It’s time for me to break the silence. Silence you might not have even noticed, but silence that has been tough for me. I process through writing and sharing my experiences, but early into our sons life I purposely stopped talking about my journey as I struggled in my new role as a mom. I couldn’t make it tidy, I couldn’t put a bow on why we were going through what we were going through. Only just now, having a little bit of relief and perspective, from the hardest 14 months of my life. My silence ends today.

Because I want to make sure there isn’t a new momma sitting at home feeling more alone, more beat down or not enough… See I was that first time mom that thought she was prepared, good with kids and as ready as she could be. I did all the right things to prepare. I was set for that first year of motherhood. Knowing it would be a challenging roller coaster, a learning curve if you will. Yet, I had no idea how much it would require, how our experience differed from many of my friends, and how much my darn heart got wrapped up in my performance as a mother.

Most of the days were hard, yet also peppered with beautiful-smiley-cooing-baby moments. Truly they were crazy challenging and almost impossible. I’d like to share snippets of them with you. Why?  I don’t EVER want another mom to feel alone like I have, to feel like it’s all her fault, or to continue to carry the burden that “you are doing it all wrong”. Sometimes babies are just harder than others and it’s ok to feel the feels, it doesn’t mean you don’t love your baby. My guess is you love your baby so much you are doing all or most of these things, despite it making your days tougher.

Also, it’s my hope that you don’t judge these words and think I am ungrateful for this sweet blessing that we prayed for for a long time. He is the JOY of our days, even when I couldn’t see that so clearly.

I think the biggest lesson the Lord taught me through this dry season IS THAT EXTREME JOY AND HARDSHIP CAN EXIST IN THE MIDDLE OF OF ANY CHALLENGING CIRCUMSTANCE.

So momma I don’t write these notes to scare you or for pity. I just wanted to give you a real and raw account of the challenges we faced, so you don’t feel alone if you are smack dab in the middle of similar one.

That being said you could have that ideal natural birth you planned for. The baby that sleeps 6 hours at a stretch the day you bring them home from the hospital, who loves car rides, babywearing, walks, and eats like a champ. (insert all the praise hands here)

Or ….

• You could have a 50+ hour labor after you prepared, read and all the natural and normal preparation, tried all the positions with your doula yet your birth was exhausting and not enjoyable to say the least

• You could have momma guilt that you didn’t really remember that baby coming out, or locking eyes. You were just so relived it was over, like finishing a marathon over.

• You could do “all the right things” the first month like LC house calls, acupuncture, accepting family help and meals. Yet, you were no where in the slightest ready for the mental and physical roughness of recovering, despite “being prepared”.

• You could get up often the first two/three weeks at 1, 3am, 4am and 5am in the morning in pure panic. You could sob through wailing breaths to your husband, “how-does-anyone-sleep-ever-with-a-baby.”

• You could have a ridiculous chest, 34 MM. You could have a photo of your baby sleeping on your boob, that LITERALLY looks like a pregnant belly. (Cal, I can’t wait to show this to your wife someday)

• You could feel like there must be something I am doing wrong. While staring at your cute little baby, you just wanted to feel like you had this. That you got the hang of it, but the relief seems never to come.

• You could have the hardest time breastfeeding because your boobs are TOO big and you have to have two if not three hands and a towel to handle these milk jugs from not suffocating your baby.

• You could feel like an alien, a fat alien that they don’t make bras for.After being fitted at over 4 stores and ordering over $2500 worth in bras nothing worked. PS. If so, then girl, you call Nordstroms get fitted by a mom that works there and get completely custom nursing bra, they will alter, make one for you. (at least at the MOA store here they do).Who knew is was going to be so hard and discouraging just to find ONE BRA!

• You could wear adult diapers and love them. The relief from not digging into your healing was magical. You could sit out in the sun in your robe and diaper one July morning and all was right in the world for those 5 minutes.

• You could dress your baby in the cutest chambray outfit for your first new momma class, only to have to CUT IT OFF with a scissors as you are practically topless, in the middle of class, because your baby wouldn’t stop crying no matter what you did. 

• You could be learning that none of the normal baby things would be normal for you.  You can’t understand why your child screams in the car till he was blue, hates walks or their carseat and didn’t like baby wearing either.

• You could feel like all things that you were so excited to share with your new baby couldn’t happen. You assume it must be your fault.

• You could make out with your my breast friend pillow  cause you appreciate it so much. Hello sweet pillow that snaps around me and makes going to the bathroom while nursing possible.

• You could be jealous of all your other new momma friends who seem to be rocking motherhood so much better than you.

• You could try really hard to get pumping going but your first attempts at that resulted in you crying in the bathtub, because nothing came out and you felt like it was just another place you couldn’t get it right. PS: A Hospital grade pump was the biggest blessing!

• You could have a baby that refuses to nurse in public, or in any sort of daylight because they are too distracted past 3 months of age. You could then feel like you were trapped at home being that your baby still needed to eat all the time.

