Hi friends, and welcome to my very first blog post on Grace Up Mama! I have big plans for this blog and am so thankful that you are here to see this simple beginning. From the bottom of my heart, thanks for being here! I know your time is short, and I truly appreciate you spending some of it with me.
Here is where I am on my motherhood journey: I am a relatively new mom to one sweet little 16-month-old boy. I am a full-time working mom and when I’m not on mom duty, I’m working as a family law attorney (and now blogger!). I don’t have family support nearby that is able to help me with Roman on a regular basis, so my son attends daycare during the week and I also have some wonderful friends and trusted babysitters. I have a healthy little boy who, at least right now, has a sweet disposition. He loves to give hugs and blow kisses, and his favorite toys now are his pretend swords (which can literally be almost anything) and lots of balls.
For my first post, I want you to get to know my overall motherhood journey a bit, so I’ve decided to share 10 things that surprised me about motherhood. If you are expecting (or soon to be expecting) your first child, I hope that this gives you an idea of some things you may go through. If you’re already a mom, I hope you enjoy a walk down memory lane as you think back to that first year with your first little.
10 Things that Surprised Me About Motherhood
1. I knew I was pregnant before I knew I was pregnant. And I even took the earliest pregnancy test that I could. It’s crazy how this happened. I hadn’t taken a pregnancy test, but I just felt something different in my body. I of course started Googling everything I could on first signs of pregnancy. Things like having to pee more and having shortness of breath came up. I had both of those. The first run that I went on after I got pregnant (but before I officially knew I was pregnant) was awfully slow. I was out of breath for most of it. It was fall and the weather was just starting to change, so I thought maybe that was why. I then started thinking that I was making these things up because I was so excited and hopeful. But I really did have to pee more. As it turns out, I really was pregnant, and these were the first little signs that I had, in addition to “just knowing!”
2. My pregnancy wasn’t at all what I expected. First let me say though that pregnancy is a miracle. I was lucky to be able to get pregnant pretty easily. But I had high expectations of what being pregnant would be like. I expected a glowing, special time where my body would feel mostly good, and maybe just some slight discomfort near the end of my pregnancy. I expected myself to be one of those cute, radiant pregnant ladies. My pregnancy was far from what I expected it to be, however, although it certainly could have been worse. I gained way more weight than what was recommended for me—I’m talking double the amount. I was really nauseous for about 15 weeks and threw up more than I can count. But of course, I was too stubborn to take the nausea medicine. I had a great deal of swelling, so much that I went up an entire shoe size and didn’t go back down until about 10 months after having my baby. I also had to get my wedding rings re-sized—and went up almost a size and a half. I’ll give more details on my pregnancy journey later, but for now, just know that it wasn’t even close to what I expected and I was too hard on myself. Being pregnant is hard enough, I shouldn’t have put unrealistic expectations on myself to look and feel a certain way. I was always feeling disappointed in myself. If I’m ever pregnant again, I’ll make sure to give myself some more grace during this time. #graceupmama
3. I didn’t have a birth plan, and I’m so happy I didn’t. I didn’t make a birth plan because I didn’t want to set expectations for my delivery going a certain way and then be disappointed that it didn’t go that way. I had prepared myself that in all likelihood my birth wouldn’t go as expected, but as long as my baby arrived safely, it would be okay. I’m glad I didn’t waste time planning because, when I was 40 weeks pregnant, I found out that my baby was breech. The doctors had always told me that he was head down after my 36-week appointment, so I was shocked at this news. They said he must have turned, but I would have felt a 10-pound baby turn at 39 weeks. More on this story later, but basically, this meant that I had to have a C-section. There wasn’t a doctor who would do an ECV at my OBGYN practice at 40 weeks with what they knew to be a large baby. I was told that the risks were high and the success rate was low at this stage in my pregnancy. I agreed to schedule the C-section and changed my appointment from an induction that had already been scheduled a week out to a C-section the very next day. A C-section was always in the back of my mind as a far-off possibility, but I never thought it would actually be how I delivered my baby. I had less than 24 hours to wrap my brain around it, and I struggled with that. I know I would have struggled even more if I had developed a birth plan, and I am glad that I had kept a pretty open mind about my method of delivery.
4. The birth of a baby is truly a miracle. How can something so complex—a boy or girl with a heart, brain, nervous system, eyes, taste buds, fingernails, etc.—come from a teeny tiny egg and sperm? When I first started following along with a pregnancy week-by-week app, my baby was smaller than a poppy seed. Before even being born, he grew to the size of a watermelon! It seems impossible to my brain. I learned that it also takes a lot to get pregnant. You need to have the timing just right. Plus, your body and your husband’s body need to be capable of creating a pregnancy, and your body needs to be capable of sustaining a pregnancy. In addition to all of that, your baby has to grow healthy and strong. I experienced miracle after miracle during the making of my baby and sustaining that little life inside me. After having my son, I quickly realized that this is not something that my husband and I did, it was something that God did. All the glory is God’s.
