I wrote this blog in honor of my soon-to-be Mama friends, us newbie moms, the moms in the elementary school years, the mamas in the trenches of teenage years, and the mamas who have walked down the same road all the rest of us are on. After observing friends and mothers close to me in my own life, I am completely convinced that Mothers are one of the toughest, softest, kindest, most compassionate people on the planet.
To start off, I’ll admit it: I have the hardest time deleting pictures off of my phone. Even though I've backed them all up on my iCloud, Google Photos, External Hard drive, and on my laptop. I just have a hard time letting go of the baby pictures of Seth because I would never get them back if something happened to them. I was also so sleep deprived the first 6 months of his life that I wouldn’t be able to remember hardly anything that happened if it weren’t for the pictures I took while half-asleep. After getting fed up with my phone telling me 239 times a day that my Storage Is Full, I decided that it’s just time to sit down and dump all of my pictures onto my computer and Hard Drive. And that’s where this story begins:
As I was looking through the different files of pictures, I found the one with Seth’s newborn pictures and I started SOBBING. And I couldn’t stop. Nor did I want to. I was crying over the memories that we’ve shared, the bond that we have created that is unique to only us. I never understood how some people could cry over their children just talking about them, but now that I have two of my own, I totally understand. I often stay up at night and look at pictures of Seth on my phone, even though he’s in the next room sleeping.
When I think back to the newborn stage with Seth, for at least the first eight weeks, I have realized that I still was still carrying a lot of mom guilt around with me. The guilt has become less as time has passed, but it’s still there. Guilt over not knowing what to do - AT ALL. I had just given birth to the greatest miracle in my life and he didn't come with a step-by-step how-to guide of how to care for a baby or how to raise him. I like rules, I like plans, I like guidelines. When none of these are present, I can start to freak out.
Even through so many conflicting postpartum hormones, I tried as best as I could to cherish the moments that I could with Seth while he was still “tiny baby”, as I call it :) Looking back at how far we, and I, have come, I can see a lot more happy times now that I’m not as sleep deprived. I was so young and naïve, I thought I knew a lot about many things, but I didn't. These times and first memories with Seth make me cry almost every time I think about them. I am so glad that God hears my prayers, especially the prayer I prayed to Him at least a thousand times - to have a November Baby - because that's when Aaron was due and I felt like I needed that closure. God heard me, and God provided me with my Rainbow Baby.
When Seth was between 7-8 weeks old, we took a nap on the couch together every day, sometimes twice a day! He would lay on my chest and fall asleep for at least an hour and a half. When he wouldn’t be able to sleep through the night, I’d take him downstairs and fall asleep with him on the couch, just like how we had taken our afternoon naps together. I LOVED it. I wish he would still do that with me! Even through sleep deprivation, I had enough coherency to think that this probably isn’t going to last very long, so I better make the most of these moments and cherish them while I can. I'm really glad I took my own advice.
I think about when I went back to work when Seth was 10 weeks old and how difficult that was. Not only being away from my baby for the first time in 10 weeks, but how physically demanding it was. Thankfully my co-workers and boss at the time were totally supportive of me pumping at work, but, man oh man was that rough. I specifically remember one day in particular that I forgot to bring my pump to work. My chest was starting to hurt from the pressure of my milk, and there was no way I could get it out. I'm pretty sure I had a mini meltdown in front of my manager and co-worker as they tried to comfort me (if you're reading this right now, you are for reals amazing. You know who you are). It was shortly after this that my milk started to slowly dry up, and I had to stop nursing Seth at 7 months old. I carried that natural event as shame for months afterward. I hated every single bottle of formula that I made at home because I felt that it was my sole responsibility to provide nutrients for my baby from my body and I couldn't even do that. I eventually realized that I did the very best that I could in my given circumstance, and that I needed to accept that and keep on carrying on.
I have decided that I'm going to be mindful to not let “Mom Guilt” take over my life and control me. I would hate to be sitting at Seth’s high school graduation thinking, “Man, I wish I could have done better in this area when he was a kid”, or “I should have listened to him more when I knew he needed me”. I want to encourage all of my mama friends out there that are reading this to enjoy every moment that you have with your kids. Take tons of pictures, record videos, sing songs, color and paint with them, read lots of books. Even if they’re driving you nuts, it’s not always going to be like this. (I’m writing this as a reminder for myself, too!)
I’d like to finish this post off with this encouragement: It’s so easy to compare our children to other people’s kids (I do this all the time, unfortunately). Sometimes I forget the Seth is a tiny human being, and I expect him to behave a certain way all the time. First of all, he’s not a robot so I can’t program him to be perfect. Secondly, he has feelings, behaviors, humor, and an attitude very much like my own. Just like I feel a need to express myself in certain ways, he needs to do the same thing as well. You’re doing so well raising your kids, friend, and they needed a mama just. like. you. No one else but you would have done. I’m convinced that God created our kids specifically for us. What amazing treasures we have.
