“As a professional woman, I think you approach pregnancy and motherhood like you might approach your career”, Monique Legair reflects. The self-described multihyphenate is used to juggling multiple projects.

She’s the founder of UK governance consultancy Legair & Associates, previously established the Multicultural Professional Network for Black professionals, and is a partner of Cornerstone Partners, a UK angel investor network established to invest in businesses with Black and diverse founders. But as she soon discovered, the best laid plans are no match for a newborn baby.

And that’s before you even mention the global pandemic. Moving to Australia just before COVID hit has meant that Monique’s one year old daughter Maya has been unable to meet any of her family in the UK. And without her support network, it’s no wonder that Monique says she’s “only just started feeling like myself”.

Thankfully, she’s found solace in her ‘incredibly honest’ mothers group. “Sometimes you think that you're doing a terrible job, but when you speak to other mums, you realise that we're all just stumbling around in the dark, trying to figure it out”. And despite the challenges, Monique really does seem to have it figured out.

Here, we speak to the new mum about her experience of maternity care in the NHS and in the Australian system. We talk about the ‘fourth trimester’, the perils of online shopping when sleep deprived, and how she’s making it work as she transitions back into work, plus one...

You've said that you believe for professional women in particular, the ‘fourth trimester’ is the toughest trimester of all. So what was your experience of that fourth trimester?

I definitely feel that way, just because I don't feel that I was prepared for it. Everybody talks about which pram should we get, or what should you take in your hospital bag, but nobody actually says, ‘by the way, when you get home and you've had this baby and it's maybe three months or six months, or even a year after you've given birth, you might not feel like yourself.’ I've only just started feeling like myself.

I started researching what the postpartum period is supposed to look like, and speaking to the girls in my mother's group, I realised that it isn't spoken about very openly. There are people who suffer from postpartum rage, postpartum depression, and all these other things. If you told people when they were pregnant, this is what you might experience, then they can then develop strategies and discuss with their partner or somebody close to them - ‘how am I going to deal with this if this happens to me?’

As a professional woman, I think you approach pregnancy and motherhood like you might approach your career. You think, ‘I'll put in place these strategies and they will work’. But what you don't appreciate is that your baby has a mind of its own and all babies are different. So even though you might have someone saying to you, ‘this is what you have to do with your child’, your child might not respond as well to that particular strategy, and you have to be prepared for that.

And you have to give yourself a bit of grace. You might set yourself unrealistic targets, and think, I'm going to get my baby down onto a schedule and it's going to happen at eight weeks, and we're going to start sleep training - but you just don't know what you're going to feel like at eight weeks, or what the baby's going to be like at eight weeks. And so I think you have to manage your own expectations as well. You can do a lot of that pre delivery, and work with your partner. As a professional woman, you go through your career setting yourself goals and achieving goals and ticking these things off, but you can't do that with a baby. And I think I expected it to be a bit easier than what it actually turned out to be, and I have a very good baby so strictly speaking things should be fairly easy!

You also had an extra hurdle to your fourth trimester, which was that it occurred during COVID, and your parents weren’t able to meet your daughter. Did lockdown interfere with your plans for her birth or for the time afterwards, and what do you feel you’ve missed out on?

It's incredibly sad that my parents and my siblings haven't had the opportunity to meet Maya. It's lots of zoom calls, and we were on the phone to my mum a few days ago, and Maya was jumping up and down and waving at her, which is really cute. But it has been a big challenge. My sister was scheduled to come out to Australia to be with me once Maya had been born, but those plans were scrapped because of COVID.

In terms of the birth, I was very lucky because my partner was able to join me in the hospital. The birth didn't go to plan because I was induced four times, and those inductions didn't work, and then I ended up having a caesarean. But I was very fortunate because it was a planned caesarean, so I was able to relax a bit and come to terms with the fact that I was not having a natural delivery.

Post-pregnancy, the only plan that I had was for my sister to be here. One of my good friends is Korean and she had a baby a few months before I had Maya, and she did a 90 day home confinement. And I thought about doing that as well, but then COVID happened and I just pretty much stayed at home a lot of the time. It was a very relaxed period, although the sleep deprivation wasn’t relaxing. But I don't think COVID scuppered my plans as such, because I'd planned to keep a low profile anyway.

I had quite a large abdominal separation and one of the things I think I've missed out on was face-to-face physio appointments. A lot of it was done over the telephone, but with diastasis recti, you need to have your stomach checked. But, one of the good things about delivering here is that I think certain things post pregnancy are picked up quicker. You have a really good health service here and the support that is offered is, I think, much better here than say in the UK.

The statistics are really shocking around Black women’s maternal health. So what was your experience of maternity care, and did you feel safe and supported the whole way through?

That's a really good question. I actually started my care in the UK and then moved to Australia. And when I was around two months pregnant, I started to bleed. I was told that I had a subchorionic hematoma, which happens in about 3% of pregnancies. So I went to the doctor and said ‘I'm quite concerned, what do I need to do?’ And  he told me that I should “cross my fingers”. Would he have said that to someone else? I don't know, but I was quite shocked by that.

Other things happened throughout my care in the UK. I have fibroids and one doctor tried to tell me that if I flew to Australia, to give birth, and my fibroids started to deteriorate, I could potentially lose the baby, so I should definitely not fly to Australia. I said to him, ‘I think the care in Australia will be very good. I've read this report about Black women and their maternal health and that is a concern to me in the UK, and delivering on the NHS.’ He kind of dismissed it and said, ‘well, you can't believe everything you read’. I was just thinking, well, I speak to my friends and they tell me about their birthing experiences. A lot of them have got horror stories to share as well.

