Honest Thoughts from Becky Nielsen Around Ambition + Postpartum Anxiety
"The transition was very hard for me. I birthed this child and now feel like a different person even though I don't want to feel like a different person."
Every good conversation starts with a single question. Whether it's wondering how, why, or what, it's the place we jump off from—and into the moments where all the good stuff happens.
Issue no. 7 of the magazine featured a nursery tour from Nashville-based interior designer Becky Nielsen, but the conversation we had last August for the story went so much deeper. Here, a longer excerpt that touches on ambition, postpartum anxiety, and the benefits of having children later in life.
Leah: Designing your son’s nursery must have been interesting: It’s your home, but you’re also working—you’re both the client and the professional. What was that like?
Becky: I think my honest answer, being very genuine, is that I had a lot of postpartum anxiety and depression. I look back on it all, and I didn’t have sadness or anything like that, but I just was like, Oh god, I don’t know what I’m doing. I threw myself back into work, like work is what I’m good at, work is what I know.
The transition was very hard for me. I birthed this child and now feel like a different person even though I don't want to feel like a different person. I don't know how to react. For me, I was back to work after two weeks, and I don't think that was good, but at the time I was like, “I'm supposed to lay here and look at this child? They don’t do anything.” That was very, very hard for me.
I was 35 when I had him. I’d worked in interior design for 14 years with long hours, travel, demanding clients. The fact that I was supposed to transition into doting on a little baby that I didn't know what to do with was not for me.
One of the questions we’ve loved talking about since the very beginning is ambition and motherhood: If it changes, how it fits in alongside the added demands of raising children.
I think it has—I don’t know if people admit that or not.
I tell everybody who is younger or asking how it goes, “Look, I am an older mother, but I am very appreciative I started when I did, because if I had children younger I would not have been able to have the career I had.” And I think that’s facts.
I can look back on my 20s and early 30s and have no regrets. I've been to Europe, started my own business, worked for other amazing designers, and now it’s all good. I can take a pause and be a good mom, because I don’t have any of this shoulda coulda woulda, wish-I’d-done-this instead. That feels nice to me.
I had my first around the same age, and I agree with you. While there are moments I think about the pros of having had kids earlier, there’s no denying that being older has its benefits.
The first year was like, “Oh, I can do emails when he naps,” and now I have a full-time nanny and hired two people to work in my business. Luckily I’m at a point in my career where I'm getting big jobs and can afford to have this help. Three years ago the benefit of me being lean and mean was that I could pay myself and work really hard; I couldn’t really afford to have people work with me, and now I can and thank goodness.
I don’t think [my] ambition has changed at all. I know the path I want for my business and my company, but, to be perfectly frank, a small part of the reason I got into interior design is the flexibility and knowing I wanted to be a mom and a great wife when I got older. This allows me that.
Now I have a full-time nanny, but the first year I had probably five early-20-something girls in university, and they were my help. On his first birthday I saluted them: “You guys got me through.” I’d text: I just need to get my nails done; I'm struggling and need a nap. Can someone come and sit with him?
You don’t know how valuable that type of support is until you’re in it.
My friends laugh: “Here’s my baby, can someone hold him?'' I think some of that was postpartum, but it was good for him. A stranger wants to hang out with me? No problem. It’s just worked for us.
I’m not a doctor, and everybody’s very, very different [in how they experience postpartum anxiety or depression]. I describe it as I was always buzzing; I always had a little heightened anxiety. It was a little hard for me to focus, and I was very triggered if he cried: “You’re supposed to be sleeping, why are you crying??”
It felt like my whole life I'd been very good at anticipating a problem that’s going to come up, and if a problem’s dealt to me I'm level-headed and can work through it—and that was taken away from me.
My doctor diagnosed me [with postpartum depression and anxiety] at six weeks. I am the type of personality where I was like, I can power through. I don’t want to be on medicine; surely at some point this will all level out. Then something happened in my personal life where I thought, You know what, I think it’s time to try.
After two weeks I wasn’t clenching my jaw and wasn’t full-trigger anxiety when he cried after waking up from a nap. It was all these things where I thought, Oh man, I’ve been living in a constant state of fight or flight.
I don’t think I could have done it any other way, however, when I look back on photos of him from the first six months I feel sadness and guilt. Everyone says you shouldn't feel guilty, but I do—I look at it as I didn’t snuggle on my baby enough. He’s totally fine, but that’s a little bit of a bummer.
I was a little bit in shock and anxiety ridden. Every day was like, “What is going to be thrown at me?” I was just like, “I guess this is my new life. Babies are very hard, I own my own business, of course life is going to be stressful.” Now I’m like, oh man, it didn’t have to be quite be that.
It feels like summer has officially arrived, which means a few switch-ups to my wardrobe.
I’ve been living in an old J.Crew straw hat I bought on sale when I moved out of Manhattan and decided I needed a “yard work hat.” It’s great because it’s not too precious (it’s okay if it gets smushed, dipped in the pool, or used as a bucket for weeding in a pinch, as happened yesterday). This one has the same vibe, including handy ribbon straps that keep it from flying or falling off.
If you’ve been in the In Kind fold for a bit, you’ve heard me talk about this Amazon dress again and again and again. I’m on my third summer of wearing it, and I’m still impressed that the cotton is heavy, it’s lined (with pockets!), and that the drop-waist is surprisingly flattering. I can’t tell you how many notes I’ve gotten from people who have bought (and loved) it, too. It is so much better than anything you’d imagine wearing with an Amazon label.
A reader wore these on our In Kind retreat last fall, and I immediately bought a pair in the fall sales that I’ve had waiting for sandal weather to arrive. Well, it’s here, and they’ve been super comfy right out of the gate (and chic in that clunky-ugly way). They also come in a lot of colors and fabrics.
As a native central Floridian, I feel equipped to make judgement calls on jean shorts, and this is the best pair I own. The length is neither too long nor too short, and the distressing just right.
This thin gold bangle was hiding in my jewelry box until I pulled it out over the weekend. It’s now taken up space alongside my everyday stack, and I’m really vibing with the extra-gold-jewelry-for-summer feeling. x Leah
The Next Best Thing
We aren’t fortune tellers or time travelers, all we can do is make the best decision for what we’re living right now—but, ultimately, the best decisions come from the truest intentions. Words by Hannah Weil McKinley
I like the comfort in the sameness of things. I like going somewhere familiar and knowing you’ll get the same delicious bite of food or cup of coffee. I like knowing that places last and people stay. It reminds me of our little town in Maine, where my family has spent summers since I can remember (and now my parents and my sister and her partner live full time). Things don’t change too much there, though seasons will bring new restaurants for the summer in the same places the old ones once lived. We’ll sit around the table there in a dining room that isn’t all that changed and critique the new food and menu, comparing it to what was once there in its place.
Still, it feels like a relative of the other, the companion of the thing before it, and nothing is wildly different at all—the setting around it, the beach and the roads, the sky and the people out and about are exactly what I grew up with.
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