8.8.14 Forever changed
August 8, 2014 - the day my son was born; the day I was forever changed.
{p.s. how are you 6 years old?!?}
You were an easy birth (once I got my drugs of course). I was literally joking with the nurses as I was having contractions and barely felt the delivery. AMAZE, right?! You were a BOY, and a scrawny little thing. We gave you our favorite name, even though our families didn’t like it. I still laugh about this as I type. Pre-your birth, our families did NOT like our front-runner boy name and were secretly wishing that we would go with #2 or #3 on our list (haha!). I do give them some grace, though, because it did take my entire pregnancy to warm up to it. As my parents walked into the delivery room and we announced that we had a boy and that we named him Harvey, they gave each other the look saying “wow. they really went through with it!” (Love ya, mom & dad!)
While labor was close to a breeze, your first 24 hours of life were so gosh darn hard! The umbilical cord was wrapped around your neck during delivery, so the nurses thought you had a sore throat and the reason behind you not eating!! It took forever, it seemed, for you to get in your first meal. It was so hard for me to breast feed. Every nurse was so patient with me and tried so patiently to help me get the hang of it. My new mom boobs even got the joy of being hooked me up to the commercial grade breast pump and we tried to feed you from a syringe. I just cried and cried…feeling defeated each time. We FINALLY got it, though, bud.
I do think that this first 24 hours was the foreshadowing of my life with you. While you no doubt bring me the greatest joy I could ever imagine, you are also my greatest challenge. I call it the Harvey pendulum. I constantly swing from love to rage, back and forth, back and forth…back and forth all day long. I’m constantly strategizing and plotting, and failing, and winning… and it is so rewarding and oh so exhausting. This is why moms need happy hours and massages!
But honestly, as hard as this job is…it’s the best job I’ve ever had. Having YOU forced me to hold a mirror up to myself and own it. Having YOU unlocked maternal instincts that I thought I didn’t have. Having YOU made me less selfish. Having YOU gave me new strength, and patience and grace. Having YOU was the best thing that ever happened to me. Having YOU made me a mom.
Love you, bud. This is our year.