Dear Readers,

Exactly 16 weeks and 2 days ago, I became a mother! It’s still exciting to me, every day that this is a reality. I love being Vivienne’s mom. I am not sure yet if we will go with “Mom” , “Mommy” or “Mama”. I guess that will be determined as she starts to talk.. and likely will evolve with her age. Only time will tell!

In any case, the point of today’s post is to tell you the unvarnished hard truth.

Motherhood is hard.

Motherhood is hard.

Motherhood is hard.

I feel the need to say it three times because it’s important to say what is true not just what is easy or fun. I prefer to stick with the positive and share the more difficult moments with my own mom or my support system.

I think the perception (I blame social media) is that it’s all smiles and happy times. It’s not that way at all. I am guilty of taking multiple pictures of her till I get a smile or charming look.. There are real moments that suck and you can’t exactly stop and take a picture. Oh wait! You can. I actually did that, because I think it’s vitally important to share the truth of this experience and while it differs for everyone I can’t see a benefit to covering it up. There seems to be a lot of pressure to talk about how great it is, and none to share how hard it is. That needs to change. I will start.

It’s hard. It’s easy. It’s confusing. It’s awesome. It’s frustrating. It’s uplifting. It’s fun. It’s work. It’s stressful. It’s great.. (I think you are getting the picture now) It’s a lot of things.

A perfect example of this ever-changing circumstance is what happened yesterday, I went home for lunch expecting her to be awake, she wasn’t and I wasn’t able to feed her and get my time with her that I normally do.. I burst into tears and immediately thought,

“I messed up!”

Which simply isn’t true. She woke up earlier than expected and was hungrier earlier than expected so Daddy fed her. Not a crisis, no need for tears and yet, they still came. On the other side of this, when she doesn’t want to eat or will not calm down no matter what you try, you look heavenward and say, “UNCLE” or some other colorful phrase which I am trying hard to remove from my vocabulary– I am blessed that I have a great partner in my husband and he will take her from me when I need a break. I hate that I need a break, AND I do. Why is that so hard to admit?

I like to process things and get them “figured out” before I share. In this case, I am not doing that. It’s slowly beginning to dawn on me, I am never going to “figure it out” or “get it wired” when it comes to this. We will find our groove, of that I have no doubt, AND perfection is no longer the goal.

I am a continual work in progress and that’s okay. For many years, I have longed to be a mom, and I chose this path and I love it and it’s hard. Remember, the words you use are vital to telling your story. These are mine.

Think about it…