On being a mom...

I spent my first Mother’s Day at the hospital taking care of other people’s babies, but spent some time today reflecting on being a mother and what it feels like navigating this new world of motherhood...

It’s been less than a year but I can hardly remember what he looked like when we brought him home from the hospital, what it felt like to hold him when he was only a little over 6 pounds.

The first days/weeks/months of motherhood were a blur. Part of it was the stress of moving two weeks after he was born, starting orientation when he was three weeks old, spending a few weeks home with him and then starting intern year….but part of me knows that no matter what the circumstances, the first moments of motherhood are a blur.

It’s different than I expected. There is guilt like I knew there’d be, but I thought that it would be about leaving him, about being at work while he was at home. It’s actually more about the feeling that I can’t give him 100% when I’m at home because of the inevitable physical and mental exhaustion that residency brings. And then there was the almost tangible pain that I felt for the first time when Stephen texted me to tell me that he was sick while I was working, and the tug that I felt when he cried for the first time when I was leaving for a shift.

But it’s really less about all those moments and more about the deep joy that I didn’t know existed before he was born. His little hands wrapped around my neck……the excitement of each milestone that he reaches…the newness of each stage…his deep giggle at the smallest things...the joy of watching him discover the world…the sweetness of the little curls around his ears…the heavenly baby smell…the comfort of holding and nursing him…the peacefulness of cuddling him while he sleeps…the new and different love that I have for his dad when I watch them together.

Motherhood is a beautiful, incredible gift...I'm grateful and humbled to be his mom.