One year of motherhood
I’ve heard moms say that being a mom is a joy, but in the first few months of motherhood, I didn’t understand that. A year in, now I get it. As we celebrate Levi turning one this month, I’ve been reflecting on the last year and what it’s been like to become a mom for me. I could say a lot, but to keep this a reasonable length, I wanted to share my top three takeaways a year into motherhood.
Hard isn’t bad
“I can do hard things” is a phrase I told myself a thousand times in the last year. My fourth trimester, the newborn season and postpartum were challenging for me. Other than my husband, I had no family or support system nearby. Levi was a terrible sleeper and cried a lot. He was sick twice in his third month of life. None of us were sleeping.
I went back to work (from home) 20-30 hours a week when Levi was like 10 weeks. Choosing to come back two weeks early from maternity leave so that I could work part-time-ish for my first month back was a blessing, but it was also still hard because Levi was so tiny and needed me a lot.
We had babysitters come by for a few hours, and although it was a help, between nursing Levi every two hours and him only wanting to nap on me, I felt like we were paying babysitters for not much actual babysitting.
I know I just listed a lot of the hard, because it was hard. But hard doesn’t mean bad. God was my strength through it all. He was the solid rock I kept coming back to when it felt like everything else was shifting sand around me.
I’d leave a crying Levi in his bassinet in our room and sit on the couch and weep in prayer when I felt like I could not take it another minute, or pray silently as I rocked him for hours in the living room at 2:00 am with tears falling down my face.
But slowly, it got better. My body healed. My hormones stabilized. I learned to function on a few hours of (interrupted!) sleep. Levi smiled more and cried less. We found childcare and our rhythm as a family.
There are still many hard days and moments, but the joy wins out. It’s like a light and love that clouds can’t hold back, no matter how stormy the weather, the light still shines through.
In the hard moments, I’ve had to remind myself often that this too shall pass. That it won’t always be this way. It’s true, weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning (Ps. 30:5).
When a child is born, so is a mother
Everything changed when Levi was born. I loved this baby boy from the beginning, but trying to learn to be a mom while also caring for a little human learning to live in this world is a lot.
They say that when a child is born, so is a mother, and I feel that to my bones. Becoming a mom transformed me - physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I am still me, but also someone new. It unlocked a part of me that I didn’t know I had and showed me I was capable of more than I thought I was.
Initially, I kept waiting for life to go back to “normal” and wondering when I’d feel like myself again. But now I’m learning that I must adjust to a new normal. That I can’t go back to who I used to be.
Embracing the change and shifts brought me so much freedom. It was like all of a sudden, I had all this room to grow into, instead of trying to fit into a space that no longer fit me.
That looked like buying jeans in a bigger size instead of trying to squeeze into (and cry over!) my pre-pregnancy clothes.
It looked like accepting that my schedule is no longer my own and learning to approach each day with flexibility and holding plans with open hands (something that is hard for a type A personality like mine!).
It looked like shifting my priorities and how I spend my time. It even looked like a shift in how I write (and what I write) and in my ministry.
This has been the biggest adjustment for me: growing into this “new” me and figuring out what parts of the “old” me still belong in this new season of my life.
“You shall eat old store long kept, and you shall clear out the old to make way for the new.” - Leviticus 26:10 (ESV) / “You will have such a surplus of crops that you will need to clear out the old grain to make room for the new harvest.” (NLT)
I came across this verse recently and it captures becoming a mother well. Motherhood is truly a season of overwhelming abundance: in the good, the joy, the hard, the pain, the to-do’s and responsibilities, etc.
When the new comes in - this tiny little human entrusted to you - you have to take out some of the “old” of who you used to be and what you used to do pre-baby, to make room for the new blessings and callings God brings into your life as a mother.
Jesus talked about a similar concept in Matthew 9:17:
“Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”
Becoming a mother is a “new” beginning, and you simply can’t fit it back into the “old” you - it won’t fit. Trust me, I tried. I tried to go back to my old clothes, my old routines and schedules, my old way of thinking, my old need to have control over everything - and that was a disaster. It just doesn’t work, at least not how it used to.
So, I’ve had to lay it all down and build up from scratch, bringing in some “old” ways into this new season, but also learning new rhythms, dreams, priorities, systems, and ways of thinking, doing and being.
Because in periods of growth like this, you have to weed out the things that no longer work - the things that take up nutrients from the new growth. New parts of you open up and bloom once you become a mom. In the last year, I’ve become softer (physically and emotionally!) and more nurturing - a side of me I didn’t know I had - but also stronger.
This new growth is a work in progress and it may look different than how other moms mother and love their children, because God equips you to be the best mother for the child He entrusts you with. He supplies us with everything we need to do what He entrusts us with in each season. He shapes us into who we need to do the work He’s tasked us with.
“[The Lord’s] supplies of wisdom, love, joy, peace, power, to our souls are always enough and more than enough for our wants…The source is full to overflowing, and there are no limits to the supply.” -Alexander McLaren
Dads play an important part in motherhood too
Every day, I thank God for my husband. From the beginning of my pregnancy when I was nauseous and tired, he has stepped up and taken care of me and our household, going above and beyond and serving generously without complaining. He’s the best dad to Levi and invests and pours out just as much into raising Levi as I do.
But I think we forget sometimes that husbands have to adjust to being dads just like women adjust to being moms once a baby is born. We as women may carry the baby, labor to deliver the child and then nurse the baby (and all the hormonal changes that come throughout the process), but that doesn’t make dads a bystander. This is a lot of change for them too.
So, in this last year, I’ve learned to not only focus on the changes and hardships I feel, but to also step in and make room to support the changes and challenges my husband is growing through as well. He does the same for me - more selflessly and consistently than I do for him, and that’s a blessing I don’t deserve but aspire to be more like.
Becoming parents also shifts marriage dynamics. We’ve had to learn to communicate clearly and often, to extend grace towards each other when we’re sleep deprived and at the end of our capacity, and to make time for each other and our relationship even when a tiny human demands all of our attention.
There’s so much out there about becoming a mom, but becoming a dad is just as important and challenging of a journey.
I could go on and on - this last year has been so full of growth and changes! I put together a list of 44 other things I learned in my first year of motherhood that further expands on my experience of becoming a mom.
If you’re reading this, I hope it encourages you, but remember, although becoming a mom is similar for all of us in many ways, each of us also goes through the process of becoming a mom uniquely in our own way.
If you’re a mom, what stood out most to you in your first year of motherhood?
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