At the risk of being vulnerable and possibly even judged, throughout my journey I would like to share not only the good things but also my failures. I love my Kate more than words can say and I’d do anything I could to love and protect her. However, it doesn’t take long to discover that as much as we’d like to be the perfect supermom for our children we will fail. It’s part of being human. We can only hope that we learn from our mistakes and do better the next time. Here are some of my first mom fails:
I will never forget the first time I truly felt like the worst mom in the world. It was the first few weeks of my daughter’s life. Those first few weeks are hard. Every feeding hurts in more places than one. I started feeling like a failure from the beginning because I dreaded feeding her. I dreaded the discomfort. (Advice side note: place an ice pack on her stomach while you nurse, it helps with the contraction feeling. I don’t know what I would have done without my handy ice pack). Every day those first few days to weeks, the baby is crying, I’m crying, I’m hurting, and her dad and I can’t figure out the secret to make the crying, and the hurting stop. It’s absolute chaos.
One day I had just finished feeding her. I held her up against my chest to burp her and she started screaming again. “I just fed you child. What could possibly be wrong,” I thought. So, I spend several minutes patting her back and trying to sooth her but nothing worked. Eventually I decided to try changing positions. I pulled her away from my body only to discover her entire face and neck were covered in spit up. She had spit up all over herself and for several minutes I made her swim in it while I impatiently patted her back. The look on her face was utter distraught. I FELT AWFUL! I felt like I was not in tune to her needs, unaware of what was happening, unaware that she was swimming in her own vomit! What a horrible mother! So, I cried, while she cried and I cleaned her up before snuggling her to no end to try to make it right.
In hindsight, THAT WAS NOTHING. Swimming in spit up and drool was a daily trick for my daughter for days to come. In fact, there was so much of it, even if I sat and stared at her to try to catch every bit I wouldn’t have come close to a clean baby. Spit up just became a part of our life. It’s so funny how the littlest things that we think are huge failures are really nothing in the end.
Mom fail number two: This one I’m a little more leery to share but like I said, I’m risking being vulnerable here. For the first three months, Kate slept in a Rock N Play next to my bed. I loved having her there so I could check on her at all hours of the night to make sure she is still breathing or that those funny noises she made isn’t her choking. (We’re all so terrified in the beginning as we take on the responsibility of these fragile little creatures). We started getting used to her sleeping habits and were able to get more sleep through the night. One morning, she started crying a little louder than normal. I thought she was probably just hungry or ready to get up so I didn’t think much of it as I slowly dragged myself out of bed. To my dismay, the pillow that I cradle at night had fallen out of my arms and into the Rock N Play! Thankfully, her face was not covered up but she was still screaming. I quickly snatched the pillow and threw it across the room and then grabbed my baby to make sure she was ok. Again, I FELT AWFUL! What kind of mother allows that to happen! What if something bad would have happened? I couldn’t breath for two days. But in the end, she was fine.
I know those little stories are just the beginning of many failures to come. I hope I’ll continue to have the opportunity to share them. In doing so, I hope to encourage someone out there who thinks, “I’m not cut out for this mom stuff, “ or “I’ll never be good enough,” or “I always mess things up.” Undoubtedly, all moms have thought these thoughts time and time again. And the truth of the matter is: we will all fail at some point and its ok. We move forward anyway, striving to be better each day. We do so in order for our kids to see us as some kind of super hero: not because we always save the day, not because we always get things right, but because we never give up.
See part II to learn what The Lord is speaking to my heart on this subject.