Becoming a Mom
And finding myself in the process
The day I saw two pink lines for the first time I was in a grocery store bathroom. I was at work that day and it was my lunch break. I’d walked over to the store, bought a pregnancy test, and gone into the bathroom right then and there. The second line took my breath away. Months and months and months of looking at negative tests and there it finally was, my second line. I couldn’t believe I had to go back to work, pretend everything was normal, when my life had just changed forever. I remember looking at my co-workers, wondering if they noticed I was smiling more than usual. Could they tell? Could they see I was different, changed?
A few weeks later, I was back at work and staring at a few drops of blood in the toilet. What did this mean? Surely blood was not a good sign, right?
I hated that job. I worked as a “receptionist” at an orthodontist office, but really I was expected to do a lot more than reception. I had to sterilize instruments and take x-rays and take photographs of teeth, all on a rigidly timed schedule. My anxiety was at an all-time high during that time. I’d walk into the office, Xanax in my pocket, with my heart pounding, and the tension wouldn’t leave me until I left eight hours later to go swim laps at the gym.
I blame the anxiety on my own poor mental health, but I also blame the job I was ill-suited for. Why did I even take that job in the first place? I’d been desperate to prove myself. Prove that I was capable to hold any job after three Bipolar breakdowns. Prove that I was capable with my writing post the MFA program and in the midst of many rejection letters. So I took the job to have a day-job of sorts while I worked on my writing. The problem was that my anxiety was so high I didn’t have the capacity to do anything outside of work, let alone write. And besides, with rejection after rejection, I was close to giving up writing forever anyway. I did not (still don’t) have thick enough skin for the publishing industry.
Anyway, when I saw those few drops of blood in the toilet that day at work, I knew I needed to quit. I didn’t know what caused miscarriage, but surely this crazy anxiety was not going to help me sustain a pregnancy. And besides, I was pregnant; no more Xanax. I quit the job the next day. I wanted to do anything I could do to save that baby.
Still, a couple weeks later, I lost the pregnancy. The time between that loss and getting pregnant again felt like an eternity, but it was just three months. I tested like crazy until there it was again, that second pink line. So faint you almost had to squint to see it, but it was there. My baby’s first little hello, in pink.
I spent the first trimester completely bowed over with anxiety. Every afternoon, I’d curl up into a ball on the couch with a blanket over my head and try not to move, laying completely still—my weird coping mechanism that seemed to be the only thing that worked. But by the second trimester, the anxiety finally started to lift.
I spent the third trimester wondering if I would be a good mother. My whole life, I wanted to be a mother. I wanted to be a stay at home mom; that was the plan. But what if my anxiety came back? What if I didn’t like staying home? Being a mom looked hard…what if I was no good at it?
It’s hard to explain, but once Auden was born, all those worries instantly disappeared. Melted away…poof, gone. I loved being a mother from the moment that midwife placed him on my chest. I looked down at his beautiful little face and thought, “It’s you. Of course it’s you. I’m here for you.”
I didn’t know it, but in the years leading up to motherhood, I was floundering. Amidst all the mental anguish that wasn’t my fault, I’d lost myself. I didn’t know who I was.
Motherhood changed that for me. Suddenly, I had purpose. Suddenly, I had a better reason to take my meds and go to therapy. Suddenly, I found confidence within myself that was always lacking before. With each diaper change, with each midnight nursing session, with each new milestone, I knew I was right where I was supposed to be. With each meal prepared and cleaned up, with each bedtime story, with each summer afternoon playing in the backyard, I came to know myself more and more.
I’ve heard of women “losing themselves” in motherhood. And while I can comprehend it, that’s just not my story. With each baby, I’ve gained so much more confidence and come to understand myself. With each toddler, God has grown my capacity for love and patience and tenderness, ever refining my character. I am a better person because I became a mom. Just as pregnancy grew and stretched my body, changing it for forever, motherhood has changed me, my entire being, my soul. For forever.
p.s. For those of you wondering how my headaches are doing, good news! The results from a spinal tap show it is a CSF leak. The good news is that it is fixable :)
Did you know I also wrote a book?! You can buy it here