“I wanted their lives to be perfect”
For Fulham club member, Lauri Williams, becoming a mother meant first overcoming deeply unhealthy habits related to food and exercise that had taken over her life and suppressed her period for years. She spoke to us about her remarkable recovery, how she’s learnt to manage her perfectionist tendencies in motherhood, and how her experience inspired her career change, from doctor to yoga instructor.
Photos: Lucy Morris
Interview: Alex KohanskyCan you describe your journey to becoming pregnant for the first time?
Before I tried to get pregnant, I hadn't had a period for about 10 years. This is because I had a condition called Hypothalamic Amenorrhea (HA for short), where your menstrual cycle is suppressed. For me, this was a result of years of under-eating and over-exercising.
The pill had been masking the fact I wasn’t having my period, so I didn’t realise anything was wrong until I came off it to try for a baby. After about six months of nothing happening, I began to worry and decided to look into it. Eventually I discovered I had HA and that my restrictive behaviours had caused quite a lot of damage to my body.
Where do you think your under-eating and over-exercising behaviours stemmed from?
In my teens I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome and the doctor told me I needed to control my weight and avoid carbs to prevent issues like diabetes and fertility problems in the future. That really scared me. I am a born perfectionist and I tapped into that mentality when following the doctor’s advice. I set out by being more careful with what I was eating, but gradually that morphed into restricting different food groups and stepping up my exercise a lot. Over the years it became about trying to meet the unachievable standards I had set for myself, and having an area of my life that I felt I could control. I didn’t realise that I was taking things too far, as my behaviours came from a place of wanting to be as fit and healthy as possible.
What kick-started your recovery?
Once I discovered I had HA, I became very scared for my future health. I found a book called, No Period. Now What? by Nicola Rinaldi. She has a process called ‘All In’, where you stop your exercise completely and start eating massively more than you were doing before. I read the whole book, saw myself in it, and decided to start the process straight away.
A big part of my motivation to recover was my desire to have kids. I have always known that I wanted them and I was like, “I need to do this.” I didn’t want to have fertility treatment if I could avoid it, as I’d watched friends go through that and knew how difficult it could be. The other big motivation was wanting to make sure I didn't pass on any of the same issues to my kids - I wanted to recover before they came along.
How challenging was the recovery process?
The first couple of months were so miserable! I started gaining weight very quickly and within a matter of weeks none of my clothes fit anymore. That was really tough and messed with my head quite a bit. I spent hours listening to podcasts - there’s quite a lot of content out there on HA recovery and disordered eating - and I’d go for long walks with my headphones on, consuming all of this content trying to find something that would help me feel better. Gradually, with lots of support, I started to see the benefits of the weight gain and to feel more like the person who I knew was inside. Once you start seeing that, it reinforces the fact that you're doing the right thing.
Within the space of about 5 months I got my period back. I think my perfectionist tendencies actually served me well here, as I really threw myself into going all in - if I want to do something, I tend to get it done!
I remember a specific moment where I knew my recovery was well under way…. I used to be triggered by seeing people running, because I loved running and it was a massive part of my life. I would feel really angry when I saw them. Then one day I took my dog to the park whilst the Parkrun was on, and there were people running all around me. I was in the centre and thought, "They can do that. I don't have to.” That felt like a significant moment.
It’s amazing that you managed to get your health back in such a relatively short space of time. Looking back, do you feel a sense of pride that you managed to achieve this?
Yes definitely. I recently listened back to an interview I gave for a disordered eating podcast shortly after I'd got my period back, explaining how I'd managed it. That was recorded 4 and a half years ago and I was in tears listening to it again recently - I was like, "That was me - I did that!"
I know how lucky I am to have recovered in the way that I did. I think if I'd have tried to do it after having kids, it would've been a lot more difficult. At that point in my life, I had more time to focus on myself and actually went down to working part-time to create the space to do so. It took a lot of work, but I was fortunate with the timing too. And when I got my period back, some of my friends threw a party for me!
What a moment! That was your body telling you you can become a mother at some point...
Yes it was massive! I had told everyone close to me what I was doing because I wanted to be accountable. They were so supportive the whole way through.
How did you cope with the changes to your body when you became pregnant?
It was easier than the initial recovery process, as I was able to focus on the fact my body was doing something important and there was an amazing reason why the changes were happening. I did still have major wobbles though. I was like, "How am I ever going to come back from this? My skin has been so stretched - how is it ever going to look remotely normal?” I remember having a call with my nutritional therapist when I was about 20 weeks as, for me, that’s the point when my bump starts to really grow. He helped me stay focused on the end goal of meeting my much-wanted baby, without backsliding with the progress I had made.
I think the postpartum period can be more difficult, because there's quite a long time where your body doesn't feel like it's your own. It feels almost alien because, in my case anyway, you still look pregnant for a while! I had to really remind myself that my body had done this extraordinary thing and was continuing to do so. I had grown a human from essentially nothing. I was fortunate to be able to breastfeed both of my babies – it’s incredible to think I provided all their nourishment for the first six months. Acknowledging all of that really helps. I think it's important to give yourself grace and understand that postpartum recovery is a really long process – in my experience it takes years rather than weeks or months.
After everything you’d gone through, how did you feel when you finally became a mother?
After my first birth I felt a massive sense of euphoria. I was just so pumped and so proud - it was the best thing ever! The bonding was immediate, and the love was very intense. I didn’t have the euphoria with my second, probably as the birth was more challenging, but the bonding and the love were as deep, just more mellow.
