New Mom, Same Me

By: Heather Keniston

Your first Mother’s Day is kind of a Big Deal.  Your life has been flipped upside-down and you should celebrate and be celebrated.  As I know, life as a new mom is amazing, but it is also a huge transition. Finding you and your baby's own rhythm can be challenging and sometimes tiresome, but once you become synchronized, every day you will fall in love with being a new mom all over again.

I had pushed. I had screamed. I had pulled out all my husband’s chest hair when I yanked him towards me in agony to get the doctor to give me an epidural. I was already off to a rocky start with this whole motherhood thing the day I gave birth to my daughter.

Holding my daughter for the first time, all my fears of being a new mom left. I simply loved this tiny little human more than life itself and I could hear my mom’s voice in my head saying so many times, “You’ll never understand until you have children of your own.” She was right. 

In that moment, I couldn’t love my daughter more. I was not only overcome by the instant love I felt for this tiny human being, but also the realization that someone also felt that way about me.

Then, the day came when my husband and I brought her home. My quest began to find a rhythm for me as a new mom and my daughter. My mom stayed with us the first few weeks or so, to help with the transition. 

First and foremost, I never slept. I would fantasize about sleeping, but sleep is just a surreal desire when you become a new mom. I mastered the time it took for me to take a shower and get dressed to under ten minutes.

The first time I changed my daughter’s diaper was a disaster because I put the diaper on backwards and the new mom side of me felt so defeated. And the first time I went out shopping with my daughter, I wasn’t aware I needed to have a change of clothes with me, too. She decided to throw up on my shirt and our shopping trip quickly ended. 

When my husband and I practiced the “let her cry” notion, I sat in the living room crying along, too.

Through all the ups and downs of being a new mom, I still wouldn’t change a single thing. I learned alongside my daughter and we grew together. She was more forgiving than I was to myself. It was okay if I lost her sock in the wash, or if I took two extra minutes to get to her in the morning because I only slept three hours that night.

Her love for me would never waver and as soon as I realized this, the less pressure I put on myself as a new mom and the more I learned to laugh in the good and bad times of being a new mom. 

If you’re reading this and you’re a new mom, don’t forget the importance of the little things- it’s easy to become overwhelmed.  Appreciate your first cup of warm coffee on the morning your little one decides he/she finally takes a bottle without refusing. If this is something you struggle with as a new mom, mimijumi would love to make that morning come sooner rather than later.   

If you’re struggling to breastfeed your baby, like I did, and you worry about the best way to continue to feed your baby, the most important thing to remember is your baby is healthy and happy. 

Being a new mom is a journey filled with unknowns.  Because, in reality, motherhood is far from perfect, but full of incredible rewards worth every second.