IT TAKES TIME

Being a new mommy is so exciting, but so overwhelming. There is so much to learn and get comfortable with. No one really prepared me for the fact that the first few months were going to be so hard! Of course I didn’t know what to expect, but I can say it was harder than I imagined. Everything is so new, thrown in your face all at once. Recovering from a major surgery (for those of us who had c-sections) and the sleep deprivation just doesn’t help anything either! Overwhelming just doesn’t seem to be the right word. Because it’s so much more! You are given this precious little human (or humans in my case) and suddenly need to know how to care for and support them. That is stressful because you want to do everything perfectly for your perfect little angel (or angels)! Being a mom is a tough job. And it takes time to get used to this new role, this new job, this new career…

Society puts so many false notions out there about having a baby. The movies usually show how perfect everything is and how the mother falls in love the moment she first holds her baby. It’s so cliché. And in real life, when you talk to someone who recently had a baby, she tells you how wonderful it is and not how painful the labor was or how the baby cried all night. People sugarcoat it and don’t tell you the bad parts. Don’t let anyone tell you that being a mother comes 100% natural! Yes, some parts are, but so many more aren’t. Knowing how to change a diaper doesn’t come natural. Although I must say I am a professional at diaper changes already. HA!

So when a new mommy finds motherhood anything slightly less than perfect, she feels like a failure compared to all the other “super moms” out there. But that is so not true. I was so happy to realize that the feelings I was having were normal and that it didn’t make me a bad mother. It made me human and a normal mother! And everyone else felt it to some extent, they just didn’t vocalize it. I was thankful to know that in time, I would become one of those “super moms” that other people look to. Because…it takes time. No one can do it all right away. And of course there is no such thing as a true “super mom” because all moms have hard times. (And if someone considers themselves a “super mom”, then ironically they are probably the ones who are the farthest from it!) I am okay with saying that I like every other mom gets frustrated, they cries, but keeps moving forward remembering that “it too shall pass” and that it takes time…

I have now embraced the fact that it takes time. It takes time to get used to this new life. It takes time to learn how to change a diaper. It takes time to get comfortable. But everything gets easier. People told me all this after the babies came and at first I didn’t believe it. But it is true! Thank goodness! I can now change a diaper super fast, am comfortable at feeding two babies at once, and finally feel as if I’m not going to break the babies!! And it’s only been two months. I’ve gone from thinking I wasn’t going to survive to now knowing that I can…and I will!

Now whenever I get stressed I try to remind myself….it takes time!