I’ve really been struggling to write this guest post for Patricia’s motherhood series. Truthfully I’ve re-written it a number of times and still can’t quite find the words to appropriately express my feelings about motherhood and what it means to me. I also can’t type more than a few words without crying. I cry when I think about how much my son means to me or about our struggle to become pregnant with a sibling for him. I cry when I think about all my friends who continue to have difficulty becoming pregnant or sustaining a pregnancy. As much as motherhood is a beautiful blessing it can also be heart wrenching and emotionally exhausting when it doesn’t go as planned.
Here’s is a bit about my experience with motherhood…
We got pregnant with our now 3 year-old-son, Morris, within 5 months of trying. My pregnancy was “easy” with no complications (other then intense nausea for the first few months), my labour and delivery was very fast and natural, just as I had hoped. Morris was (and still is) a very good babe. Sure, sleep eluded us for the first half year of his life, but other than that no complaints at all.
My plan was to get pregnant with #2 before I went back to work (after a year of maternity leave)… ya well…as one of my husbands favourite quotes says, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans for the future”.
2 years later, after a referral to a fertility clinic, 3 months of cycle monitoring, 4 medicated IUI cycles, between 50-100 needles, countless acupuncture sessions, and more negative test results then I care to remember, it was April 12th- the day of my pregnancy test after our IVF transfer (which had taken place a few weeks before).
After each month of monitoring or IUI a nurse left me a voicemail with my pregnancy test results. Each month it was the same message…”I’m sorry…” I would usually hang up mid message, have a complete meltdown, and then pull myself together (at least on the surface) and carry on.
On April 12th my husband and I agreed to listen to the message together. I was completely convinced that I was not pregnant and wasn’t sure I could cope, on my own, with another negative message. For some reason my clinic called me 3 times that day, I hit ignore each time and didn’t listen to the messages. Then I got worried. They had never phoned me this many times before, what if something was wrong. My husband and I decided that I would listen to my messages on the way home from work just in case. The first two messages said, “just trying to reach you..” Please check your call line. I pulled the car over and checked my call line, “congratulations, your test results are positive, you’re pregnant”.
We are expecting just before Christmas.
So back to the question, what motherhood means to me… It means everything, I feel honoured and blessed to be a mother. It has been the happiest time in my life so far. Yes it’s tiring and very hard work (my full time job as a mental health clinician is much easier). But hearing Morris say, “Mommy you’re the best” is worth every minute of lost sleep, every tear and tantrum, every mess and spill.
Hi my name is Erica! You can find me on instagram (with lots of Morris spam) @ericabaxterschott or blogging at www.annageorgianna.com On my blog you will find products and companies that I love and feel passionate about, recipes, our travels, and some stories from our life.
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