When I finally came home, I had my beautiful baby boy in my arms.
I had survived.
I should have felt nothing but joy.
And honestly, in many ways, I did.
I felt like someone who had escaped death and been given the most precious gift imaginable.
But underneath that joy, I was scared.
I felt alone with the responsibility of this tiny human who now depended on me for everything.
For most of my life, I had been responsible for myself. I worried about myself. I made decisions for myself.
And suddenly, there was someone else.
Someone who needed me.
Someone who couldn't tell me what he needed.
Someone whose entire world seemed to be in my hands.
I was terrified that everyone would eventually figure out that I had no idea what I was doing.
I worried that people would look at me and think I was a bad mother.
The truth was, I didn't feel like I knew how to be a mother to this little person.
It didn't even feel real.
I would look at Nathan and think, I can't believe this child belongs to me.
But there he was.
My baby.
My responsibility.
My blessing.
And I loved him more than I could put into words.
My Body Was Home, But It Was Still Recovering
Physically, I was exhausted.
And I was in pain.
My body had just been through something traumatic, and I was trying to recover while taking care of a newborn.
I remember constantly coughing because my throat was irritated from the tube that had been placed down my throat during surgery.
Every cough caused more pain.
But there was a baby who needed me.
So I kept going.
Because that's what mothers do, right?
At least, that's what I thought.
I didn't stop to ask myself how I was doing.
I didn't stop to process what had happened in that delivery room.
I didn't talk about the fear.
I didn't talk about the pain.
I didn't talk about what it felt like to wake up in the surgical ICU surrounded by machines.
I just kept moving.
I Became "Mom"
My days quickly became filled with motherhood.
Laundry.
Baths.
Baby food.
Tummy time.
Reading to Nathan.
Feeding him.
Taking care of him.
Making sure he was okay.
And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I was also working part-time and taking a class toward my Master's degree.
Looking back, I'm amazed at how much I was doing.
But at the time, I didn't think anything of it.
I was simply doing what needed to be done.
I was Mom.
And Mom keeps going.
Even when she's tired.
Even when she's hurting.
Even when she's scared.
Even when she doesn't know how she's going to make it through the day.
What I Didn't Know Yet
At that point in my life, I thought surviving was the same thing as healing.
I had survived the delivery.
I had my son.
I was moving forward.
So I assumed I was okay.
But I wasn't really okay.
I just didn't know it yet.
I had buried the experience underneath motherhood, work, school, laundry, responsibilities, and the endless list of things that needed to get done.
I didn't give myself time to process what had happened to me.
I didn't know that one day I would have to go back and face some of the things I had pushed down.
And I certainly didn't know that this beautiful little boy who had changed my life would ultimately become part of the reason I learned how important it was to take care of me, too.
Because here's what I know now:
You can be grateful and still be hurting.
You can love your life and still need healing.
You can be strong and still need help.
And you can love everyone around you while slowly realizing that you've forgotten how to love yourself.
That realization would change my life.
But I wasn't there yet.
There was still a lot I needed to learn.
And tomorrow, I'll tell you about the moment I began to realize that simply keeping myself busy wasn't the same as actually healing.
My journey to self-love was just beginning.
To be continued... ❤️