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.