The most amazing thing recently has been seeing the two of them starting to play together. My son is obsessed with his older sister and he finds whatever she does hilarious. Even though he can't talk and he can only crawl, he’s always trying to get to her and join in her games. To be honest, the reason I had him was so that my daughter would have someone. I have a brother myself and I wanted her to have someone too so, if one day I wasn't around anymore, she’d have her sibling. It's making me emotional thinking about it, but seeing their relationship starting to form is so special. She can be so sweet with him - she loves him so much and he clearly loves her.
How easily did you adjust to motherhood?
I found the newborn phase tough with my first baby and much easier the second time around. For me, the most challenging period has been between months 6-12 as you’re expecting things like sleep to have settled down, but for me they got tougher! Quite a lot of my perfectionist tendencies, which I'd worked so hard on toning down during recovery, came out again in motherhood. I think it’s because it wasn’t about me this time, it was about my babies and I wanted their lives to be perfect! I had to learn that there's a big spectrum of right ways to care for them and it's okay if I don't make things perfect all the time.
Which specific things were you trying to make perfect?
A big one was that I wanted to get the feeding right. I wanted to do baby-led weaning with my first, and was determined to it right. Obviously she’s still become a toddler who will only eat toast some days! Sleeping was a big issue too. I co-slept with my first baby from 6 to 12 months as I just could not get her to sleep any other way, and the judgment on myself came back in full force. I’d be like, "Why can't I sleep train? Everyone else is doing it" or "Why have I caused this?”
It's still a journey with my second baby. He wakes up a lot and sometimes I have to co-sleep with him, but this time around I know that it will end. My eldest has slept in her own room since she was one. She has her own bed and she's fine. Most of the time she doesn't wake me up in the night. They all get there! I think a lot of the stress that we feel as parents is fear of the next step and that an issue will escalate if we don’t intervene. It's easy to think, “If I don't sort out my toddler eating vegetables now, she's never going to eat vegetables!” But in reality, you can let a lot of phases run their course and it works out okay.
Were there any other things that helped you stop being a perfectionist and learn to give yourself a break?
Finding content online that would support my approach helped me a lot. With parenting I’ve found there are two quite polarised camps. There's the attachment parenting camp, which is like, "Co-sleep with them until they're five, breastfeed them until they're 10, wear them in a sling until they're 15!" Then on the other side, there's the baby trainers who are like, "Don't make eye contact with your baby. Let them cry. Feed them every five hours!" I’m exaggerating, but most of the advice out there is somewhere on that spectrum.
Using critical thinking has helped me. So I would ask myself, “Where does this fall on the spectrum? How does it fit in with my values as a parent? Is reading this article going to make me feel good, or is it going to make me feel like I'm failing?”
I think some people love having a system - they want a book to tell them the system and to follow it. But for me it feels better to look at the child in front of me and ask, "What do you need? What are you trying to tell me? How are we going to be in this relationship and get your needs (plus some of mine!) met?” Thinking about it this way has been very helpful.
And yoga has been a big part of all of this for me. There are a lot of practices around non-attachment to thoughts and judgments, finding compassion for yourself and checking in with your emotions and reactions to what’s going on around you. And there are practices to help you find joy and gratitude that I’ve used regularly too.
Photo by Cecilia CristoloveanWas this the reason you decided to become a yoga teacher?
Yes, yoga has given me so much and I wanted to share that with others. I also wanted to specialise in pregnancy and postnatal teaching, based on how my own practice supported me through those times.
Prenatal yoga helps you keep moving during pregnancy and can help with different symptoms, but it also really helped me address my fear of birth. There's lots of crossover with hypnobirthing - reinforcing the fact that you are strong, you are able to birth this baby and you and your baby are in this together. Postnatal yoga can help with physical recovery from pregnancy and birth, but there are a lot of psychological and emotional benefits too. I want people to come out of my classes feeling more settled, more grounded and more open and spacious in the body. I want them to feel they can go and face whatever is coming up in their day, in the way that they want to. And I think yoga has an amazing power to build community – there’s no substitute for being with people who are sharing your experience.
I originally trained as a doctor, before becoming a medical writer. The shift from doctor to yoga teacher might not seem like an obvious one, but as I moved through medical school and onto the wards, the less sure I became that a clinical career was right for me. Part of me wanted to keep space in my life for those potential children whom I had always held in my mind. Pivoting from clinical medicine into medical writing created some of the space I was looking for, and yoga unexpectedly moved in alongside motherhood.
Do you think motherhood has changed you as a person?
My priorities and values have completely changed. I used to feel quite uncertain and worried about what I was doing in different parts of my life, such as my career. Those feelings still exist, but are much more toned down - partly because motherhood keeps you really busy and it just moves on regardless of whether or not you're ready. The time passes, your kids grow up and you have to work out how you're going to relate to that. I've become a lot more selfless.
I think a big shift for me has been seeing my kids as my most important work and I’m trying to lean into the early years of parenthood as a journey, rather than constantly thinking, “What’s the next thing?”. I have found this easier with my second baby, because I have less time to be in my own head. I'm definitely a lot kinder to myself this time around.
It’s been over 5 years since you recovered - have you ever been close to slipping back into your old ways?
No - although maintaining recovery is an active process, I will never go back and I’m so glad that part of my life is over. Something I am very mindful of is not passing on my old behaviours to my children. For example, my daughter is three and a half now and I’m really conscious not to check myself in the mirror in front of her, or comment on my body or her body. I do still tell her that she looks pretty because she does! I still want her to hear that from me, it would be unnatural otherwise. But I try to make conversations around bodies about the amazing functions they perform rather than how they look.
I think a really important part of being a parent is defining your values and priorities, and tuning into your own inner compass. It’s great to get new ideas by looking at different opinions and approaches, but you are your own best guide when making decisions about your parenting.
