I’m in a strange phase, friends.
It’s strange because it feels so very… normal.
I’ve been having babies for ten years.
TEN. Like, the whole
time. There have just been babies. Ten years of being pregnant or
breastfeeding. Ten years of either growing a baby inside my body or feeding a baby with my body. TEN YEARS.
It may sound awful, but it has definitely not been. In fact,
I can say with confidence that the past ten years have been the greatest of my
life. I would do those same ten years over and over again… forever. Some of you
mommas in the trenches may be shaking your heads right now. It sounds crazy.
Honestly, I think I would have thought the same thing somewhere in the middle
of it all.
The thing about being a mom is that the joy and love far
outweighs the day-to-day crap. We get paid with stinky diapers and snot on our
shirt, but also in the tightest hugs around our necks and the messiest kisses
all over our faces. So I can honestly look back over the last ten years and see
past the screaming, crying, and messes. I can see past the days where I wanted
to run away... when I hid in the pantry and ate a birthday cupcake alone... or when I checked Facebook in the bathroom while the baby napped and my big kids watched a movie. I can see past the day where I had my keys in hand, gave my
husband the wipes and a diaper upon him walking through the door, and left. Another
night, I just drove around our town crying because the hard stuff from that day
had finally caught up to me. I mean, just go back and read my posts from the first year or two of this blog. It was rough!
Being a mommy is hard. However, it’s also magical.
For ten years
I have been like a
magical, sparkling unicorn.
I have grown a living person inside of me, nourishing them
and keeping them safe for nine months. I’ve done this six times! My body
actually created an entire organ devoted to giving them exactly what they
needed to grow. I gained weight, but not because I am fat or eat too much… I
gained 2-3 pounds of amniotic fluid, 9-13 pounds of fats & fluids, 2-4
pounds of uterus, 2-5 pounds of blood volume, 1-2 pounds of placenta and 7-9
pounds of baby.
You like that? #birtheducator
I’ve been pregnant for 54 months of my life. I could have done
it once and it would have been a miracle. The term “miracle of life” is so much
more than words. It’s the real deal!
I grew a HUMAN BEING… INSIDE OF ME!
It’s
just crazy.
After nine months of growing a baby, I gave birth to that
baby. By now you know that birth is important to me. The way we are born
affects us for the rest of our lives. The fact that after nine months, my baby
and body worked together to push baby down, stretching me in ways I will never
be stretched again, and ejecting baby out of my body… it’s just astounding to
me. It was hard work. It was not ever easy, even the births where I had an epidural. My body did
work that cannot be equaled in normal life. It’s not about the pain, but the
experience in itself.
I will not experience anything like that outside of
childbirth.
Six times!
Then, after the glorious experience of giving birth and
meeting this child who you’ve made inside of you… this child who you’ve
wondered about… this child that you have grown to love more than you could have
ever imagined… then comes breastfeeding. Yeah, it’s sometimes not easy and it
sometimes is uncomfortable. However, my body made milk to feed a baby. There is
no cooler thing!
I went through a lot of awful things during my last
breastfeeding experience, if you can even call it a “breastfeeding” experience,
considering the only part of my breasts that were involved, were connected to a
pump for months. When my milk didn’t come in, I felt like I couldn’t do the
very thing that women are supposed to do… but eventually, for a short time, it did and even those
twelve ounces I produced each day were more than my husband could do. Or any
man for that matter. My body did amazing, almost superhuman things. It did this
for a total of 83 months of my life.
Being a mommy is magical.
I get to witness magical things every day. I get to watch my
children grow and learn. Seeing their eyes light up when we sing Happy Birthday
to them is magical. Watching their excitement when they read or tie their shoes
or run through the sprinkler for the first time is magical. I saw my Autistic
son, who struggles with emotion and sympathy, ask another child if they were
okay at the park this week.
It was magical.
We have not said for certain that we are done having babies.
We just don’t know. We are overwhelmed and tired, but young. We are in no rush
to do anything. I always say I think I’m done, but the truth is that sometimes
God places a desire in your heart that you cannot explain. It can come out of
nowhere and seems crazy to everyone else. Before the birth of our third child,
we made the decision that we would have as many children as God helped us to
provide for. This doesn’t mean we are reckless and irresponsible. It doesn’t
mean we will do this forever. It just means that we have an understanding that
God sometimes has a different plan than we do, and we are asking Him to help us
make wise choices for our family. Each time we find out we are pregnant,
miraculous things have happened… after I freak out, of course. As you all know,
I did not even want kids! So, every time I have found out I am pregnant, it
shakes me. There is never a time that I’m calm upon reading a positive
pregnancy test. It’s brief excitement, soon followed by panic. It usually takes
me a couple weeks to feel brave enough to tell anyone. And I always feel like I
have to explain myself… isn’t that sad? I’m an adult, but I never felt like it
would be acceptable to be pregnant again in our friends and family’s eyes,
despite knowing that it’s the right thing for our family and even though our
friends, especially, are super supportive.
It's just the culture, but it's still sad in my opinion.
As my kids are growing older though, and I feel like my time
with little ones is coming to a close, I can’t help but wonder about what it
will be like when life is not magical anymore.
What do you become? When you’re
in the stage of having babies, every day is new and exciting.
Pregnancy &
birth alone makes you feel like Wonder Woman.
So, what happens when you are not
special or magical any longer?
What happens when you have to stop being a
unicorn?
I suppose it means the magic doesn’t just happen to you. You
have to find it. You have to look for it every day. Luckily, parenting is full
of special, sparkling experiences. You’re just not the one the magic is
happening to. You are watching the magic around you. Pregnancy, birth and
caring for a baby are a great mask. Being a unicorn is a pretty awesome
costume. What happens when that time is over and your costume comes off? I
think that’s what is scary. When you have to suddenly be your own person again.
After years of not recognizing yourself, as anything but a baby-making & feeding
machine, you suddenly are relieved of your duties, except for those years have
changed you. You aren’t the same person as before you had children, before your
body was transformed, before you became this magical thing. So you begin to
learn about who you are, not just whose mommy you are.
All of a sudden,
people ask how you are and look at you. They’re not looking at the baby
anymore. When you’re in the midst, you feel like you just want someone to see
you… but now, let me tell you, it’s terrifying to think that they might now be
looking at you. You are just supposed to be a real person again, but how can
you be when you’ve been a magical, mystical being for ten years?
I can only imagine it gets harder as they get older, in
particular when they grow up and leave home. But let’s not get ahead of
ourselves here… My oldest told me that, “soon I’ll be going to college”. I’m in
denial that he will ever be that old. He’s about to turn ten and I’m not even
sure that I’m prepared to handle the fact that I’ve been a mommy for a decade.
And if this decade flew by so fast, I cannot imagine how fast the next decade
will go. I’m feeling all the feelings, friends. Hold me.
For now, I’m holding my littles tight, taking my middles by
the hand, slowly letting go of the hands of the first ones who made me magical,
and looking to the One who gave me the magic in the first place.
Being a unicorn is magical, but maybe not being one will be
even better.
Or who knows… maybe I’ll get another chance to do a little
magic…
