The path to mommyhood was not easy for me. It still isn't easy. The turns are sudden and the path is rocky. And the scary thing about this is I don't know how to drive.
When I stopped taking the pill, my OB-GYN told me it would take at least 6 months to get pregnant. A year, tops. So I stopped taking my pills around March last year. I had plans to join a fun run in October. I was about to give blood in April. Then on a whim, I decided to take a pregnancy test the day before I had to give blood. I didn't think much about it. I was so used to a negative result that after I took the test, I immediately took a bath and didn't wait for my results to show. I thought I was hallucinating when I saw the positive result. It turns out I was already five weeks pregnant.
I'm normally a very healthy person. I eat right, exercise, I don't smoke and I rarely drink; mainly because I don't like being sick. When I was pregnant, I got sick every month with colds, cough and gastroenteritis. And on my last prenatal check-up, my doctor told me I needed to have an emergency C-section because of my pre-eclampsia. I had the operation that same day.
Yes, I'm venting. No, I don't have post-partum depression. I'm just saying that motherhood is hard. It's really hard. Recovering from a C-section is hard. Taking care of a colicky baby is hard. Having a temperamental husband who demands more attention than the baby is really hard. And though I'm going through this with support from family and friends, the bad days still outnumbered the good.
Then, just yesterday, I was talking to my baby and she smiled at me. She smiled. She smiled at what I said. She knows I'm her Mama. She wanted me to hold her and rock her to sleep. And while her grandparents were passing her around, she kept looking at me and eventually raised her arms to reach me. My baby wanted ME.
I'm still saying that being a mother is hard and I'm still going to complain. But I realize now that it's true what they say, that you can't imagine life before having a child. I can't imagine what life was like before her smile. Never in my life have I felt so wanted and so loved.
I'm normally a very healthy person. I eat right, exercise, I don't smoke and I rarely drink; mainly because I don't like being sick. When I was pregnant, I got sick every month with colds, cough and gastroenteritis. And on my last prenatal check-up, my doctor told me I needed to have an emergency C-section because of my pre-eclampsia. I had the operation that same day.
Yes, I'm venting. No, I don't have post-partum depression. I'm just saying that motherhood is hard. It's really hard. Recovering from a C-section is hard. Taking care of a colicky baby is hard. Having a temperamental husband who demands more attention than the baby is really hard. And though I'm going through this with support from family and friends, the bad days still outnumbered the good.
Then, just yesterday, I was talking to my baby and she smiled at me. She smiled. She smiled at what I said. She knows I'm her Mama. She wanted me to hold her and rock her to sleep. And while her grandparents were passing her around, she kept looking at me and eventually raised her arms to reach me. My baby wanted ME.
I'm still saying that being a mother is hard and I'm still going to complain. But I realize now that it's true what they say, that you can't imagine life before having a child. I can't imagine what life was like before her smile. Never in my life have I felt so wanted and so loved.
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