I can’t. That’s what I thought.
I can’t.
We pulled in the driveway over four years ago, me in the back seat with this new foreign person, aching in every way. And I thought those words. I thought, I can’t.
I asked Ryan to take the baby in without me, to introduce him to the dog without the excitement of me, the dog’s everything, in the picture. So I stood outside and shivered in the heat alone, looking around at everything being different than it had been just a few days before, all overly bright and textured from the pain pills. Standing there in my suddenly roomy maternity shirt, I shivered. Empty.
Ryan came out and said everything was going fine. The dog sniffed the baby and the baby slept. There were no big events as I had imagined.
I walked up the steps, not quickly because of the surgery, and passed through the door. I looked down at the sleeping child in the car seat. Our child. My child. In our house. My house.
I walked slow circles in our tiny living room, trying to figure out what to do. My Mom and my husband said that I should take a nap, but I don’t do naps. I just nodded and repeated over and over that they should get me if the baby needed to eat, and I disappeared into our room, knowing I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I sat down, frozen and staring, thinking and thinking.
The baby, I thought.
Our baby.
My baby.
Our life.
My life.
Different. Changed.
It was all new and foreign and big and too much. What was ours and mine and we and us was over and done and final and past.
There was a new ours and a new us that I didn’t yet know and so it scared me.
I sat on the bed and shook with fear and tears like never before. Until I was empty. And then I called for him, my husband. The we from before. I told him the truth. That I was sad and alone and hurting and scared. That this wasn’t anything like the movies or the books and that I was guilty and ashamed for feeling so empty and alone. I told him that I didn’t know what to think of the fact that my life would never ever even once be the same again. That I was grieving that. That I was sorry. Sorry that I didn’t know I would need to do that. Sorry that I wasn’t prepared for it. Sorry that I felt sorry.
Then that tiny boy, that little sleeping guy opened his big blue eyes and asked to eat with screeching sounds. And I loved him deeply despite my shaking and shivering. So I sat for the first time on the bed that was once ours and mine with this new baby on top of that macaroni shaped pillow thing that everyone said I needed to have. I struggled to get him all lined up and open-mouthed to eat.
I struggled. And I loved him enough to share something that was mine and ours and now his.
Me.
~~~~~~
Tonight, over four years later, he was pounding on the door on those same steps I walked up slowly when we first brought him home. After playing outside with Daddy and his brother and the dog, he was screeching and wanting me. He cried Mama! Mama! until I ran for him and opened the door. I was there like before and I asked him, what sweetie? why the fuss?
Mama, I needed you. My hands are cold.
So I pulled off his mittens and I covered his hands with my own warm ones. Because they are mine and they are his and they are ours.
And I can.
This post is linked to Blog Nosh magazine’s HOPE carnival sponsored by Tide’s Loads of Hope, an amazing effort to bring hope to those in distress. The call is to write a post about HOPE and link up for a chance to be featured. This was the inspiration for the above post, as I thought about the times I’ve felt hopeless and discovered hope in the midst of the fog through the beautiful things of grace, such as the blue eyes of my first baby boy.
This post is also linked to Tuesdays Unwrapped at Chatting at the Sky, a chance to write a post about the beauty in everyday moments and experiences.
{ 104 comments }
my favorite post of yours that I've ever read. This one, right here. And I have tears in my eyes and chills in my body and warm in my heart.
this makes me love you and want to give you a hug, and it makes me want to sneak into my boys' rooms right now and kiss their soft, soft cheeks and cup their little hands in mine.
thank you, heather. <3
Oh, I love this. I know the feeling so well – it was 7 years ago for me but is as familiar as yesterday.
And still, it haunts the passion I feel for my kids, I think, it limns the edges of my adoration of them … the memory of the days when I thought: no way.
And of course, I realize now: there is no other way.
Wow, Heather. Wow. I loved this post. I wish more people were honest about the tough feelings that we feel when we bring our first baby home from the hospital – I think everyone always talks about how fun it is, and new moms expect that they will love every minute, and when we feel feelings like this, we think there's something wrong with us, but I think it's SO normal.
