On becoming a mom

I thought it was only appropriate (since I started this blog to talk about the issues of a working mom) to talk about how I got to where I am today. I started my internship in Pediatrics the beginning of July 2008 and found out I was pregnant later that month. Therefore, in addition to facing a whole new career with 80 hour work weeks, 24 hour calls, a solid month of working night shifts, and the emotional stress of taking care of sick kids, my body was going haywire. Anyone who knew me during my pregnancy knows that I was NOT a good pregnant person. I had a hard time adjusting to the changes in my body and the drain on my energy. I hated that my body ached all the time, that my shoes didn't fit (I wore Crocs for almost my entire pregnancy), that clothes were always too big or too small, and that I was usually too tired to do the baking and sewing that I usually love. With all that in mind, I also constantly felt guilty that I hated being pregnant so much. I dreamed of being a mom my whole life, and there I was on the brink of it - how could I hate it so much? Did this mean I wasn't ready to be a mom? Did this mean I would be a bad mom? The self doubt was overwhelming.

Then, April finally arrived. 9 days into my maternity leave I went into labor and after 46 hours (24 hours of mild contractions, 5 hours of ascending contractions, 12 hours of active labor/agony before the epidural, 3 1/2 hours of peaceful labor post-epidural, and 1 1/2 hours of pushing...) my daughter was born. To make a ridiculous reference, I felt like Dr. Seuss' Grinch - all the bad feelings I had been harboring about my pregnancy just dissipated and I literally felt like my heart was swelling. After years of wondering what it would be like to be a mom and 9 long months of fear that I was somehow unequipped for this new task, I finally got to hold her. Everything I had been up until that moment shifted because I was now a mom too.

I've often heard people refer to babies as a gift (from God) or in other terms that I associate with instant, yet fleeting gratification. I think this is what I was hung up on during pregnancy - if someone was giving me a gift, I must be a terrible person to be unhappy about it. That's when I realized, I couldn't think of being Madelyn's mom as a gift. To me, she is an experience. Sometimes, she will be like a gift bringing me great happiness. Other times, she will keep me up all night bringing me exhaustion. Yet others, she will act out bringing me fear and anger. If I thought of her as a gift, each time she bought anything other than happiness into my life it would feel like a disappointment or a personal failure (similiar to how I felt during pregnancy). But by thinking of her as an experience, I can take the bad with the good and learn just as much from her as I hope she learns from me.