On feelings & new babies

Never underestimate the amount of changes a little baby can bring.

Roles in the family make their needed shifts.

Routines are somehow reformed.

All of this taking place while the pile of dirty diapers in the corner grows and a multitude of coffee cups consumed while you try to find a clean sleeper for the baby, with the distant sobs of the struggling toddler in the background.

We shift, we fall, we laugh, we weep - for reasons we don’t even know ourselves.

And then all is new.

You wonder how there was life before this littlest one - did the family feel full once with just three.

Two things I’ve always been careful to do in preparation for this chaotic dance of transition…

Keep those hormone supporting herbs stocked in the kitchen cabinet. (This was my choice this time around and it did the job.)

Carve the time to write, write, write it all out once I’ve reached the other side.

There are feelings that come and I remind myself that they will also go.

Thoughts like of the toddler never loving you the same.

Thoughts of complete overwhelm at how you’ll ever live through a day.

The sudden realization that this baby will, in essence, be glued to you morning and night for who knows how long.

These thoughts are best felt and then let go of.

I’ve found it best to smile through the tears and blame the hormones.

My husband smiles back with a gentle squeeze of the hand and brings me the daily dose of those precious supplements stored for this purpose.

I often hear mothers admitting to these low feelings many years later.

The truth is, this tremendous shift, the physical journey of your body bringing a brand new human earth-side—

It’s not without its challenges.

It’s no small task for your body.

You are not the single person on the planet that finds it all a little too overwhelming.

We are all overwhelmed, drowning in the new road ahead of us.

But one thing is for certain.

The overwhelm will ease and change and become an overwhelming swell of joy in your heart, perhaps even simultaneously with the overwhelm of heavy.

Because this great shift and chaotic dance of new little humans coming to join us earth-side is one massive journey with so many beautiful and painful facets.

And this is perhaps how I can simultaneously weep over the moments missed with my toddler while the next moment smiling up at my husband and letting him know, “we’re just going to have to have a lot of babies I guess…”

Bless these sweet men who somehow stay sanely by our sides through it all.