Laura Guckian is sitting in her car on the driveway of her home in Tipperary, Ireland. She doesn’t intend to start the engine; instead, she will remain stationary. It’s the only place Guckian, 41, is guaranteed to make it through our interview without being disturbed by her three children, Leo, 10, Alex, six and Anna, five, she explains. She tells me this with a big smile, indicating she finds it to be a humorous result of a full family life, rather than burdensome.
But that hasn’t always been the case for Guckian, whose motherhood journey has been complex. It began with pure joy, discovering she was pregnant with her first child, not long after marrying husband Brendan. “I was utterly excited to become a mother,” she recalls. “I had been going through a life roadmap – go to school, then university, build a career, find a partner and get the house. Every part of that rulebook worked out, then I did the final part – become a mother,” says Guckian, who worked in marketing at the time.
However, after giving birth, she struggled massively. “It was almost like a light switch went off when my baby was handed to me. I didn’t feel this gush of love that I was told to expect. It frightened me. It made me feel like I was a bad mother, and it got worse from there.” Her son became ill with severe silent reflux so struggled with sleep and was constantly upset. “I was in total survival mode just getting from day to night and night to morning. I felt rage, guilt and isolation, thinking I was the only one who found motherhood hard,” she says.
