# Two lives in one day

> A day that starts with four children’s voices, continues in a white coat and comes home again to four small hearts. Meliha Özyalvaç, a specialist physician and mother of four, on the hardest part of working motherhood — and the thing without a name that rises through all the tiredness.

- Source: https://mesgalem.com.tr/en/inspiration/two-lives-in-one-day
- Language: en-GB
- Author: Uzm. Dr. Meliha Özyalvaç
- Published: 2026-09-22
- Category: Mother & Baby
- Tags: Working mothers, Motherhood, Four children, Guest writer

And sometimes at night, when everyone is asleep and the house is quiet, I ask myself:

“Was I really enough of a mother to my children today?”

Then I look at their sleeping faces.

Maybe I couldn’t play with them for long every day.

Maybe I couldn’t answer every question the moment it was asked.

Maybe, out of tiredness, I sometimes raised my voice.

Maybe on some days I didn’t have a single minute for myself.

But I was always there.

Inside their lives, trying to carry on my own at the same time…

Being a doctor taught me to touch a person’s life.

Being a mother taught me to share my own life with my children’s.

Now I understand that being a working mother is not living two separate lives.

It is carrying two lives at once.

Sometimes it is heavy.

But then I hear four small people calling “Mum”.

And out of all my tiredness, something I cannot describe rises up.

Maybe its name is happiness.

Maybe gratitude.

Maybe simply love.

I don’t know.

The only thing I know is this:

Every morning I begin again.

As a doctor, to touch other lives; as a mother, to reach four small hearts…

And, for all my shortcomings, doing the best I can.

Because some women’s lives carry more stories than a single day can hold.