They Were Born and So Was I: Reflections on Motherhood

Almost 11 years ago, my life changed forever.

Since I was a child I’d dreamed of becoming a mother. The reality was far more difficult than I could have imagined.

From the time she was born, my daughter didn’t sleep. She ate around the clock, no nursing was ever enough. She was alert and interested in the world around her from day one. But she didn’t like to sleep.

We were all exhausted.

I learned a lot about mental illness and parenting, about anxiety and parenting, and being married to a spouse with depression while parenting. Especially while parenting a sleepless newborn. I sometimes think I have some trauma associated with the experience of living through the first year of her life.

While the memory of the never-ending nights has faded, I still carry some of the scars of watching what those sleepless nights did to my husband. Of what the stress of becoming a parent and sole breadwinner triggered in his soul when suddenly he was responsible for another human being. It was the first major rough patch of our marriage.

The births of each of my children, I have experienced a birth of my own, an unearthing of weaknesses, failing, and sometimes past wounds.

I’ve learned how much of me became a parent as an affirmation of the life I saw my parents happily live. I thought if I followed their pattern I’d be guaranteed a happy and fulfilled life.

Don’t misunderstand me, my life is for the most part happy and I do not regret it. But it has also been filled with challenges that are nothing like my parents’ own.

I thought if I just ticked all the proper boxes I’d produce a positive outcome, a solid, safe, and protected life.

I later lost a child to miscarriage and gave birth to two boys who both dealt with serious feeding issues that consumed most of my first year with each of them. One also has food allergies, as well as a constellation of neurological differences. That first baby girl who never slept has an autoimmune condition.

There are definitely times when we look at our children and wonder if they just won/lost the genetic lottery and whether we are the two worst people to be their parents.

But I know that isn’t so. Because just as they were born ours, we were born theirs. They are given to us and we are given to them. I believe this was all part of the master plan and that in all the swirling of galaxies and complexities of DNA, I was meant to be their mother.

When I doubt this, and Lord knows, I doubt this often, I only have to look into my children’s eyes to know that I will go to the mat for them. As Wendy Speake says, I don’t want to fight with them but I will always fight for them.

(Full disclosure definitely more than five minutes today. It took me all day to get started and once I did, I guess I touched a nerve. I hope these words resonate with you as well, dear reader. )