"We’ve heard it once, we’ve heard it a thousand times: motherhood is a journey unlike any other.
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And regardless of what our expectations were prior to becoming moms and what our lives look like now, the first year of motherhood is an incredible ride for us all. From the anxiety and anticipation of their birth to recovery, learning how to care for a newborn, the wild high of finally figuring something out, the intense lows of being knocked back on your ass by the next phase – the first year of motherhood is all-encompassing.
In a new series, our cofounder, Alaina Kaz, is opening up on her motherhood experience. She had her first baby in 2018 and now that she’s on the other side of the first year, she is reflecting on what she’s learned.
I always heard other moms talk about how difficult motherhood was, but before becoming a mom, there’s just no way to anticipate what it will really be like. I spent years caring for other people’s newborns, infants, and toddlers, so if anyone was going to be a natural, it was me.
I went into parenthood without too many expectations but was determined to have a baby who slept through the night by 3-4-months-old. Naturally, my one plan completely backfired. Oh, how little I knew, but oh, how much I’ve learned.
Words to describe year one of motherhood?
Laughter.
And anxiety.
And laughter again.
Excitement! Look what he (or she) just did!
Boredom. Rolling a ball back and forth in the darkness of an early winter morning. Day. After. Day.
So much change.
So much routine.
Family bonding.
Isolation from friends.
Confidence.
Uncertainty.
Slow.
Fast.
So fast. Too fast.
If the first year of motherhood taught me anything, it’s how fleeting time with our little ones is. As the adage goes, the days are long, but the years are short.
The tiny person you start the year with and the toddling toddler with an ever-developing personality you end the year with shows just how much changes in a year. And just how incredible human development is at that young age. This helpless newborn slowly but steadily grows into a participating person in your life and member of your family – making you laugh, playing games, showing interests and dislikes, learning to walk, talk, and do everything that will make them the person they’re going to become. And boy will they become that person fast. Too fast.
But they’re not the only ones changing. The woman I was last year and the woman I am now are wildly different. My priorities have shifted: my relationships have changed, how I choose to spend my time, the things I find joy in – it’s all so different. It’s a lot simpler in many ways (the joy of a morning family walk), and more complex in others (raising a human!).
And it was a tough transition. One you cannot expect or prepare for; one that caught me so off guard, I found myself in tears one afternoon, when my son was probably one month old, mourning the loss and letting go of the woman I was before. It’s an important goodbye to make, and one nobody could have prepared me for. I had to really experience it and feel the shift to recognize that the woman I once was and the path I’m now on are worlds apart.
And then I embraced it – and everything felt so much easier. And more joyful. And what felt like long or even difficult moments became short, little, absorb-every-second-of-this-before-it’s-over memories. My confidence as a mother grew. My relationship with my son felt stronger. And we were able to find our way on this weird journey together. Because let’s be honest – parenting is a weird, tough journey. And no matter how many friends you talk to or how much advice you receive (solicited or unsolicited), you can’t know until you live it.
If I’ve learned anything these 16 months, it’s that we will all experience year one of motherhood (and every year after that) differently. My highs and lows will be so vastly different from yours. We can share our experiences, but it’s a huge disservice to ourselves and our little one to compare them. My baby and my experience with feeding, sleep-training, traveling, play-time, teething, socializing, activities, all of it — it is uniquely ours. So, I’ve learned not to compare and not to ask. I’ve learned to take every bit of unsolicited piece of advice with a hearty grain of salt.
Because it doesn’t matter what worked for them. It, in no way, implies what will work for us. We’re on this journey together, my little one and me. It is uniquely ours.
And it’s going much too fast.