Motherhood- it starts the moment you find out you are pregnant, and am told it never ends until you stop breathing. Even when your children are ‘grown and gone’ you will still wonder and worry about them.
You lose your body during pregnancy (even though it is the most wonderful thing ever- to be growing a new human), and start down the lovely road of sleepless nights. If you are pregnant, and someone says, “sleep now before the baby comes,” that is a dead give away that this person has never been pregnant.
During pregnancy you read and try to cram everything you can into your brain about pregnancy, babies, diet, health, labor, birth, breastfeeding, etc. into every spare minute you have. You selfishly give up any and all remnants of a life that included eating what you wanted, drinking, and staying up late- all for the good of your unborn child.
Then comes the actual day this unborn baby is born, and again, it is the most wonderful and powerful thing, but for a lot of women it is also a lot of work, pain, and well, labor. You surrender to your body, and let what ever needs to happen to get the baby out of you, happen. If you were modest before childbirth, there is a great chance you won’t be after. Need I say more?
When your sweet baby is finally born, you have exactly 2 seconds to catch your breath, and then start worrying about your child. Is he breathing OK? What is his weight? Is he crying? Why isn’t he crying? Is he crying too much? Why won’t he stop crying?
“Food- ah that’s it! My baby wants to eat- that will stop the crying,” you tell yourself as you try to nurse the baby for the first time. If it is your first child, you think you know what you are doing, but in reality, you probably would have more confidence trying to climb up Mt. Everest in a blindfold- it just takes practice to perfect. If it is a subsequent child you do know what you are doing, but must guide the baby until he gets the hang of nursing.
Then life with the babe starts, and you realize you didn’t know how good you had it while you were pregnant, and could at least shower and brush your teeth every day. You probably have taken some time off from work, or even decided to stay-at-home with your baby, putting your career on hold, to raise your child(ren).
You don’t regret that decision for a moment, but some days you wish you could go to an office for a few hours and talk to GROWN-UPS. You wish you could have a business lunch, where you didn’t have to lug around a sippy cup, baby food, crackers, a diaper bag sports equipment duffel bag along, with all of baby’s toys, food, diapers, and gear. You wish you could finish a train of thought, or finish a conversation without having someone baby, babies, or toddler in the background crying, or screaming. You wish you had a project where you could see immediate results and actually have someone thank you or tell you, you did a good job.
If you get two or three hours of sleep continually through the first year, count yourself lucky. If not, you can join the ranks of those of us who sit up at night, after night, after night, with our babies, who won’t or can’t sleep for more than a few hours at a time. You think back to PBL (pre-baby-life) that a bad night was when you didn’t get EIGHT uninterrupted hours of sleep. Yes, you could get through the day on six or seven, on a rare occasion, but anything less than eight, forget it- you were a walking zombie. As you sit in the dark, staring at a wall, now knowing what a walking zombie REALLY is (it is what you have become), you tell yourself it won’t be like this forever- it will be easier when the child(ren) are older, and it will all be worth it one day.
My day arrived this morning, when my sweet, charming, adorable, 3 year old son woke up, and discovered his daddy had already left work. He started to cry, and I held out my sleep-deprived arms for him and said,
“It’s okay, sweetie- mama’s here. Come give me a hug.”
To which he actually gave me a look like a scowl and ever-so-firmly said,
“You need to go to work, and Dad needs to stay home with me.”
I replied,
“My work is to stay at home, and take care of you and your brother.”
To which he said,
“NO- you need a job, and Dad needs to stay home with us.”
Yes, hearing that makes it all worth while. 🙂
