My Truth About Motherhood
My friend Wendy warned me over and over about how my heart was going to explode from all the love when I had children. So I had a really good idea of the good stuff. But until you’re a Mom, and in my case doubly so with twins, all the things people say just doesn’t mean much.
Everyone warned about the lack of sleep. I used to be a party girl, club hopping and dancing ’til the sun came up. So this didn’t scare me. I thought, “no problem, I can handle a few weeks of no sleep.” But it was months. Five to be exact. And I’m about ten years older then I was when I danced the night away. And I was breastfeeding, TWO. The lack of sleep combined with my changing hormones did horrible things to my emotions. They didn’t warn me about this. How could they? It’s different for each mom, and if they had, would I have listened? I didn’t listen too closely to the lack of sleep warnings in general, especially because they were usually accompanied by “I don’t know how you are going to do it with two.” That line was an instant shut off because I didn’t know how I was going to do it either. But I knew that women have twins all the time and “do it” so I was just going to have to figure it out like they did.
It seems to me that no one can warn you or give you truths about motherhood. They can’t because it’s always a unique experience. They can’t because it’s a rite of passage. You don’t tell an initiate all the details of their passage because the initiation is a process. We can’t just be told truths, we have to experience them to fully incorporate their lessons into our being. We all have to go through it to really understand it. To appreciate it. Every single phrase I have heard during my life about having children suddenly has whole new depths of meaning because I am now in the midst of these parenthood situations.
My truth about motherhood is that is that you can’t be prepared. New mothers are embarking on an initiation into a very special and blessed way of life that has a lot of pain, anxiety, and tears associated with it - along with more joy and depth of emotion then imaginable.
This post was sparked by reading Motherhood Uncensored and finding out about this: http://blog.parentbloggers.com and this: http://discoveryhealth.clinicahealth.com/comments.pl?sid=08/03/25/1130242. Motherhood Uncensored is a blog that I found recently and am really enjoying because she is so blunt in a well spoken way. The new reality show on Discovery Health called “Deliver Me” has my curiosity peaked because I remember wondering how in the world my OB took such good care of me and yet was also a mother to four of her own children. This show should be good.
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Daen, that is amazing. I couldn’t agree more. Even having three children prior to the twins it was a whole new battle front. Between trying to get schedules down between my husband and myself so we could manage a little sleep, and breastfeeding successfully combined with bottlefeeding I was wore slam out. Like you when someone said the dreaded “I don’t know how you are going to do it with two”, I was stumped, but always replied…”Me either, but I’ll figure it out.” You seem to have done a wonderful jump with your two, and am sure you will continue!