The care that I received in Australia was slightly different in that I felt that medical professionals here had a lot more time. I never felt rushed during my appointments, whereas in the UK, I always felt rushed. The NHS is under immense pressure. And I think that adds to the difficulties along with all the other issues.

I expect a certain standard of care, but at the same time, I know that I can't rely on certain public bodies to look out for my interests. So I take a lot on myself. I will research, and try to implement things that will improve my own outcomes, because I know that I can't rely on certain public bodies to do that for me. And I think that a lot of my friends do the same thing as Black women, you have to take responsibility for yourself, and it's an unfortunate position to be in where you don't feel that you can rely on the systems that are supposed to support you. But at the same time, because we're so used to it, we’ve found ways to navigate around and circumvent those situations.

So the care in the UK was good, but there were some things that I think could have been better. And the care in Australia was fantastic. And even though I was in hospital for a long time, and I was induced a number of times and I ended up having a caesarean, the care and the support that I got was phenomenal. And it actually turned out to be a nice birthing experience.

You've made it through the first year of motherhood, which is such a milestone. What was the hardest stage for you, and what do you wish you'd known at the start of your motherhood journey?

It's been a fantastic year, but it's also been a challenging year. Not just because of the new baby, but because of coronavirus as well. But I think those first eight weeks are the toughest. You can read as much as you want around what to expect once the baby arrives, but actually having the baby here - the sleep deprivation, and walking around like a zombie and having to get up every two or three hours to feed the baby.

I remember talking to my very good friend and she said, ‘your nipples will have to toughen up’. I didn't know what she meant by that. But a few days later I'd suffered cracked nipples and I was using nipple shields. I remember one Saturday evening just going online and ordering loads of nipple shields, I must have been in a delirious state by this point, and I ordered loads of nipple shields and Love To Dream sleep suits. I realise now just how exhausted I must have been, because the things that I was doing were just crazy, but it was just those first eight weeks that were the toughest.

The time really does fly by. If I look at Maya now, it's really hard for me to remember what she was like as a little baby. It's just a year of your life. And people say enjoy it as much as you can, and even when you're in that sleep deprived state, I think that you really must try to enjoy it because it just flies by and before you know it, they're rolling over, they're walking and trying to talk.

You are so prolific as a professional and you work across multiple industries. Where does that drive come from and how have you managed to keep all the balls in the air since you've become a mother?

I would describe myself as a multihyphenate. I have lots of different interests and pre-baby, I traveled a lot. I think that my drive probably comes from coming from a family of very entrepreneurial people. My dad runs his own business as does my younger sister, and my brother as well. So even if we have a corporate job, we might also have projects that we're running on the side. I used to sell clothes in South Africa with two of my best friends, and my sister and I were working on a dating project many years ago, so just lots of different things.

In terms of managing to keep all the balls in the air and since becoming a mother, I haven't. I have lots of different business interests, and so there were certain things that I was able to step away from for a year, and give myself the time to be a mother. But then there were things that I absolutely had to do and I would have to get them done once my daughter was in bed for the evening.

I have a governance consultancy, and so I have paying clients that I have to work for – that’s work that I must do. And I always had to make sure that I was voting for potential investments with Cornerstone, the angel investor network, as well. So occasionally I’d joined meetings at 3 or 4 AM just to make sure I could listen in on a pitch.

It's very helpful to have a partner that's able to say ‘I'll look after Maya, and you can attend your board meeting or have a few hours to catch up with work.

I listened to The Grace Tales podcast episode with Debbie Wosskow. And she said to be very mindful of who you marry, because they can really impact your ability to move your life forward in a particular way, especially if you're a career woman. And that's very true. If you don't have a partner who's supportive of you, then it's very difficult for you to do certain things. And so I'm very fortunate that my partner is able to step up to the plate, and it allows me the time to do the things that I need to do.

Maya goes to bed at seven or seven thirty every night. So I always have a bit of time in the evening to do some work as well. Most of my work happens in the evening, which is quite helpful because that means I am on UK time.

Being such a highly successful professional woman, do you feel a similar pressure to be a ‘highly successful’ (whatever that means!) mother?

I think that in the first year I have put myself under a lot of pressure to perform well. But now I'm just saying to myself, just give yourself some grace. You are doing the best job that you possibly can do. And I think this goes for all mums, we're all doing the best jobs that we possibly can do. And I think that is enough because it has to be enough. You can't do any more than you possibly can. My goal is to have a happy, healthy child, and that to me is success. Trying to add anything else to that is just a bit too much pressure.

Maya is her own person as well, so I can't put my dreams and desires onto her. I have to just let her bloom, let her tell me who she is, and then we go from there. And tomorrow's always a new day. So if you feel that you've not put your best foot forward today, then you can improve tomorrow. But I think that there's a lot of pressure on mums, and I think sometimes we have to give ourselves a pat on the back and say, ‘you're doing a good job’.

There’s so much out there in terms of the social media image of motherhood where everything looks perfect. But there's also a side to it that can be quite challenging. And unless you have people who are being honest about that experience, then women will feel that they're doing something wrong if things are less than ‘perfect’.

I'm very fortunate actually to have met, in my mother's group here, women who have been incredibly honest about their experience, and sometimes you think that you're doing a terrible job, but when you speak to other mums, you realise that we're all just stumbling around in the dark, trying to figure it out. And I'm grateful for those women because without them, I would have definitely felt a bit crazy or inadequate. So I've been very fortunate in that respect to get to connect with them, and just know that what I'm doing is good enough.