I'm embarrassed to say that I did not transition into motherhood very gracefully. (Still transitioning, still working on grace) Arlo was not a mistake or a surprise. He was very much planned and hoped for. We made the decision to have a baby while on vacation, came back to reality and never had a chance to look back. Three weeks later little baby stone was growing, growing! Now, if you know me, you know how planned, organized, and efficient I like to be so I was thrilled to find out everything went smoothly and quickly and we were well on our way to being parents.
My pregnancy was a relatively easy one. No morning sickness, very few things made me nauseous, my feet only swelled a couple of times, and very little heartburn. Sometimes my feet would ache and towards the end the pressure of our sweet boy made it hard to roll over or get up to go to the bathroom or move quickly in general. I did gain WAY too much weight (more on that in a bit), but besides those few things I didn't have any trouble at all. Then his due date came and went. Every morning I would wake up and think, "today could be the day!" It wasn't. He was induced a week past his due date (You can read his story here)
I had always heard of this "love at first sight" experience you have when they place your sweet baby in your arms for the very first time. I can't say I had that experience. I was super excited that he was finally here and super excited to get to meet this human that we created and of course I loved him, but I wasn't in love with him the way I had expected to be. ( Don't worry, I'm completely obsessed with him now!) The next few days were a blur. A blur of postpartum-ness, aches, pains, learning about this new life, and our roles as parents. Then we brought him home. I was completely overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by this tiny life and how much he demanded of me, overwhelmed by how much he wanted to nurse, overwhelmed with how unprepared I was to be a mom, overwhelmed by the fact that THIS WAS NOT MY BODY, overwhelmed by the amount of visitors we had, overwhelmed to wake up and do it all over again...every day. I became a very anxious person. I was anxious every time I put him down for a nap because I couldn't help but think, "how long will he nap for?" "Will he just cry when he wakes up?" "Will he want to nurse...AGAIN?" "I wish it didn't hurt so bad" " He's going to want to nurse, I just know it" "After he naps, I feed him, and change him, then what do we do?" "Should I be trying to sleep?" "Maybe I'll just lay down for a minute." "Oh he's up... I guess I'll feed him." All of these thoughts every.single.time. I didn't want to go out in public because what if he cried, what if he got hungry, what if I need to change his diaper, what if I see someone I know? I was incredibly self conscious of being "that person" at the store who couldn't handled her baby (and still am) and the fact that I was terribly overweight and flabby had my self esteem and confidence at an all time low.
I knew everyone said that being a mom was hard, but no one told me why it was hard. Maybe because it's a different hard for everyone. But here I was, having such a hard time, feeling like a failure, feeling like no one else fought the change into motherhood this badly, feeling like I had made a huge mistake. I mean, I CHOSE this for myself? I hated nursing because it hurt so badly. He wanted to eat all the time so I constantly felt like I was alone and naked, especially since he would nurse for hours if I let him. I never knew what to do with him when he was awake, which was all the time. I didn't know how to be a mom AND a wife. And I wanted so badly to enjoy "every single minute of it," because "it all passes so quickly. But I didn't. I loved Arlo, but I didn't really love being a mom yet.
I thought being a mom would feel like the greatest thing I'd ever done, but it just felt like the most exhausting thing I'd ever done. I thought I would be so full of joy that I had this tiny human that I would just burst all over everyone. But I wasn't. I was full of anxiety, tension, confusion, stress. I was so tired, and mean to my husband, and I got frustrated when Arlo cried. Definitely not the type of mother I thought I would be. I thought I would be like one of those fun blog moms, who always look cute in their top knot and skinnies. I thought I would have it together and have crockpot dinners ready and my baby on a schedule, but not get stressed out when something upset our routine. Needless to say none of that happened. And if anyone else was having this hard of a time being a new mom, they for sure weren't saying anything! So I woke up being anxious about what was in store for the day, feeling like a failure because I hadn't showered or shaved my legs, feeling sad because I had cut off all my hair so my dreams of adorable top knots went out the window,, feeling nostalgic for my "old life," and feeling awful for feeling all of these things. But I hoped with every passing day that things would get better, that I would get better.
Eventually the days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months, and things started feeling a little bit more normal. I started loosing weight and feeling better about myself. I stopped trying to get Arlo on a schedule and, as hard as it still is, I started going with his flow. I'm still trying to stop comparing myself to other moms, Arlo to other babies, and Steven to other husbands. It's a battle everyday, but it's definitely worth it. I'm still working on being a mom filled with patience, grace, and understanding. I'm not the mom I thought I would be, but I'm still working on the mom I want to be.
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