When I came home from the hospital, I hadn't had the experience of a C-section, but I was so tired, and laid down to take a nap, and I ended up sleeping for about 3 hours, and my little Z slept, too, and he hadn't eaten since the hospital, and when I woke up & realized how long it had been, I literally had a panic attack & was sobbing hysterically, believing I had starved my child while I was sleeping…oh, horribleness.
Can I ask you something? Was it easier the 2nd time? Since you were already used to being a mom, and all that needed-ness? I am going to be delivering my baby girl in the next few days, Lord willing, and I really want to believe that it will be emotionally easier this time.
Sorry I wrote a book in your comments!!! :)
Oh Heather… this hit so close to home. I wrote a post last week about three years ago when Fynn and I shared our first days alone together. It's just so much, it always is. It still boggles my mind that so much has changed, and these little ones are so real and full of life, and can so easily scare the heck out of us in so many ways.
{Carrie, I think it is easier the second time. I didn't have a c-section, but felt a lot of the same emotional overwhelming … stuff.. for lack of better words. And it still comes the second time, but you expect it, and you have to keep moving for your first}
Sorry to take over… I'm long winded tonight…
Oh my Heather…what a wonderful and beautiful post..I love reading your work.
So, so lovely, Heather. Why don't more women share these feelings about how inadequate we can feel during those first days of getting to know both our babies and ourselves in this new role? And that it's okay not to feel experienced doing something you have no experience doing? I completely relate to your feelings here – the "what now?"-ness then, the "what else?"-ness now. Gorgeous.
If I could show genuine gushing across a comment box, that's what you'd see here. That was so perfect — sharp edged with truth — and I felt every word. Because I'd FELT those things before. The birth of my first daughter had that effect on me, too. And I love how you've brought it full circle. Perfect.
(Carrie – My second time around was alot A LOT easier. My world wasn't shaken from it's foundations like it was the first time…or if it was, I knew what to hold on to to steady myself. Hopefully yours will be easier too :))
I went through the EXACT same thing. I had no idea that I would – I thought a baby coming into the world made you forget everything that used to be and you immediately fell in love and were so glad to trade your blissful life of doing whatever you wanted away. But I was wrong. It was SO hard. And I most definitely grieved.
Now, I love it. It IS worth it (although those date weekends away of doing whatever we want are very necessary as well). But it's always SO refreshing to hear someone else voice the same things that I went through!
Thanks!
Carrie,
I definitely think it's easier in this particular way. I will admit that there was yet another grieving period though. I had a hard time letting go of the "Mommy and Miles" stage. I remember sitting on the floor with Miles, knowing it would never be just he and I (not to discount Daddy, but in the "mommy and me" kind of way) and just sobbing. Because I knew that once again, things would never be the same as what I had come to know. That being said, I really do think it's easier because, like other people have said, you know what to expect and you know the intense feelings will pass and you'll adjust.
Peace to you, friend.
Love, love, love this.
This is so beautiful, Heather. Just perfect.
You slay me with your posts like this.
Especially this one because I can really relate to it. As I'm sure man of us mothers can…
… and how special that little boy has been! Lovely post, Heather.
I absolutely love this. It's so incredibly honest and definitive of motherhood. I remember riding home from the hospital with Luke, sitting on a pillow in the backseat next to him in absolute shock that I was supposed to take care of this tiny little creature.
Carrie–My second time was a LOT easier. It was less scary, though there was of course the transition from one to two, I felt like I could do it because the older child had somehow survived my bumbling attempts at motherhood.
This is absolutely beautiful. Heavenly, even. The words. The rhythm. The repetitive nature of both. I am at once happy and sad. Mournful of those days gone past and glad to be where I am.
You can't even know how this has touched me. And, as I just wrote to Lindsey moments ago, I need MORE time. MORE TIME. So I can be here every day. Rain or shine. I need these words. These voices out there. I need this.
And you are there. Because you CAN. And you DO. And Thank you. Thank you, Heather.
Genuine and lovely. The reason we keep coming back. My similar feelings came down the road a few weeks when all the help left me there on my own with the new little stranger, but the feelings were just as real. Thanks for giving them great words.
What a beautiful post! It brought back the memory of the first day we FINALLY made it home after spending two weeks in the NICU with my firstborn daughter. I was so paranoid about her getting sick again and of not knowing just what to do to meet her needs. It IS scary, but then, after a few weeks at home, I realized it was ok. I am so thankful to serve a heavenly father who has given me wisdom and strength every step of the way on this journey of parenthood. I never imagined how much I would love her…and never imagined how much I could love TWO children after my son was born. What a joy to be a mom!
