For all the blogs I’ve read about being pregnant, I was not ready for this.
No one really prepares you for what it will be like to be pregnant and become a mom. You read all the mommy blogs and see the maternity photo shoots with women’s perfect baby bellies, happy couples in love and nursery designs out of magazines. You see adorable babies in tiny cute clothes and hear their sweet baby gurgles. Then the further you go you start to see the tantrums, poop explosions, puking, sleepless nights and endless crying (from either you or your baby). But no one really explains to you what happens inside your body, mind and spirit when you become pregnant and start on the journey to become a new mother. The fear and excitement you feel everyday when you think to yourself “what the fuck have I gotten myself into?”.
When you first become pregnant you feel like complete and utter shit and exhausted all the time. At least I did. I slept about 14–18 hours a day for the first 2 months, only wanted to eat bagels and cream cheese and was sick at the thought of eating anything else. I stressed about how to tell people I was pregnant, how we could afford a child, my body being uncomfortable and noticing weird changes everyday and how I could possibly adjust my life to become a mother, even though we planned for it.
Then there was the worrying. If you’re anything like me, you come from a family full of women who worried, about literally everything. How you were doing in school, how you managed your money, if you had tattoos, what kind of job you were going to get, what kind of friends you had, how late you were going to stay out and of course the ultimate, was my child kidnapped and murdered since I haven’t heard from them in the last hour? A bit excessive if you ask me, yet this was a very real worry for my mother and grandmother at times. Now here I am worried when my boyfriend (who’s a welder mind you) barely cuts himself. I turn into nurse Liana and rush at him with my first aid kit at the first sign of blood and worry that he hurt himself worse then he actually did. Oh no, Im turning into my grandmother!
It’s at this point you start to think about your parents and what they did right or wrong with raising you. You think about how you turned out, your faults and short comings and what you still want to change about yourself. Hopefully, you also think about all the good things you love about yourself and gifts you have to share with your child. You start thinking about what kind of mother you want to be and what you want to instill in your child and how you want raise this new tiny human you created.
For years you thought about and processed all the shitty things your parents did to you and all the trauma they created in your life (at least I did). How you had to spend years in therapy breaking down and dissecting all your negative patterns and disillusionment from how they raised you and the anger and resentment you held towards them. It’s around that time when you start to realize what your parents must have been going through, how they themselves were only just children and did the best they could with what they had. My mom was the ripe young age of 19 when she got married and 24 when she had my sister. (Hence why I also waited until I was 31 to have children and I still feel too young!) I always felt it was so important for people to go live their lives before they get married, have kids or even choose a career before they even know who they are yet! Go find yourself and have some fun or Christ sake! Babies should not be making babies, but thats just my opinion.
Theres a saying I like quite a lot that says “If you raise your kids you get to spoil your grandkids, but if you spoil your kids you have to raise your grandkids.”
I just fucking love that. Im going to raise the shit out of my kids so my parents get to spoil the crap out of my babies. Thats one thing I’ll give to my mother (among the many things). She may have been young when she had my sister and me but she did her damnedest to make sure we turned out to be kind, polite, compassionate, understanding and well rounded humans. She was just a child when she had us and started her life as a mother yet she made sure she did everything in her power to take care of us and give us a life that would help us thrive. We still felt her love (although not through hugs and affection) but through teaching us how to stand up for ourselves, create a life that was truly ours and how to work hard at the things you love and feel proud of our accomplishments. The attention and understanding she gave even when she had no idea how to relate to us at times and the sheer unconditional love we felt even when we were farthest apart has withstood the test of time, over and over again.
So back to being pregnant and becoming a mother. How on earth are we supposed to emotionally prepare for the unknown and how do you know when you’re ready to have children? Ive read and been told so many different stories of what you feel after you give birth. The amount of unconditional love you’ll feel. The amount of pain you experience (!!!). The fear and protection you feel over this little creature you brought into this world. How on earth do you prepare for that? Is there a lecture I can attend or a test I can take to see how ready I am? No? Shit. I just have to wait and find out. Such is life. But thats where the beauty lies. In the unknown. In the fear and excitement. In the ever changing emotions in my body, mind and spirit.
Is there a point when we start to understand why things are the way they are? Or how things happen the way they do? Or is that thought just as fleeting as the feeling of falling in love for the first time?
The truth is, Im afraid. Im afraid of the monumental change I will experience in my life. Im afraid I will miss getting to be selfish with my time, energy and money instead of having to give my all to this adorable tiny being I chose to have.
How do you prepare to become something you’ve never done before with some much time to plan and think about what it will be like? You’ll never know until you hold your infant child in your arms for the first time and see their face looking up at you and have no other option or thought in your mind than to protect and love them for the rest of your life.
I think about all the mothers who came before me. All of the generations of women who have been faced with the same fear, excitement and gut wrenching idea of change as I am in right now and wondering how they persevered?
Who am I now and how will that change? Who do I want to be vs how will I end up? What am I afraid of and how do I confront that fear? How do I stare my fear right in the face until it feels the same and we become equals? I want to understand so much more than I do right now. This place is so new and so foreign, yet I cant wait to be engulfed in the chaos and feverish excitement at this new phase and chapter. I relish in the new responsibility and role Ive chosen for myself. I stare boldly in the face of change and fear as I traverse this new path Ive laid out for myself. I trust myself and the life I manifested to hold me in support and love as I cradle my new born son and give him whatever world he wishes to create for himself. I feel blessed to be raised by parents who were hurt and broken yet persevered and did their best to give us everything and more. For it made me more understanding and compassionate in the role I am about to take on as a new mother in this ever changing world.
Our baby boy Sullivan Jon Roscoe is due July 27th, 2021. May he be loved unconditionally, raised without fear and live in a world of full of wisdom and guidance on his journey through this beautiful life. Momma Loves you Baby.
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