Mother Love

motherhood + home + family

I”M ONE OF THOSE BLOGGERS // pregnancy diaries

I’m afraid I have become one of those people.

You know, the kind of pregnant blogger that suddenly can’t stop writing about all things pregnancy and babies and such. I wasn’t going to be that kind, truly…but one of my strongest personality traits is that I’m a really, really big all or nothing kind of person. If I’m in something, I’m IN it. It can be a weakness actually, and there have been many times I’ve wished I would just be a bit more mellow when it comes to being excited or involved in something. Passion and excitement is a good thing, but left out of control, it can develop into something consuming and obsessive.

So I don’t plan to only blog about pregnanty things in the months to come, or only about my baby in the years to come, but considering that pregnancy and babies have become a huge part of my world right now, you’ll still be hearing about it. Hopefully you’re ok with it. 🙂

I feel like there are so many exciting things happening right now, and I get these moments when my heart feels so full and overwhelmed that I just don’t know what to do with myself. Usually in those moments, I just smile to myself and put my hands over my belly and thank the Lord for the miracle of life. Every single day with this child is a gift, and we are never promised more than the moment we are in. I don’t let myself dwell in the fears about losing this child, but I can’t say that I don’t ever think about it. Miscarriages have happened to many of my friends and family, and as I told a dear friend a few days ago, I don’t know what it’s like to lose a child, and honestly I hope I never do…but I do know that the minute you know that there is a life inside of you, it is your child. And it will always be a part of your heart, no matter if you never get to meet that life on this side of heaven. No matter if it was four weeks old or forty weeks old. So each day that I carry this baby, I cherish it.

I had my first checkup visit with my midwife yesterday, and everything is looking as it should be. We found out that we are actually two weeks further along that we thought! I know it’s only two weeks, but suddenly it feels like April will be here so soon! I realized this morning that by Thanksgiving, I will be halfway through this pregnancy, and that blows up my mind. I feel like it’s went by so fast so far, and I know the next few months will only go faster since we are incredibly busy with trips and family visits and Christmas.

We also got to hear our baby’s heartbeat yesterday (!!!), and it was the most magical and surreal thing I’ve ever heard. Ben recorded it on his cell phone, and we just sit around and listen to it over and over. My sister says ‘it’s the sweetest little heartbeat I’ve ever heard,’ and I completely agree.

I’ve also got the slightest little bump going on now, and I love that so much. It pretty much just looks like I’ve just eaten a really big burrito at this point, but it’s still a bump! The baby is the size of an avocado, and it just seems like he’s growing so fast (ps…we’re not finding out the gender of our baby, and i use ‘he’ and ‘she’ interchangeably, so don’t get confused if i say ‘he’ one day and ‘she’ the next).

I’ve been feeling so much better the last week, and my energy is almost back to normal, although I still go to bed much earlier than normal. I don’t have many food aversions any more (besides kale…kale still completely freaks me out), and it feels so good to be back to myself again.

Pregnancy has changed me, as I’ve mentioned before. I’ve slowed down so much, and find myself just enjoying a slow drive or taking my time getting my work done or just sitting in the living room watching the fire and thinking. I feel much more introspective and retrospective and future-spective, and life feels more serious than it did a few months ago. I like that, because having a child and raising a child is serious. Not serious in a stoic kind of serious where you never laugh or tease or be silly, but serious in a way that this is an eternal soul that has been placed into our care for safe keeping. This is an eternal soul that has been placed in our home to be trained in the way he should go, and to ultimately, be led into knowing Jesus. It’s serious…and sacred. And I hope and pray that I never lose sight of that.

What about you: did you find pregnancy + the thought of raising a child change you in any way? 

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

WHEN YOU FEEL INADEQUATE

Do you ever have days or weeks or months where you just feel completely inadequate?

Like, there’s this niggling feeling that is riding under everything you do and everything you are, and it leaves you feeling like you’re just really, really failing at all that is important in life…when even the good you do do (don’t laugh at the do do…wait, no, yes, please laugh) doesn’t even feel like good. If you’ve ever felt like that, I’m here to say: me too.

I realized a few days ago that this little voice saying ‘you’re inadequate’ was playing over and over again in my head, and then I realized that it’s been doing that a really long time. And then I realized that this little thing in my head was starting to really ruin my life. Because isn’t it true that to do anything from a place of negativity will only leave you feeling like a failure no matter how amazing or good or perfect that thing was. That doesn’t meant we hype ourselves up with overwhelming positivity just so we can feel good about ourselves, but I think you get what I mean.

Here’s another moment of honesty: the last few months have been hard. Not hard in like a ‘this is super hard and i’m struggling and feeling overwhelmed’ kind of hard…but just…hard. Different. Anyone who’s been through a first trimester can probably understand this, because you’re just not yourself. I really struggled with feeling like such a failure as a wife and a friend and a person in general. I didn’t cook or clean or even get off the couch somedays. Ben would get home from work and I would hardly have energy to ask him about his day or give him a kiss. I felt like I was so wrapped up in my little world of nausea or exhaustion that everything else sorta faded away, and I didn’t like it. I’ve said it before, but I have an incredibly amazing husband who cared for me so kindly during those sickie days. He was so gracious about what I was feeling and never complained about the thrown together suppers or all the times I failed to remember to make something for his lunch. I couldn’t have done the last few months without him!

I like having things to do and I like taking care of my home and my kitchen and laundry and grocery shopping. I like feeling like I am contributing something to life instead of the one taking taking taking. And in the past months where the taking was happening a lot, it made me feel so inadequate. Like just one big failure.

Like one big I’ll-just-be-here-on-the-couch-while-my-husband-cooks-dinner-and-cleans-up-dinner-and-brings-me-tea-and-crackers kind of failure.

Grace is a really hard to give yourself sometimes, isn’t it? It seems more right to be harsh on yourself, to talk down on yourself because of all the failures, whether those are real or perceived ones. But I think if we don’t give ourselves grace than we will only fall into the horrible trap of feeling inadequate and feeling like we are just never enough and we never will be. And that, my dears, is a sad place to be.

So today I tell you and I tell myself this: that you are enough, and even in the places of your life where there is room for growth and improvement, than there is grace.

And grace is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

What about you: do you find yourself feeling inadequate easily? Do you find it hard to extend grace to yourself?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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