I'm crying all over the place. This is such a beautiful, heartfelt post, Heather. Thank you for sharing this. This is just how it feels to be mommy. Scary, lonely, empty, lovely, full, filled with Grace and Gratitude, and love–most of all, Love.
Absolutely beautiful Heather.
Beautiful – exactly why you strike a chord with so many readers like me.
Just beautiful~
That was seriously the most beautiful post that I have read. You need to print this and save it to read at your son's wedding. It was fantastic.
Oh, I love this. Many hugs to you, my friend.
I guess there isn't any more gushing to be done, that isn't up there already. But this IS just beautiful, and heart-rending, all at the same time.
I wish I'd had the wisdom to call my husband in to me and let him know my conflict. I'd wish I'd had the wisdom to know it was there myself. Instead, the days were filled with busy with tired with feeding and the time for shaking crying and accepting came slowly, painfullly, happily.
There is nothing like it in the world, for better or worse. (Interesting parallel, that one…)
beautiful post. i love your honesty and so many women need to hear this story and to be encouraged by the journey thru motherhood!
You put into words what is in a mother's heart.
Thanks for sharing something so honest and reminding us that it's worth it.
That was perfect. I think every new mom can identify with how you felt and I wish people would be honest like you about how hard those first days are.
I went through the second grieving stage too, just before and just after my second was born. I totally get what you mean about losing the "mommy and me". And then at the same time, I was surprised by how intensely I needed to bond with my second and needed to be alone with him in order to do so.
Good stuff as usual :)
I had my first baby almost 12 years ago yet I can remember feeling exactly the same way. I only wish I would have known it was ok and normal to feel that way. You have no idea what that would have meant.
I know you will help someone out there who is struggling with these feelings.
Thank you for being so open and honest not to mention a beautiful writer!
Wow. Since I so recently went through this, I am just awed that you were able to put words to this experience so well. Even though Kai was my fourth – these emotions are ever present when all of the sudden a NEW person is in your house and your life. And every thing is different.
You have such an incredible gift!
Your writing is beautiful. So glad I found you!
I had a similar grieving process and recovery… I think a lot of us have been there. Thank you so much for sharing your story.
Your words amaze me, Heather. Each and every time.
Lovely writing, Heather!
This is beautiful Heather. I love it and can relate, though when I brought my first babe home I also had two stepkids to figure in. Thanks for sharing your experience, so touching.
This is so wonderful and so relateable. 12 1/2 years ago I felt the same thing. I was a scared 21 year old with a baby, feeling like my life was forever altered and wasn't sure if I quite liked this alteration. After enough time, I loved it, but it is such a change from the life before.
Such a wonderful post!
I love you more every time I read your posts. This comes on a particularly tender day – my baby is 6 today. I'm thinking of the day I brought him home, the way he changed our family, completed it. And every one of those days, each baby arrival, was different for me. One? Scary, exhilarating, terrifying. Two? Noisy, guilty, tired. Three? Relieved, but heart-achy. And Four? *Sigh* Completion. Perfection. Finishing. Wholeness.
Heather, I sometimes hesitate to comment because I wonder if I could possibly have anything to add to what your multitude of other commenters have said, but today, I must comment.
This is beautiful, amazing writing.
WOW.. just wow.. For me that day 1 year ago is coming up in 5 days.
Oh how I remember that day. I had never felt more alone, more scared and yes, more empty. I remember thinking a million times that it was not how the world always portrayed being a new mom. I was supposed to be super woman. I was supposed to want to love and cuddle and take care of this baby more than anything.. I was supposed to.
But that's not how I felt..
I wish more women would be more open and honest about this part. Thank you..
So beautiful!
This is, quite simply, amazing, and one of my favorite pieces from you, which is saying a lot. You are a writer's writer.
Fabulous! Who hasn't been there? So glad you wrote this post.
Thanks for your kind comments on my blog!! As far as the comment moderation…I have been getting comments written in Chinese ( I think) lately…almost daily. What a drag. Thought comment moderation might help. We'll see….
