a hell yes, no question. Motherhood is their greatest joy, their ultimate dream, and nothing else compares. They don’t see it as losing something; they see it as gaining everything. For others, it’s more complicated. They love their kids, of course. But they also miss who they used to be. They feel the weight of everything they had to put on hold, and sometimes, they resent it. And I think that’s okay, too. If anything, that’s a very human response.

Maybe the hardest part of motherhood isn’t just the sacrifices. It’s the quiet death of the person you used to be. The version of you who could say yes to herself without guilt. The one who had dreams that didn’t have to be negotiated with anyone else. But maybe, just maybe, motherhood isn’t just about giving things up. Maybe the real challenge is figuring out how to bring yourself back to life—on your own terms, in your own time.

What do you think? Have you ever had to grieve for a version of yourself you had to leave behind?