At a dinner this week I sat down for some Italian fare with a bunch of moms. There were moms of multiples, new moms, new moms of multiples, and an expecting wide-eyed mom. When I say multiples I mean more than one child, not twins or triplets just to clarify. Then there was me, straddling the line of all of them. We all talked candidly, which I personally think is really important. There’s a lot of fluff and visions of snuggly babies that can be misleading when it comes to having a child. In reality, mothering (albeit beautiful) can be one of the hardest jobs. Those midnight feedings and toddler years can be really exhausting.
I was grilling the moms that had just recently given birth to their second child and they were all letting me know that it was pretty hard. My heart started beating a little faster… none of this was news, I just started panicking at the thought of working from home and being a super mom at the same time. How will I entertain Matilda and nurse a baby and get x amount of posts done? Let’s not forget about the mounds of laundry and cleaning that I struggle to get done as it is.
I’ve also been watching moms of new babies on Facebook. There’s this pattern of status updates: complaining and lamenting during the last days of pregnancy (or the entire pregnancy in some cases), the joy and excitement that comes with announcing the birth of their beautiful baby, the initial complaints of exhaustion, the bodily function updates (please spare us all), and then over time I notice that some sort of groove happens. I’ve seen moms come out of the newborn haze countless times, generally unscathed. I’m just hoping to be one of them and that I’ll live a little more in the moment and be able to savor how beautiful and fleeting this time is.