• You could nurse your baby on all fours with your milk jugs hanging above him to encourage daytime nursing and feel like a monkey but nope. That didn’t work either.

• You could have a nursing strikes for a full weeks at a time, that just made you feel terrible and unwanted. You could try your best to nurse while bouncing on a stability ball fully swaddled and latching on there to break the strike. Then once latched you could try your dangdest to move to a chair once he was on. You could hit your impossible meter this week.

• You could try chiropractic, probiotics, a million other purchases off Amazon, to help with your little one being upset and cranky most of the time, but nothing seemed to do the trick.

• You could be so afraid to drive anywhere as it could be so impossible and nerve wracking to hear your baby scream the entire time.You could just cry when you had to drive anywhere as there is nothing you can do, that you haven’t tried.  You might not even take the baby in the car anywhere alone till baby is about 9 months because of this form of torture.

• You could get your period back at 4 months after birth while full breastfeeding, no supplementing. Even when you are pumping an additional feeding during the morning nap to build supply.

• You could have a baby that you had to bounce, nurse, settle on a stability ball till they were about 6 months ever so perfectly to get even them ready for any kind of sleep.

• You could have a whole year or more of extreme sleep deprivation with a baby that doesn’t nap longer than 27 minutes, which 15 of that you are pumping to build a supply. AKA no mommy down time. Then when you think it couldn’t get worse.

• You could all of the sudden out of the blue have your baby wake every 1.5 hours after sleeping longer stretches in the earlier months.  Meaning you are only sleeping maybe 40 minutes in between each wake. Doctors and sleep coaches can’t figure out what is happening. You could realize that getting up 8-10 times a night to feed/comfort baby is going to be your new normal for months on months. (Writing this still terrifies me)

• You could pray and beg night after night of impossible sleep challenges for the Lord to take this away or provide relief and save you but the extreme sleep deprivation continues.

• You could go through 3 sleep coaches and then be landed with the blessings of the most amazing sleep coach to walk through this crazy scary time with new approaches and plans, supported your tired, discouraged heart even if there wasn’t a clear answer.

• You could not flush toliets or run the water in your bathrooms for close to a year to not wake up the baby

• You could spend months sleep training your baby, most of the early months rhything & rocking on the floor, because hearing your baby cry (even if it’s a gentle form of sleep training with check-ins) is worse than nails on a chalkboard times 20.  (And yes months because every month surrounding mothers period the baby would go from waking every 2-3 hours to every hour and this would continue until baby is 13 months old. (Fun right?)

• You could cut out all dairy, soy, wine, eggs, caffeine or chocolate and had already not had gluten (as I have been gluten free for years) in my diet to encourage better sleep through sleep training. You say you will add them back in when he starts sleeping better, well that doesn’t really happen any time soon.

• You could decide on this schedule to help with sleep and nursing issues.  Why not pump 5 times a day + nursing right? Wrong it kept you so much farther away from any true rest being attached to that pump at every “momma” break time.

• You could LOVE your work so much because it was the one place you felt good at anything. And then feel a bit guilty about being away.

• You could try so hard to be a good mom and feel normal. Read every blog, pin and FB group page about how to make it better. Yet, none of them truly help, the reality is you are just in the middle of it and the only way was through. (PS you could also hate this answer and keep searching anyways)

• You could look back and still not understand how you survived it. There was a whole lot of grace, support, prayer and Jesus.

If I help even one new mom out there not feel alone, then it was worth writing. Documenting my transition into motherhood is healing. It’s loving. It’s appreciating. It’s validating. It’s remembering. It’s honoring the journey.

Lastly, I put together a simple worksheet for anyone going through a season like I did and named it “Navigating a Challenging Season with Grace” that you can download here. Hopefully it will help you in this tough challenging motherhood season. I’ll be talking about my experience and more details on how to use the worksheet on Periscope in the next couple days, and I’d love if you would join me.

To my sweet Cal Michael, if you ever read this, know that I love you with every part of my being.  I can say from the depths of my soul I gave every ounce that I have for your well being and I did continue to try to do the best I can with what I have. Your momma will never be perfect and I don’t need to be, but know you were NEVER a burden, just a new part of life that mommy had the darndest time navigating that first 14 months. I want to help other mommas not feel alone so they can love their babies well. So that is why I am sharing the early days of being a mother to you.

Also, lastly. Momma’s it does get better. “This too shall pass” was one of the hardest things for me to hear during this time as it felt like I would never pass. So I won’t give you a canned phrase I will just wave hi from the other side and lend you a hand, a hug, a prayer if you are in the middle of hard. Know I see you. Know I am sorry this is so rough. Know I love you and my heart is for you, momma. Reach out, I would love to encourage you.

Much Love, Gina Z

PS: In case you missed it above here is another link to download my worksheet, “Navigating a Challenging Season with Grace”