A Journey Towards Motherhood

This is my birth story from start to finish. It has been months in the making and I am still processing all that I have learned and experienced. As usual, it helps me to write it out. This blog is more "journal" then I ever intended but it is honest, it is genuine and I pray it blesses any who read.


The Journey Begins

This time last year we decided that it was time to begin expanding our little family. We had just built/purchased our first home and were no longer renters but home owners, we both were established with our new jobs, healthy and happy and in a good place in our marriage; we felt ready. In short, the timing seemed right.

I had no idea the journey that was ahead of us.

I can't say exactly what I expected to happen when we began to "try" for a baby. I guess I assumed it took a while. We were both in our early 30's and the biological clock was ticking. My family Dr had asked on more than one occasion if children were in our future. So I thought we had a few months at least. We didn't.

Our first month I was feeling... odd. Breast tenderness, emotional, and off balance. I thought I was gearing up for my monthly cycle but it didn't quite feel the same. I decided to take a pregnancy test but I had already convinced myself it was negative. You don't get pregnant that quickly, right?

Wrong.

I was stunned. I think I stared at that stick for 2 minutes. And then in shock stumbled out to the bedroom and unceremoniously handed the test over to my husband and blurted, "we're pregnant." No cutsie announcement, no romance, no Pinterest craft to surprise him and try to make it special - just pure shock. And a few tears. Happy tears but tears.

The shock wore off quickly but the feeling of otherworldly, this can't-be-happening, is-this-really-true continued on for several days. We were so happy. But I began to have my first true emotion of motherhood. This is THE emotion that has characterized my motherhood journey so far: self-doubt. It hit me like a Mack truck - what have we done? We're we really ready for this? This was no longer a hypothetical scenario - the pink lines proved it, baby was on the way and suddenly, something I had wanted for so long seemed so scary and powerful and frightening.

I doubted myself. In every way possible. Would I be a good enough mom? Nurturing enough? Patient enough? How about my "ability" as a woman? Would I be able to nourish and sustain this fragile life inside me for 9 months? Would I be tough enough for childbirth? Was I ready to put all of "me" aside for someone else?

Closely on the heels of self-doubt comes the 2nd emotion of true motherhood: fear. Paralyzing fear that some harm will come to the baby. That you might lose the baby. That it seems too good to be true and you find yourself braced for the other shoe to drop. It is difficult because it is so impossibly outside the realm of our control as mothers, as women. We like to think that we can eat the right foods, take our vitamins, stay hydrated and rested and baby will be fine. I am old enough and wise enough to know that life seldom works like that. Tragedy, illness, and loss touch everyone at some point indiscriminately. And it never seems fair. So I battled fear in enormous doses. Praying constantly that HE who had created this life would continue to sustain it.

Looking back now I can see that doubt and fear must be early hallmarks of motherhood. They are the scars that all moms wear, visible and invisible, as a rite of passage. They are the indication that you have something priceless at stake, something irreplaceable.

I wish someone had told me this. That joy and love are the essence of a mom but so too are doubt and fear. And I suspect that I will do battle with these emotions for the rest of my existence as a mother. As my son grows my doubts and fears will change and evolve and shift but they will follow me. It is hard work to be a mom. It is hard work to trust even in a good God, who is Himself a Father. I find myself readjusting constantly back into active faith - choosing to trust. Falling into what I cannot control, headfirst - believing that whatever the outcome God will still be good, still be in control, still be God. It is the only peace I've found.

So there I was, newly pregnant, barely a mother and yet baptized into the flood of emotions, the tidal wave of joy and fear, love and doubt. I could sense then what has become real to me now - I would not make it through this journey of motherhood the same as I started. I truly believe that the most powerful work God has done in my heart, to-date, He plans to accomplish in this season. I pray I rise to the occasion, not with perfection but with faith.

Part 2 to come.