After we had Jett, we ended up staying at the hospital an extra day and were so ready to go home. I was so ready to be with my big boys and to wrap my mother hen wings around my whole family. However, as we got into the car to leave, I remember feeling overcome with emotion, realizing for the first time that it seemed so much quicker. I couldn’t believe the pregnancy was over, that he was already here and just like that we were on our way home. I think, for just a second, I grieved the end of that season. I can put it into coherent words now. Then, not so much lol I was an emotional wreck, of course, and that scenario actually went down more like this:
Me: Laughing, smiling, ready to go... two seconds later... bawling like a crazy person. To Tim, “This is just a warning. I’m feeling some kind of way.”
Tim: 🤔😑
After that “experience,” I wanted so badly to slow it down. I’m about to just be really honest and open, so if y’all think I’m crazy, so be it. When the nurse was doing my IV, she blew a vein. My skin has always bruised easily and badly anyway, so I had a huge- seriously huge- bruise on my left arm. I looked at it every day, wanting it to still be there, unchanged. If the bruise was still there, his birth was still close. I would reach around my back and feel the spot where the epidural was. Again, if I could still feel it, he was still a newborn. In fact, I remember the day, the moment, that I could no longer feel it. And to myself, I let out a few tears and reflected on the past several days with my new baby boy.
Overall, throughout my pregnancy, delivery and postpartum with Jett, I was a lot more enotional, so it was no surprise that I struggled some after we got home. It was kind of like, you know how if you’re going through a difficult time, like a break up or the loss of someone, you have this odd, lonely feeling that makes you want to stay in your house, because “no one out there understands,” and it feels a little like the world should not be going on around you, but somehow it is. That’s how I felt. And I was a little angry, almost, like “We just had a baby! Literally, just brought this life into the world and EVERYTHING is different!” And within a few days...days. Days. The boys have to go back to school, and husband has to go back to work. You’re just expected to go on, life as usual and I really wanted to be able to stop time, and “Can we please just have a minute to stand in awe of this perfect baby and this beautiful time in our lives?”
I soaked in those early days, weeks, and before long was feeling pretty “normal” myself. Our new normal, at least.
Then, you sleep a couple of times and are all of a sudden, taking pictures of the baby you had 2 days ago, sittting up and wearing a 7 month sticker. And in that same week, you may have had to register your first baby for Kindergarten, and question whether or not ice cream is still a valid celebration for a 5th grade progress report.
Sometimes, the growing and changing is more obvious than others, and puts a little more strain on our momma hearts. In those times, it serves us best, to focus on EVERY great thing that comes with EVERY changing season of our kiddos lives! (Life lesson credit goes to my own momma for this one!)
And for the love of mommas everywhere, don’t dismiss those more mature mommas, who stare at you and your babies with adoring smiles when you pass them in the mall or the grocery store. Welcome them. Engage them. LISTEN to them. Give them 5 whole minutes of your time and allow them to stroll down memory lane, to reminisce about the days we get to live now. Whether it’s the momma in the barber shop, whose “baby in that first chair is turning 16 tomorrow,” or the Cracker Barrel employee whose “youngest baby just turned 63,” I just know their hearts still feel that same tug, their throats that big lump, their eyes those soft tears, when they look back on all the time that has passed, seemingly overnight. One day momma, you will want that young mother to welcome you, too.
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