I remember visiting my sister-in-law after she’d just had a baby. Her son was chill. She told me how much easier motherhood had been than she expected — he slept well, he ate well, and he was what you’d call a “good” baby. At the time, I was heavily pregnant myself, and I distinctly thought, My baby will not be chill. Because, well, I’m not chill.

Whether it was a premonition, a self-fulfilling prophecy, or just my intuition, my baby was indeed many things: curious, adorable, with my husband’s thick dark hair and sweet brown eyes. She was everything I had hoped for — but, unsurprisingly, not chill.

Instead, she was extremely colicky and didn’t stop crying for the first three months. I remember bouncing on a yoga ball, and if I stopped for even a second, the howls would start again. I convinced myself that my breast milk was the problem, so I cut out everything except quinoa and sweet potatoes. That helped me lose the baby weight but did nothing for my mental health.

Then came solids, which brought a whole new nightmare. It turned out she had severe food allergies. I had already confirmed a few allergies, so I always kept an EpiPen in her diaper bag. But, of course, the one day I left the diaper bag in the car was the day my husband decided to drive to the office. And, naturally, it was also the day I discovered a completely new allergy. My baby’s face started to swell after I gave her something I thought was safe. I panicked and called an ambulance, but due to COVID, they were slow to respond.

Thankfully, my husband made it home before things got worse. We used the EpiPen, and she was fine. I, however, was not. It was one of those “small T traumas,” stacked right on top of my 36-hour labour, the forceps delivery, and — oh right — the bit of placenta they missed, which chose to fall out randomly days later and had me convinced I was dying ... but anyway!

With the constant threat of anaphylaxis and my own anxiety, it’s safe to say I’m not a chill mom. It........

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