Wednesday, October 3, 2012

What I Wish Someone Told Me Before Having Kids :: 31 Days Of Motherhood



There are days when I wish that someone prepared me for what Motherhood would be. 

Prepared me for what it would both bring to and take away from my life. How it would change my relationship with my husband, my friends. How it would change me as a person. For good. For the better

I mean, I wish someone had really sat me down.

There are days when I wish that someone sat me down, held my hand and told me, "motherhood is going to be the best, most fulfilling, incredible and awesome journey you will ever embark on but honey, it will also be the most painstaking, worry-filled, most exhausting, most selfless position you will desire."

It will be both your greatest accomplishment and the most difficult responsibility you've ever owned.

I wish someone told me there would be days, many days, when I would doubt myself as a woman. As a mother who should be entrusted with the care and upbringing of two tiny precious souls. I wish someone told me that it's OK to doubt yourself but know that you're not alone in those doubts.

I wish someone had told me there would be days when I would high-five myself just for making it to the end of the day without seeing the inside of an ER. Days when I would practically meet my husband at the foot of the driveway, tossing the kids into his car through the open window.

There are days when I wish that someone sat me down and reassured me that "yes, I am doing it right. It's OK that the toddler didn't eat any vegetables today and if he watches three hours of Thomas the Tank Engine tomorrow, that's OK too. You'll both be better for it." 

I wish someone had prepared me. Maybe even just a whisper. A quick chat over coffee. 

I wish someone walked beside me and explained to me what it felt like to be so tired you can't fall asleep. To feel so emotionally and physically drained. To have not slept a really, really good full night's sleep since you don't know when. 

I wish someone walked beside me and prepared me for what it would feel like to be so frustrated that you can't even fathom another five minutes in the same room as your children. I wish someone walked beside me and told me that it's OK to leave the room, to lock yourself in the bathroom and curse really, really loudly.

I wish someone hugged me and told me not to worry about being able to love another child as much as I do my first. I wish someone reassured me that I would be giving him the greatest gift a mother could give him, a sibling and unconditional love. I wish someone had quieted that worry. It seems so silly now.

I wish someone prepared me for the amount of love I could cram into my heart, my soul, my very being. So much love that it spills out into everything that I do for my boys. Words full of frustration and rage but backed with so much love. So much consideration for their well-being. 

So much love that I finally understand what an incredible woman my own mother is. 

I wish someone had prepared me for the worry. The worry that comes with growing that precious tiny being. Feeling them breathe and move right there beneath your heart. Protecting them the best and only way you know how. Only to have to surrender that worry to God once they are born. Once you can no longer wrap your body around them and protect them from the world. 

I know all of these things now. I've felt all of these things on any given day during any given week during these past twenty-seven months. 

I'm here to sit with you. To hold your hand. To walk beside you and tell you you're doing OK. You'll be OK. You are the greatest mother to your children and they will love you leaps and bounds and all the way to the moon and back. Even if you raise your voice. Even if you lock yourself in the bathroom and curse. Even if you wish, just for a minute, that you had your "old life" back. Even if they don't eat a vegetable at all on Tuesday and wear their pajamas to the grocery store every third day of the week. 

Even if you love them with every fiber of your being and it hurts so much to love them this way.

I wish someone had prepared me. 



44 comments :

  1. This was the most perfect post and incorporated every single feeling a mother has. I needed to read this today as the last few days with my daughter and her case of the terrible two's have been difficult.

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  2. There are so many days where I'm like "Holy S&*T...is this what it's like"...my mother made it look so much easier...and she had 3 of us wherever she went. I can never remember a time not going to the store w/ my mother.

    It is truly the hardest job...

    Great post!

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  3. Can relate oh-so-well.
    We're doing this motherhood thing JUST FINE! :)

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  4. you describe motherhood so well...cept I think if someone sat me down and told me all this, I would brush them off and tell them that I would be different...things just wouldn't be like that for me. :) Guess what? They're like that ;) not every day...some days are amazing, but there are plenty of days when by 6pm I want to cry uncle....and I haven't even seen my kid for most of that day.

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  5. Beautiful post! But nothing really prepares you for motherhood. If your bestie had told you all these things, you may have shrugged it off and still made the same decisions about kids anyways. And we still wouldn't REALLY understand until we became a mom and felt all those emotions for ourselves. Especially the unconditional, overwhelming love - that still rocks my socks!! :) Keep up these wonderful, emotional posts AP!

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  6. Great post! I always tell pregnant first time moms it's going to be 10x better than you ever imaged and 15x harder.

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  7. Ok...I'm officially crying before 9am. I love this post and adore your writing. Thank you for this post. I should bookmark it and come back to it, time and time again. Beautiful Ashley.

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  8. A-ToTheMotherFreakin-MEN! You definitely hit the nail on the head!

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  9. Seriously, AMEN! I was talking to a pregnant girlfriend the other day and she was asking me what it's like and we ended up talking about how most people either try to scare the living day lights out of you or they get all flowery and tell you it's going to be perfect and you'll feel blessed every single second. I really wish someone had told me it was both. The highs are higher and the lows are lower. I'm totally passing your post on! Thanks for the Mom encouragement - we all need to read things like this!!

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  10. This is beautiful. Thank you for sharing:)

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  11. Boo-yah! Slam dunk post! Well said, AP!

