Becoming a Mom - The Hardest Thing I Have Ever Done

I want to warn some of my audience that in order to be honest about my journey, I use some strong language. I know for some that might offend you, and I am sorry it would. However, those words are the best way I know how to accurately portray my thoughts and feelings about this experience. Know that I use them purposefully and with full knowledge of their gravity.

I have been trying to figure out how to say this since the week after my daughter was born several months ago. I am still not sure I’ll ever be able to accurately depict my parenting journey. I’m not sure if it’s possible to truly “get it” without having done it, and even then, everyone’s journey is different. But I’ve needed to talk about it for a long time.

It is hard. The hardest thing I have ever done. Physically, relationally, and emotionally.

Physically –  

I pushed a human out of my vagina. And that was the easiest part.

Directly after an exhausting, scary labor and delivery, I was thrust into an existence with severely limited sleep, which lasted for weeks. In the hospital, my nipples were immediately shredded raw by a zealous and clumsy infant whose very life depended on me allowing her to continue shredding them, nurses who pressed on the sore surrounding flesh of my breasts and palpated my tender and exhausted uterus, and I had to stay awake for all of it, even though my whole body screamed for sleep.

And then we came home, where I was still only able to sleep when the baby slept (which was only for a couple hours at a time), and where sitting and going to the bathroom made me remember my tender vagina and perineum, and where my shredded nipples were only barely on a delicate healing path thanks to a nipple shield, and where my arms and back were sore from having constantly full arms – but all without nurses. And we had to make our own food.

And it continued. For days. For weeks. For months.

Relationally-

Over and over and over Brock and I have been so grateful that we went to counseling before having a baby. In general, it was so good for our emotional and relational health, and had we jumped into parenthood without doing the hard work on our relationship and selves, this journey would have been so much harder and damaging for us.                   

And still, our marriage has taken a huge jostling. Not all bad, but all hard.

Before having a baby and after counseling, we had found an amazing groove. I had so much joy in our relationship. We were true partners, talking about everything and anything (the hard stuff and the joyful stuff and the mundane stuff), and sharing the responsibilities and patterns of everyday life. I loved it. So much.

Before our daughter was born, we talked extensively about boundaries and things we wanted to put in place to make sure our marriage still stayed a priority after the baby arrived -- like date nights and open communication. But the truth is there was nothing that could have adequately prepared us for the major life change of becoming parents. Not only did the protective plans we had made take a backseat, but our partnership changed.

Before a baby, we split everything down the middle. Earning money, doing chores, making dinner, and caring for each other and ourselves. And suddenly we were in a situation where things were no longer even. I was the only one who could carry and birth this child. I was the only one with the milk who could feed this child. I was the only one with a broken body that still needed to be available for this child. It was no longer an even partnership.

Brock tried his hardest, and was amazing. But there were so many times I felt alone, terrified, and exhausted because I couldn’t ask him to feed her while I slept, even though I was desperately tired, because we didn’t have pumped milk. I couldn’t lie in bed all day recuperating from the massive trauma of birth because I was needed for this child’s survival, when in the past, Brock would have taken care of me while I rested and recovered from something like this. It just wasn’t the same reality anymore.

We are figuring out our new relationship as married parents. And we’re still in the middle of that transformation. What does it mean to be partners in this? How are things “halved” when Brock goes to work all day and I stay home with our daughter? Is that equal? Does it need to be? What if I wash all the dishes AND do all the laundry now while I’m taking care of our child? How does this all work?

I can just see the light at the end of this tunnel now, but for four months, while I by no means have been a single mom (my husband is an awesome dad and partner), I have certainly felt the impact to our relationship. I grieve the loss of what we had, and I know it will be different going forward. I’m hopeful it will still be good, but it will be different.

Emotionally –

Every medical professional will tell you that pregnancy, birthing, and breastfeeding hormones are no joke. And they’re right. But they’re also not the only reason for crying, or being irritable, or angry, or joyful, or afraid, or depressed.

For me, it’s that everything is different. My body, my marriage, my home, my time, my schedule, my identity… things that were consistent – safe havens, even – are now unfamiliar, and sometimes unattainable. Instead, I have a new, differently shaped and scarred body; a new relationship with my husband where we make a whole lot of room for a new person; a new use for our home that is not often restful; a new sense of time; a completely new schedule; and a new, morphing identity.

I feel like I was broken the day she was born. Like giving birth to her ripped apart who I was to make room for a new me. And I don’t really know who I am yet.

It freaks me out.

And then there are the doubts. I have doubted myself every day, multiple times a day, since the day she was born.

Am I doing this right? Am I screwing her up? Is she getting too much foremilk and not enough hind-milk? Should she have this binky? Is that going to cause dependencies? If I let her cry, is she going to be traumatized? Am I a shitty mother? Am I a shitty wife? Have I lost myself in all of this? What if it’s always hard like this? Am I even cut out to be a mother? What happens if I don’t actually like being a mother? I’m in it now, forever… and I don’t think I can do this level of hard forever…

For the first eight weeks I thought all of these things in between feedings, during feedings, while I rocked her to sleep, while I tried to sleep while she was sleeping, while I ate, while I showered (which wasn’t often), and while I talked to anyone and tried to tell them how I was. I still have moments when someone asks me “how are you doing?” that I have no idea how to answer… I have no real way to answer without giving a doctoral thesis of context.

And even then, it wouldn’t be enough.

Things are getting easier. I am gaining confidence in my mothering and my ability to adjust from moment to moment. I have moments of ecstatic joy when I can’t stop saying, “thank you, Lord” for my precious daughter. And I still have moments and days of doubt, worry, and grief thrown in the middle of it all.

This is only a sampling of why this is the hardest thing I have ever done. The things I have thought and felt could fill a book. And I’ll likely write about them and more.

The day she was born, I broke and am being put back together into a new shape. I never imagined becoming a mom would be like this. I thought it would come so naturally. And perhaps it still has. The natural world isn’t exactly a tame one. In fact, it’s often brutally violent.

That’s what it feels like. I was brutally, violently barged into being a mother. From being sick my whole pregnancy to shredded nipples to months of exhaustion and distress. I was brought into motherhood naturally, but by no means smoothly.

This has just been my experience. I can’t say if others feel similarly about when they became mothers, and I would never say, “this is what you should expect” if you are about to become a mother. Everyone’s motherhood journey is different.

I would love to hear more motherhood journey stories. Please, drop a comment below and let me know any similarities or differences you felt when you became a mother for the first (or second, or third, etc.) time.

For now, it’s been cathartic being able to express myself and process this journey so far. My soul feels lighter.