Beautiful!!!!!!!!!!!! I remember feeling very much the same–I sort of couldn't believe they let me bring her home, because I sure as heck didn't trust myself to be able to take care of her, or know what she needed, or do a decent job.
Well done.
Thank you SO MUCH for all of your kind comments, Heather & others – I really appreciate your encouragement & am looking forward to enjoying the first few weeks with my little girl…whenever she decides to make her appearance. :)
Oh my gosh, I think I could have written this post myself (though not nearly as well!). You took me back, girl, to those first scary hours, days, weeks. It was so hard. Thank you for being so honest. We need more of this.
I cried as I read your post and grateful for your words as I couldn't have typed them thru my tears of remembrance.
I hope you don't mind but I am sending my followers (the few I have) to read your post.
Thank you again for such beautiful and touching honesty.
Beautiful. I can understand those feelings.
You are fabulous!
Oh Heather, you're amazing. Your honesty is so inspiring, and your writing is so beautiful.
Very beautiful and very real.
You are too wonderful for words, do you know that?
Such a beautiful, honest post.
This is lovely & immediate & at the same time foreign. I home birthed my children, so the dreaded coming home from hospital moment never occurred.
All the same, you capture the empty-womb feeling of post partum so vividly. This is an honest account of how it really is. You amaze.
This is definately one of my favorites of your posts. I admire your writing so much.
So true, so real, so everything. Amazing post. I want to go hug my baby right now…
Oh, I love it, Heather, love it. Thank you for sharing, I'm so glad you hit the publish button. Now, I must reach for the tissue box, my eyes seem to have accumulated a bit of moisture!
Such a beautiful, honest post.
Work from home India
So so so so sweet and true and honest. Thanks.
You left me blubbering all over my keyboard. This was beautiful and wonderful and oh-so-real. I remember another mom tried to warn me about those incredibly intense post-partum period…and I probably just rubbed my stomach and smiled serenely at the time. Nothing — even her gentle warning — prepared me for that flood of feelings. Not only was my womb suddenly so very empty, but I was recovering from surgery and struggling so with breastfeeding. I remember during those first few days home, weeping to my husband that I couldn't do this, that I just wasn't cut out to be a mom.
I guess this was just my long, drawn-out way of telling you that this post really touched something deep within me. Thank you, thank you, thank you…
Heather,
This was beautiful. You gave me goose bumps. You described something that I think every first time mother feels.
Just beautiful.
You express the every day moments in such poetic ways. This was beautiful!
A beautiful post Heather. It makes me think of my first night in the hospital before I knew little princess. She had grown inside of me for more than the alloted nine months. And when she was finally out I looked at her, and I knew she meant so much to me. But not the overwhelming love. I didn't know her yet. I knew she would change my life, that I would never just be Amber any more. I was now so much more, but I didn't know how to be that. How could I know? It was all so new, and frightening. And Hubby left me to return home and host his dad and step mom at our home for the Christmas holiday. And I was there alone, with a cute little infant, who just wanted to be back i her tiny sling, and I just wanted to sleep.
It was hard. As I knew her I loved her, and she loved me in spite of all my lacking knowledge, and my newness. She let me know that we were in it together. I comforted her and she comforted me, and she filled a part of me that I never knew was empty.
Wonderful posting. I too felt the same way after bringing home my daughter. Hoping all would be alright with her…even though we were told that would not be the case.
Thanks so much for your comment on my blog. BTW, my daughter's birthday is today (12-15) Our two are not to far apart in age…LOL! Amazing!
Blessings to you!
Beautifully and intensely expressed.
Beautiful transparency, an inspiration for many.
Beautiful.
Heather – I read this the other night, but could not comment because of a sleeping husband, but this post stayed with me and stayed with me, and I'm so glad I came back to read how much it resonated with other moms.
Mourning of the previous life – no one warned me of that.
This should be required reading wherever prenatal vitamins are sold.
Bless you sweet mama.
I so felt this way. And I felt even more guilt because we adopted – we sought out a child, yet then I froze. And I had to adopt the "fake it til you make it" mantra… loving a child who hated me while I hated myself. It was HARD. But now, almost five years later, I remember that time, but not those emotions. They feel so foreign to me now.
I return to read and savour, as I so often do with your writings, your heart.
And the comments are treasures in themselves.