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  12. Beautiful. I feel like you took the words right out of my mouth. I feel the exact same way. especially the paragraph about baby #2 and the paragraph about worry. Lord knows I feel those daily! These are sweet sweet words. You ARE a great momma! xoxo

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  13. Perfect post. This is a great way to start my morning as yesterday wasn't my prettiest day as a mama with a husband coming to the rescue at the end of the day. Cheers to new days ahead!

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  14. Love this post! It's only a few days into your 31 days and I'm enjoying them so much! Although, I do think you can't fathom any of it until you are actually living it. But I think that is part of the beauty!

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  15. You are amazing at how you have the ability to put things like this together... you spoke right to my heart, yet again, with this awesomesauce of a post! Love ya girly!

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  16. This is beautiful. Even gave me goosebumps, and I am not even a mother! Thankful I found you and your blog before I become a Mom! great job, AP!

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  17. This is all so true. I think it's impossible to be fully prepared for motherhood because every child is so so different. It's definitely the best most difficult job in the world.

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  18. I wish someone had prepared me too. But I don't think all the advice or words of wisdom could have ever prepared me for this. It's just not possible to know. To really know, until you're actually a mom :)

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  19. This is so very true. I have thought it all at one time or another over these last 12 months with my son. Last night was the first night I wasn't home from work to help put him to bed. Crushed me! But this morning when I walked in his room, he had the biggest smile on his face to see me. Melted my heart and took all the pain i felt from the night before away.

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  20. This is perfect. Exactly what I think and feel...

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  21. This is such a great post. The tears are streaming down my face and I don't even have any babies...I may be pms-ing ha! but either way this post is amazing. I am loving this 31 days so far.

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  22. While I truly wish someone had done/would do the same for me I have to step back and wonder. What would I be like if I was more prepared? If I knew all those things you mentioned. What would you be like? You're an amazing mama because of your experiences, because of what you did and didn't know, did and didn't do. It'd be amazing to feel better prepared, but it's amazing to learn it on our own as well. Keep going mama. You're doing it right. Every "mistake" is perfect. :)

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  23. I am sitting here holding my infant son and sobbing. Thank you for these words, truer ones had never been written. Instead of all the judging, I wish more moms would be loving and supportive of each other. Thanks, AP. I've been a fan for a long time...now I'm reminded exactly why.

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  24. Thank you AP, What a wonderful post. I too wish someone had sat down and told me all these things that we now know as mothers.

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  25. I've always had a strong appreciation for my mother, I mean three girls? I'm impressed she made it through our teenage years alone. But never have I loved her more or looked up to her more than since I became a mother myself.

    Great post Ashley! Never in a million years would I have envisioned motherhood to be what it is. It's an amazing journey that's exhausting and empowering and fulfilling and terrifying all at the very same time :)

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  26. This made me all emotional ;) It is so true, it is ok if they don't eat something one day and if they wear their jammies all day another (or 5 ;-)). And it is so true, oh boy, I worry (and stress sometimes) too much, we want to make sure we're doing everything right, but oh my goodness, we could not love them a drop more or be any more blessed!

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  27. This is wonderful!! I wish someone had told me all these things also!!

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  28. This moved me to tears. Thank you and thank you again.

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  29. And thank you for telling new moms like me that it's all OK. I'm slowly learning that but as you know it's so nice to have someone else say these things and to know that they are feeling them too. I know there are rougher days ahead but I know there are better ones too. Thanks a million. You'll never know how much you inspire others :) xo

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  30. This was an awesome post and I can totally relate.

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  31. Mama, I wish I could convey my thoughts (these same thoughts) as eloquently as you.

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  32. What a great post that incorporates all the crazy feelings that go along with being a mommy. I loved this.

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  33. Great post. Now...you sit that pregnant friend down and tell her this over coffee.

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  34. Great post. Now you sit that pregnant friend down and tell her this over coffee.

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  35. Tears tears and more tears! This is so beautiful! Thank you so much! I needed these words. Beautifully written, everything I have felt and thought but never said. Thank you thank you!

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  36. ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS POST!! i'm a new reader, young 23yr old. but this post is so full of love i can feel it!! i want to save it somewhere for the day that i will hopefully have my own kids. i think this is so so so wonderful :D

    <3

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  37. Thank you. I needed to read this today. I will become a mother in 4 weeks and today was the first day I already felt like a failure. For some reason I measured small this week by a few weeks and instantly questioned, what did I do wrong? I have to live with this question until next Wednesday when I'll be getting an ultrasound to check growth. Overwhelming worry and fear have taken over for now. I wish someone would have told me how all consuming it can be!

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  38. I am in tears. This is an amazing post (I will be sharing!)
    You wrote everything I have been thinking!!

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  39. Catching up on your posts right now (5:48am) and I am sobbing into my pillow. This post is so beautiful. And where I cry most is that fact that it's so true that your children's lives are in the Lords hands once they are here, but it hurts your heart SO MUCH so thinking of something happening to them. :( This? Scares me to death b/c I don't know what I'd do without my babies and hate to think about it!

    They way you right, especially about Mommy-ing always hits home. You are so talented and blessed! Rock on, Momma. You are amazing! Much love from Texas. <3 xx

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