5. It was love at first sight. The moment I saw my baby, my whole world changed. The only way I know how to describe it is love at first sight. I’ve never experienced anything else like it. What’s funny is that soon after my son was born—I think we were even still in the operating room—my husband whispered, “Wow, there is such a thing as love at first sight.” We both felt it, and it was amazing. I loved him instantly, and it’s a love that is so hard to describe. My parents always had told me about it—that I wouldn’t know how much they loved me until I had a child of my own. Well, as usual, my parents were right. It’s just a different, bigger kind of love. It was a warm feeling that started as a pin prick in the center of my heart and quickly spread outward to engulf my entire body, something that I felt even in my then still numb legs. That feeling crept up to my eyes and filled them with tears, although I had always told myself I wouldn’t be the kind of parent to cry when she first saw her child. It was incredible and the absolute best feeling in the world.
6. Having my milk come in was unexpectedly, extremely painful. I’m going to be very blunt here. My boobs swelled up to the size of footballs, and they were as hard as footballs too. My skin was shiny and stretched to the max. The morning that my milk came in, which was days after I came home from the hospital, I woke up before my baby, before anyone in my house, because I was in excruciating pain. It felt like my boobs were 10 months pregnant. I thought surely my skin would explode at any moment. I was pretty sure I had enough milk in there to feed three to four babies. I was mortified. I woke up my husband and my mom somewhere around 4:00 or 5:00 am. My baby was still asleep. I asked my mom to look at my boobs to see if it was normal. I could see her eyes nearly pop out of her head when she saw them. I started flipping through my breastfeeding manual I got from the class at the hospital to see if there was any information about this—they definitely hadn’t told me anything about it during the class. I had my mom call the lactation consultant number. She had to leave a message because they weren’t open yet. My mom’s advice was to get in the shower and let the warm water hit my boobs to help the milk letdown—which, we discovered later, was exactly what not to do. Seriously, why did no one tell me about this!? Well, that’s exactly why I’m sharing this experience—I wish I had known. What else you need to know is that the pain is in varying degrees for different moms. Also, the pain goes away in 4-5 days. It is short lived, hallelujah. To cope during this time, I wore a bra around the clock and stuffed it with diaper ice packs (diapers you get wet and put in the freezer) and cabbage leaves. But be careful with those cabbage leaves—only use what you need to get some relief, because those really work to dry up your milk. It felt like forever, when I was in it, but looking back, that time period before my milk regulated went by in the blink of an eye.
7. Breastfeeding wasn’t natural for me. It was really hard for me at the beginning. My baby didn’t seem to like me. He was squirmy and hot and couldn’t seem to relax. He was a loud eater and would scream in the middle of nursing sessions. I was embarrassed to nurse in public, so I confined myself mostly to the house. I went to see a lactation consultant for help. My baby didn’t get back to his birth weight until he was one month old. During this month, I had to nurse, pump, then feed every two hours. I had to wake my baby up to eat. I set alarms around the clock. It felt like all I did was feed my baby and wash bottles and pumping parts. I also had to supplement with formula, which I didn’t want to do. I had help, praise God, because I couldn’t have done this by myself. I had my mother or my mother-in-law to help me for this entire month, and I am so thankful that I had them. And slowly but surely, breastfeeding got easier. I made it past my goal of breastfeeding for one year, and I am so proud of that accomplishment.
8. Every stage kept getting better. Those first three months were really hard. If I could have just skipped those months, I totally would have. They don’t call it the fourth trimester for nothing. Shew. It felt like some sort of initiation into the motherhood club. But after that, it got so much better. And then it kept getting even better. Literally, at every stage after that, it was my new favorite stage. The first time he rolled over, sat up on his own, said his first word, ate food, stood on his own, took his first steps, gave me a real hug…oh my goodness, my heart just melted over and over again. The first year is truly something special and I will treasure it always.
9. Motherhood makes me appreciate my own mother so much more. Oh my goodness it does. Once I became a mother, I had to make so many sacrifices. Especially those first few months. My own self-care got tossed to the side as I focused on making sure my baby was healthy and growing well. We didn’t have any major health concerns, but we had some unexpected things come up with our healthy baby. I know all moms have their own unique challenges, some much bigger than others, but all challenges nonetheless. Having gone through just the beginning season of motherhood, I now can clearly see how wonderful my mother is. She is self-sacrificing and loves me and my sister more than herself. She always has our best interest at heart. She prays for us each and every day. She’s always guided us to grow closer to God. I am so very blessed to have her and I hope to be just a sliver of the kind of mother that she is to me to my son.
10. Motherhood is a crazy ride, and I’m just glad that I get to be on it. Not everyone gets to be a mama and I know I’m so very fortunate I get to do this. Through the good moments and the hard moments, I wouldn’t trade this new role for anything in the world. I never knew I could love a tiny human so much. Each night after my son goes to bed, my husband and I talk about how much we love him and how we can’t believe that he is ours. We chat about how he is such a sweet little boy right now, how he is a good eater and sleeper, and how wonderful his hugs are. Many of our friends also have young children and we love swapping sweet stories with them about our children and what stages they are going through. Motherhood is beautiful and exhausting, and I love being in community with other mamas. I always knew motherhood was a blessing, but I am just learning how wonderful that blessing is.
Again, thank you for being here! I love chatting and swapping advice with moms. Are you expecting your first child? What concerns or questions do you have? What are you looking forward to most? Are you already a mama? What was something that surprised you most on your own journey into motherhood? I can’t wait to hear from you! Go with grace, mama <3
