motherhood

my oldest is 8 today. i don't know how that happened, really. on the one hand, it seems like i've known wyatt my whole life; on the other, wasn't it just yesterday that i was buckling him into his car seat, tying his little shoes, putting him in his high chair? now he traps me in his very logical arguments, asks deep questions about God and the meaning of life, wants his hair long, has sleepovers with friends, reads harry potter, and pretty much thinks he runs the joint.

well, i figured that since it's wyatt's birthday--a day that always makes me reflect on how and when he came into this world and into our lives and changed us irrevocably--i'd post something i wrote a while back about motherhood.

happy birthday to my sweet and feisty wyatt.
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I was completely and utterly unprepared for motherhood.

The nursery was ready. I’d painted it, twice actually because I didn’t like the first shade of green. Winn had assembled the crib, and we’d placed the furniture just so. I’d hung tiny clothes on tiny hangers, put diapers and lotion and ointment and powder on the changing table shelves. With a white marker, I’d written words on the walls, words like listen, become, grow, play, imagine, live, words that spoke of our hopes for this new little life on the way.

I’d read the books, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, The Baby Whisperer, and more, and I’d talked to other moms about things like formula vs. breast milk, natural birth vs. epidural, cloth diapers vs. disposable, brands of car seats, strollers, carriers, and the myriad of other details involved in bringing a baby into this world and into a home. We’d talked about the very real excitement, the joy, the beauty of becoming mothers, the sheer wonder of carrying life within us and the privilege of having these fresh, fragile little bodies and souls to nurture.

But still, I was completely unprepared. No one told me that my heart would break apart in a thousand ways and for a thousand reasons when I held my sons for the first time and that it would happen over and over again as I watched them grow. No one told me that motherhood is a long discipline in letting go. No one warned me of the unnerving, fierce, primal love that would take over my entire being. No one told me that once I became a mother, I would rarely--if ever-- take a completely carefree breath.

Maybe I just didn’t read the right books, but I didn’t hear much about how having children would seriously disrupt my marriage, tear apart my neat and tidy agendas (not to mention my house), make me look and feel like crap a good bit of the time, or how God could and would use motherhood to form me, to free me up more and more to become myself, to become the woman—in the words of author Robert Benson—God dreamed me into existence to be.

Also, I would’ve loved a heads up about the likelihood of stretch marks on my breasts. (seriously, what the hell?)

I wonder, though, if I’d known the cost of motherhood, would I have had the courage and the foolishness to risk it? Because here’s the thing: no matter how much I rant and rave (and I do a lot), no matter how many times I want to gouge my eyes out because of the chaos, stress, monotony, and sheer exhaustion inherent in motherhood, I wouldn’t change one single thing.

Anais Nin wrote these words: “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” If I have the courage to allow it, motherhood can be a story of my own blossoming. It can be a profoundly formative journey, interwoven with pain, mystery and exquisite beauty. costly. priceless.

and oh, so unbelievably worth it.