This was exquisite.
I remember the feeling of impending doom . Isn't that an awful unmotherlike nonsuburban blasphemous reality. It was mine. So I put on a play house face and do like they do on tv face. Because I was faking all the life skills. And when an unplanned fifth was born on Easter weekend my surrender was the beginning of the hope.
And while it hasn't been easy, it is what I live for. Am living for.
So beautiful, so true! My kids are teens now and in a few years I realize that I will face this all in reverse as things to back to "only" the two of us again and I know it will be just as hard as becoming the three of us was.
Wow. Your story and your writing really moved me. I remember bringing my first home nearly 9 years ago. To echo Dickens, "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times." And like you said, it was nothing like the movies.
Oh how wonderful to be the Mommy…
Another one to the chorus. I read it, cried a bit, came back, read it again. It's true, you know? So very true. I really resonated with this.
Heather, you have God given talent for writing. This was absolutley beautiful, absolutely amazing and absolutely touching!
Girlfriend, I know you feel uncomfortable with the gushing comments but you are such a phenomenal writer. You get down in words what we feel every day but could never say. You are a gift.
I stumbled over here from somewhere in blogland and so glad I did.
Darling post. Those feelings evoke such memories! You write so perfectly.
I remember those days and I can't believe they are over for me. I just had grandbaby #7 last night!
Where did the years go?
Sounds like you enjoy each of your moments.
Have a wonderful Christmas season!
Tauna
Will you stop with the sweet little boy posts? :) Seriously, I am crying here.
Those feelings of being overwhelmed, depressed, empty are so so real. I had similar feelings after my first baby and it was so hard.
You are a wonder. XOXO
You can.
You did.
You are.
You will.
It was like I was there in that room with you, sitting on the bed watching you shake with fear. I almost felt like an intruder looking in at this intimate scene in your lives. You have such a gift, your words flow. You are such an awesome mother. Because of him, you and yours.
xo
That first feeling of being home with the baby, and the changes it represented, were overwhelming to say the very least. I went into do-mode and did…..and I never took the time to sit down and mourn the "before" and what I knew as familiar.
I didn't do that until my stepson came to live with us…and then I did it double-fold. I did it for what I knew before children were ever a part of my life, and I did it for the one small year I had alone with MY baby. And yes, during that mourning period, I called him MINE. I didn't want to share him with my husband because my husband had his OTHER child. The one who wasn't mine.
So much of what you say touches all of us in SOME way. Keep posting what you feel and for those who don't understand or "get it"….are simply on a different path. :) (probably one that doesn't involve empathy or seeing other points of view, but hey…who am I to judge? hee hee)
Wow, thank you for this. I'm halfway through my first pregnancy and though I'm very familiar and comfortable with babies, toddlers, small children, etc., the thought of being completely responsible for my own baby is a little terrifying at times. This was so well written, I'm almost in tears. Damn these hormones!
Oh wow, what an amazing, amazing, honest post. I read it last night on my phone and came back to it again today and loved it all over the second time. I remember the feeling so so well when i came home with Hannah. Lost. Hopeful. Confused. Helpless.
And now I am signing off and going upstairs to my kids rooms and giving them both a big hug and kiss. Because I can. Thank you for reminding me to do this.
I just read this for the second time this week because your words ring so true for me. I appreciate the vulnerability and transparency of your writing…that along with your courage to write what is in your heart makes you a great writer who connects with your readers.
Heather – this is my absolute favorite post of yours. Because it is so real and so raw and so revealing. Revealing of a universal tug I think we all feel in the aftermath of welcoming our first child. Those two words – empty and alone – find us and find us so quickly. After so many months, good months, of bursting with life and limbs, our bellies and beings feel temporarily void. But what is also amazing – and you capture that here so well – is how quickly that void is filled with true love and true laughter.
Brilliant stuff. Brilliant. Thank you.
First time I've been to your blog (followed you hear via Chatting at the Sky) and I'm choked up and marveling at the way you put into words what I never could. After the birth of our first born 9 years ago this was SO me!!! Beautifully written! Thanks for sharing!
WAHHHH!!!! Beautiful.
What a blessing your vulnerability is. Beautiful post, friend. Just beautiful.
Your honesty here is so touching…sweet…just amazing really.
