Everything Will Be Okay

To the mom who is getting in her car for the first time solo with a new baby….it will be ok. 

To the mom who is leaving for the first time to go somewhere WITHOUT her baby…it will be ok.

To those experiencing that feeling in your throat, the pounding of your heart, the “can I do this?”; the “should I do this?”; the “will this ever feel normal?” 

Yes. You can. You should. It will.

To the moms who have to go back to work, who have to try to act “normal” around coworkers when ALL THE EMOTIONS are happening at the same time: it will be ok.

To the moms who feel the push pull of the happiness to be doing a thing that’s your own mixed with the deep sadness to be leaving to go do that thing.  Who feel the excitement to have some alone time mixed with the guilt at the excitement about the alone time. 

Who knew it was possible to feel so much and be SO conflicted! And.. IT WILL BE OKAY. 

To the parents experiencing all the firsts: the first bite of food, the first public baby-wearing moment, the first overnight trip with the baby away from home; the first public melt down; the first nursing or feeding or first anything in the back of the car…the first time you forget that one thing that you REALLY needed to make the outing NOT a disaster…It will all be ok.

The first time I drove somewhere with my baby was a ten minute drive to visit with my parents. They were renting a house nearby for a few weeks to be helpful in those early days of first getting home from the hospital. My son shrieked and screamed the whole way until he was red in the face. We pulled over three times to make sure he was ok. My husband assured me “if he’s crying, he’s breathing.” I texted a dear friend and she kindly told me “it’s your baby hazing you,” a phrase which made me smile for a moment, but then I burst into tears anyway.

The first year of motherhood for me was far from perfect. We had a million zillion beautiful moments  and just as many “oh my god I can’t handle this; how will I get through this” moments. 

We had sleepless nights, nights where we took shifts holding the baby and set alarms to make sure we didn’t fall asleep while doing so. Sleep training nights later on where we nearly lost our minds and sat half in tears waiting for our baby to fall asleep. I got on several planes and flew miles away from my baby for a job I adore, and both loved the time away and mourned the time away. I pumped every three hours on planes, on boats, in hotel rooms, and cars. 

We also had moments that stunned me with their magic and shocked me with their power. The first smile. The first babbles. The first (and every time really) falling asleep on my chest. The first time I heard “mama.” 

Things didn’t always go as planned (and rarely will I’m sure.) I had to do things that made me WILDLY uncomfortable. I had to be brand new again at something and this time the stakes were incredibly high (keeping this tiny creature happy and alive.) 

This year I learned there is no perfect and perfect doesn’t matter. Nursing or not, sleeping in a crib or in the bed, baby led weaning or mashing it all up, cloth diapers or not, all these things that seemed so so important to me to be making the RIGHT choice, in hindsight there was no right choice, just the choice that worked for me and my family. 

The idea of “mom guilt” was always something I thought was put on mothers by others. I thought people might point their fingers at me and say, “well how could you possibly, xyz.”  (And I’m sure that happens and did happen to me and I was probably too sleep deprived to notice.) 

What surprised me about mom guilt was that so much of it happens naturally and we generate so much of it on our own: we are constantly weighing our choices, wondering if we are doing enough, doing it right, being good parents, handling it all. We do all this while trying to keep a smile on our faces and without being impatient with our mutually sleep deprived partners and of course keeping it together in front of our little people….and wow that’s a lot for any person to try to do. 

If I could write a letter to myself a year ago, in those excited but also terrified days waiting for my son’s arrival, I would say this: Be easy and loving to yourself. Be prepared for the unexpected and get ready to be both humbled and ecstaticly joyful. It will all be ok. You will be ok. You will be excellent.