On being a mother....

My first true moment of motherhood, the moment that I felt that I was finally a mother, not just a patient in a hospital who had just happened to give birth earlier, was around approximately 10 p.m. after my daughter was born earlier that day. By that time, any pain shots had worn off and I had gotten some rest. My sweet husband, Kirc, exhausted, was sleeping in the recliner provided for fathers and other family in the Recovery Room. Being a first-time mother, I had let the nurses convince me that I would need some rest and that I shouldn't have any problem in letting them care for my sweet Elizabeth in the nursery while I got some rest. I believe this was before rooming in was common in hospitals.

I went down to the nursery to get Elizabeth and take her back to the room with me. However, since she was sleeping so peacefully in her bassinet, I felt that I didn't want to disturb her. There was a very nice high backed rocking chair for parents and family in the nursery so I carefully took my sweet little bundle of joy over to the rocker and sat there with her just looking at her face and how perfect she was. Even though I knew that there were a few nurses in another part of the nursery, I felt for the first time like I had some "alone time" with my new baby daughter. We just sat there and blocked out the rest of the world. Now, I had fallen in love with this sweet being long before she was conceived and was completely in love with her while God grew her in my womb. However, nothing could prepare me for the love I felt when I finally had the chance to hold my sweet Elizabeth without anyone around bothering us and without the haze of pain meds dulling my senses.

I can only imagine that this love was felt as well by my sweet husband when he got to hold Elizabeth for the first time. He and I insisted that he get to carry her from the Labor and Delivery room down to the nursery after she was born. I believe that he also continued to hold her as the nurses did what they needed to do to her in the nursery.

I miss that feeling so very much...having a sweet wonderful child growing in my womb, holding my child for the first time, putting my child to my breast for the first time and seeing them nuzzle for my nipple only to latch on and become perfectly content. I miss my little one nursing at my breast, receiving my sweet sustenance while also receiving such all important comfort that only mommy could provide.

You may have noticed that the majority of my website is devoted to my children. It is thus because they are the most important people in my life and my reason for being. True, I have many more accomplishments and talents to be proud of. However, I have learned, starting with the birth of my daughter, Elizabeth, that being a mother is the most important and the toughest job anyone will ever have. I do not expect everyone who reads my story to agree with me. I am very opinionated, but I believe that I have made my mothering choices based on logic, instinct, intuition and lots of love.

I remember as a young girl already thinking ahead of the children I would have someday (in a general sense) and knowing that, even then, I already loved them very much. I realize now that I had already started to give my children the best foundation I could ever give them, unconditional love. Now don't get me wrong. I admit that I didn't always have the belief system that I have now towards mothering. In high school I was career oriented, planning to get two bachelor's degrees in finance and accounting and start my career in investment banking. I saw myself settling down in my 30's, getting married, and then starting a family. Due to various circumstances within my control and outside of my control over the years, I have to admit that I haven't finished my degrees as of yet but I'm happy to say that that has definitely been for the best in my life. Also, I obviously don't have my career started yet. Yes, I have seven years of work experience but I don't put that under the heading of what one usually thinks of as a career. I know now in my soul that if I had an established career before having children, I would have likely made selfish choices which would have included possibly not even having children. God forbid that my two beautiful children would not have come into this world or that I would have made wrong choices regarding their rearing.

You see, in high school and early college, I was in "career woman" mode. My career was to come first, family maybe a distant second. I think one can easily see where this is leading to. I would have likely taken only the minimal time off from my job to have my children only to put them either in full-time daycare from age six weeks or, at best, hire a nanny to look after them one on one. In hindsight, I also see that I would have likely fed my children formula either from the start or at least after trying to breastfeed while continuing to work outside the house and finding that the stress of all these responsibilities would have doomed my breastfeeding relationship with my children. Obviously, a mother who is away from her baby for more than fifty hours per week is going to have a hard time bonding with that child. I also believe that, by feeding the child formula, the mother is also giving up the best and most natural chance to bond with her child.

One thing that formula represents to me most of all is the "opportunity" for the mother to hand the child over to someone else to feed and care for. How many of you have seen a baby in an infant carrier having to hold its own bottle? You may have seen the new contraptions in the baby stores that enable the baby to have a bottle even before it can hold the bottle itself. These devices use a straw of sorts to let the baby get milk from the bottle. Now not only does the parent/caregiver not have to hold the baby while feeding the child formula, the baby herself does not have to be old enough to hold the bottle. I definitely see it as a step in the direction of not only taking the parent out of the child-rearing process but also taking the human (outside of the baby) out of the process.

I am the webring mistress of the Mothers and Daughters WebRing. You can visit its webpage to see if you would like to add your website to the ring.

Look here in the future for my children's birth stories as well as information on unassisted childbirth.

"This is a Home Where Children Live"

You may not find things all in place
Friends, when you enter here
But, we're a home where children live,
We hold them very dear

And you may find small fingerprints
And smudges on the wall,
When the kids are gone, we'll clean them up
Right now, we're playing ball

For there's one thing which we're sure
These children are on loan
One day they're always under foot
Next thing you know, they're gone

That's when we'll have a well-kept house
When they're off on their own
Right now, this is where children live
A loved and lived-in home!

~ Judith Bard ~

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