What a beautifully written piece on the truth about first time motherhood.
You couldn't have said it any better. : )
Oh. So sweet. So precious. So true. All of it.
And it remains true. My first–the one for whom I just couldn't, even though I actually could–is now home from his first semester of college. He is a fine young man.
And I am realizing, perhaps for the first time–I did it. Wow.
Thank you for a beautiful post.
wow. I stopped by to say Happy SITS Saturday Sharefest and read this incredibly beautiful post. Tears streaming down my face.
I couldn't have my own children, but I raised 3 stepsons. Any birth story still gets me.
I now have a beautiful 2yr old grandson who usually spends a great deal of time w/us. His first year I had him 5 days a week.
But now his mother is angry @ my husband and has refused visitation. Over something quite trivial, but that doesn't matter.
My heart is aching this morning as it's our regular day with him and he's not here. And even tho he's only 2, he knows he usually sees Poppy & Gamma today.
So treasure your little ones. Thanks for your post.
wow. I stopped by to say Happy SITS Saturday Sharefest and read this incredibly beautiful post. Tears streaming down my face.
I couldn't have my own children, but I raised 3 stepsons. Any birth story still gets me.
I now have a beautiful 2yr old grandson who usually spends a great deal of time w/us. His first year I had him 5 days a week.
But now his mother is angry @ my husband and has refused visitation. Over something quite trivial, but that doesn't matter.
My heart is aching this morning as it's our regular day with him and he's not here. And even tho he's only 2, he knows he usually sees Poppy & Gamma today.
So treasure your little ones. Thanks for your post.
oh Heather, have I told you how much I enjoy your posts? From the one about comparing marriage to dustbunnies under the bed to this post about motherhood. So beautifully written.
I felt the same way when I had my first set of twins. So scared of messing it all up somehow, not knowing what to do, unsure how it would all turn out. But it's the best thing I've ever done even if it scared the crap out of me!!!
Happy SITS Saturday Sharefest!
I love this post. Our boys are the best thing I have done in my life, next to marrying my husband. I try to honor that every day.
The Park Wife
You perfectly captured that overwhelming new mom moment. So, so good!
I meant to tell you earlier, but this was really nicely written…I really loved the ending…
I so remember that new mom feeling. I had some PPD to boot, but I do think it's universal, that "what happened to my life" feeling. And I was madly in love with my baby from day one, so it had nothing to do with him and his presence in my life. It's just the "will never be the same" part of it. Very visceral that.
Heather…you blow me away with your honesty. YOu always do. Your words allow me to know that feelings felt were ok. That my feelings were never alone in the sense of being the only one of the planet which I'm sure we all do.
Kudos to you and your most awesome of posts.
I am most certainly glad you did post this. :)
Once again you've said what I've never been able to say. You've made me all teary, in a good way, of course. Thank you for opening your heart to us time and time again.
Amazing post… humble honesty that rocks hearts.
Thank you…
All's grace,
Ann
Oh …. my.
Followed you here from a link at Ann's tonight.
I felt this one. Deep.
I am here from Ann's too Heather. This is so beautiful. I am a grandmother now, but I remember. How our hearts are suddenly no longer our own; the weight of the responsibility; the realization that nothing will ever be the same; and that overwhelming love that remains the same even when the little baby boys have children of their own.
So very beautiful – thank you.
This is one of the most beautiful posts I've ever read. Being a man, I don't think I or any other man can truly understand what is between a mother and her child. But this wonderful post gives me a glimpse of it. Thanks so much for this great piece.
This is one of those posts where every word resonated deep within me. I've been there, I've felt that scared, that unsure, that unprepared and now, two years later I still sometimes feel that way but more often I feel joy, love and grace.
Had to comment again here.
I so can relate to this…And, how fitting it is that you posted this on the fifth anniversary of my coming home with that first baby….My daughter's fifth b-day!
Beautiful. I must have missed this the first go-round. Thanks for tweeting it.
Hi Heather, I just discovered your blog and this post especially spoke volumes to me. Thank you so much for your transparency and for giving words to exactly how I felt about bringing home my new baby. I couldn’t have written the feelings better myself. Brittany
Brittany recently posted..For my Mini Me
I just read this for the first time, and loved it so much. I was thinking, “YES! That was me, too!”
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