Becoming a mother

Basically the cutest baby. Let's just agree on that right now.

One of the businesses I follow on Instagram was asking their followers when they felt they truly became a mother. The answers were so beautiful, and were such a range! It was so cool reading all the different perspectives - women who adopted, or gave children up for adoption and then had more later on, or women who did IVF and saw their embryos, women who didn't know they were pregnant and women who tried for decades to get pregnant! Becoming a mother is such a personal journey and it's such a beautiful one too!

Dad teaching her to suck on her fingers. Look at her holding his hand!

I was thinking about the moment that I felt I was a mother, and it's so hard to pinpoint that. When I had a positive pregnancy test in our little house in Salt Lake, I don't think I really felt it at that point. Steve was so calm and chill and told me it was probably a false positive and I should go get my blood drawn and tested. I had been diagnosed with hypothyroidism which can cause some problems with getting pregnant, and although I had started medicine, we thought we'd be waiting for a while longer still! So it didn't feel real. The next day I went in to get my blood drawn. I was going from work to the doctor, and then heading to a Planning Committee meeting about the new Homeless Youth Resource Center's shelter component we were hoping to build. It was actually when I was sitting in that meeting that I received an email from my doctor letting me know I was pregnant! I didn't expect to find out so soon! But that was the first hint of a moment for me. That first realization that, holy crap, this is it, here we go! Then those thoughts of, okay hold on, maybe it won't stick, start to creep in. Don't get your hopes up, this isn't a done deal.

She's just so dang cute. That hand!

We had a doctor appointment that Friday at 7am. Obviously it was early days so I didn't want to raise any alarms at work, and didn't want to take time off. We had our first ultra sound, and the baby looked like a little race car. So funny! We were six weeks along. I was dying to tell people! Sitting looking at the screen holding Steves hand was one of the most spiritual moments I'd had leading up to that point. This was a tiny being, a little baby, not even a fetus yet, still technically an embryo! I was already so in love, and felt such a strong need to protect my little embryo as much as possible!

Having hot chocolate together!

Feeling Sophie kick for the first time was another defining moment. Ultrasounds, while cool, are so clinical and detached. It's hard to connect that the black and white blob is a human. But feeling her move was amazing! The love I felt at each kick was incalculable, and it grew and grew as she did, even as her kicks started hurting. I was proud of her for being strong, for growing so big!

That smile! So sweet!

And of course her birth. Holding her in my arms, feeling her wiggle around, hearing her soft cries. She was such a quiet baby!

SO excited for mummy and baby yoga!

The strange thing though is although I felt such a crazy huge love for her, even though I was head over heels, didn't want to be apart from her, didn't want to put her down, I still didn't quite feel like a mother. I knew I was one, but she was an easy baby. She cried, I fed her. I rocked her, she slept. Those first few weeks were such a breeze, especially having Steve home, then my mum home, and then my mother in law visit and help me. It was all idyllic and perfect and beautiful. 

Got a cold but she's still smiling!

But when I truly felt there, when I truly felt like Sophie's mother, was the first time I struggled. I had put her to bed, and she was usually the perfect baby, only waking to eat. This night though, she was waking 20 minutes after I put her down, crying, and then going back to sleep only to start over. I couldn't figure out what was going on! I was getting so stressed, so upset, feeling so useless. Then it dawned on me - it was a particularly cold night, but I hadn't given Sophie any extra layers! What if she was cold? I put her in her warmest set of pjs, swaddled her in a thicker blanket, and put her back to sleep. And she stayed asleep! I was so proud of myself I woke Steve up to tell him! She slept for a lot longer that stretch, and I let her. We both deserved the extra sleep! That was the moment though, that I really felt like I had become a mother. I had finally earned the title.

Learning to use the nun-chucks her uncles bought her!

Motherhood is definitely something you earn. Whether you have children or you adopt, you have to learn. You are sent home with a fragile little bundle (or more if you're lucky!) and you have to just get to it! Make it happen! I now know Sophie's cries. When she's just being a butt and she's faking, when she needs something like a diaper change, or when she just needs some love and snuggles. Those last cries are my favorite, and I'm the one she's crying to. She knows I will be there to soothe her. To snuggle and hold her. I am her mother, her mama, her mum. I am so grateful for that! I can't wait to continue to earn my title of mother to this sweet, perfect girl.

Worn. Out.