I thought I wasn't ready to be a Mom

A year ago this week, marks the day that I found out I was going to be a Mom. I guess that is what has had me contemplating Motherhood and the life changes that have happened in the last year.  I have been overcome with feelings of gratitude at these changes.  I was going to keep this to myself though, until I saw something on Facebook.  It was an innocent post.  One friend jokingly made a comment about how one of her friends would be the next to have a baby.  That friend replied, "Heck NO! I'm not ready to ruin my life or my body!"

Really??? 

That's what you think having a baby is about?

But then I remembered that about 13 months ago I felt the same way, and that's a little painful to admit. 

You see, a year ago I was working in my dream job.  I was a nurse on the Mother/ Baby Unit of the most amazing hospital (University of Utah Hospital). I wanted to be a midwife, and this was the job that would put me on the fast track to that goal. I was even shadowing a midwife on ALL of my weekdays off.

I was traveling the world. I had just returned from a trip to India where I got to eat cross-legged on the floor with my fingers off of my banana leaf "plate".  I had just ridden on a camel and hiked a waterfall. I had just fed wild monkeys.  I had just toured the Taj Mahal.

So basically my dreams were all in progress. I was LIVING the dream.

I thought I wasn't ready to be a mom.  

I wanted to travel the world more.

I wanted more time to get to know my husband before I added a baby to the mix.

I wanted to finish my doctorate degree and fulfill my dream of being a midwife.

I wanted to pay off my student loans and be super financially secure.

I wanted to stay thin and avoid stretch marks.

I wanted...

I wanted...

I wanted...

All of my reasons were about ME.

Thankfully something changed, and it changed pretty quickly after I got married.  Maybe it was the way that Aaron talked about and respected mothers.  Maybe it was working with moms and brand new babies every day.  Maybe it was because I realized I was being selfish and I had prayed and studied the scriptures and conference talks looking for a change of heart. I really think that was the key by the way.  Once I understood the importance of mothers, THAT became my goal and my dream.  

Since then, my excuses have all been answered with a solution.

• Nobody is ever ready to be a mom, but there are just a few things that might help in the beginning: changing a diaper, feeding, holding.  If you can figure out those things, that's all you need to start out with.

• Traveling the world might be fun, but seeing the smile on your baby's face when you take him out into the yard and he experiences the creek for the first time, or the snow, or the grass, or the goat licking his face, or the cow sucking on his shirt.  The traveling in our yard is just as grand as the Taj Mahal, and I think Peter would prefer our yard any day. 

• You get to know your husband on a deeper level when you have him holding your hand when you are giving birth, when you get to see him JUMP out of bed in the middle of the night because the baby is crying, when he rocks a baby for hours and hours because he is inconsolable, when he prays for the safety and health of his children.  That is a way I have gotten to KNOW Aaron so much more than when it was just the two of us. 

• I wanted to be a midwife to help other people during their transition to motherhood, but that changed almost instantly one day while I was shadowing a midwife.  There was a beautiful picture of a baby in the hallway of the clinic.  I commented on how beautiful the baby was, and asked if this was one of the babies the midwife had delivered. He said no, but it was the child of the other midwife in the clinic.  In that moment it hit me. HARD.  I realized that the midwife was helping everyone else have their children while a Nanny lived with her children to help hers.  I had wanted to a midwife for 10 years- and in a moment- gone.  I still may be a midwife when my kids are grown up a bit more, but for now I will be content with raising my baby. 

• I still make the payment on those student loans, and they will all be paid off in time.

• I wanted to stay thin and avoid stretch marks.  Well, I am still thin. I even weigh less than I did when I found out I was pregnant thanks to breastfeeding and working on the farm. And stretch marks? Well, they happen. I call them my mommy marks.  I wouldn't want my body to go back exactly the way it was before I had a baby, then it would feel like life just went back to the way it always was, and no big change had happened.  My world changed March 14, 2014 when I found out I was going to be a mom, and I want to ALWAYS remember that change.  

And you know what? Maybe I am a world traveler, because this little guy is my WORLD :)