When I was a little girl I knew I wanted to be a mommy. I shared with you in a post a while back that I stood up in front of our kindergarten graduating class saying that I wanted to be a mommy when I grew up. As most of you know it took a little longer than we had planned for us to become parents. Our plans were not lining up to God’s plan for our family; I find that true in many areas of my life. Don’t you? Thankfully after years of trying to get pregnant and years on our knees in fervent prayer, we became parents to a perfect little boy. Anthony was an answer to prayer and we were over the moon to be parents. My childhood dreams were finally coming true.
Paolo and I had always talked about how after we had kids I would stay at home to be with them. I wanted this so bad and I knew it was to be considered a blessing to be able to do that, to be in a position where I could stay at home and not work. Being a stay-at-home mommy in my mind sounded pretty easy to be honest. After our first born, Anthony, was about 8 months old we found out we were pregnant again. Just when I felt like I was getting the hang of things with Anthony, here we were pregnant so soon after. We knew we wanted more kids and we were thrilled to get pregnant not only naturally, but so fast.
If you have been following along you are familiar with our sweet boy Leo, our second son who was born with a rare disease that presents itself with a facial vascular birthmark that covers half of his face. See past posts for updates on Leo here. Needless to say after Leo was born we went through a lot with doctor visits and a lot of unknowns. I found myself really struggling with some anxiety and fear for our child. During these hard few months I felt as if my childhood dream of being a stay-at-home mom was not panning out to be what I thought.
I grew up in a Christian home and have been a Christ follower for many years, but if I am being honest with myself (and you, as a reader) I would have to say that I never really understood the true meaning of putting my full trust and faith in Jesus until I got married to a man who not only spiritually led me, but who continued to walk right next to me during those hard years of trying to get pregnant and then struggling with anxiety after Leo’s birth. Paolo led us through some deep valleys and showed me that we can’t give up; we have to continue to trust in God and know that just because His plan is not our own, we are to obey and trust Him. I never really had to lament in prayer until I got married and I started my “motherhood” journey. I was starting to see a different side to my faith and a different side of being a stay-at-home mommy.
Many months after Leo was born we were able to get a great medical team together and space out appointments. I was able to humble myself and trust that God was in complete control...not me! Leo was only a few months old when I found out I was pregnant again. What a joy we experienced but also some fear started to creep in. Physically I had not fully healed from having Leo and we were still in the midst of getting his medical journey started. We trusted God and knew His plan was greater than ours. Unfortunately, when I was just shy of 9 weeks we had a miscarriage. It was a very hard time on all of us but we were also thankful things happened earlier on in the pregnancy. Even though my heart ached for losing the baby, after having the miscarriage, I knew in my heart we would get pregnant again at the right time. For so long after Leo was born, I was afraid to have more kids, afraid I would have another child with a health issue. About six months later I took another pregnancy test and we found out we were pregnant. See recent post here. We were beyond excited and I physically felt as if this pregnancy was going to be just fine. We went to the doctor’s office and were able to hear the baby’s heartbeat. What a relief and what a praise.
Now, here we are present day and I am 16 weeks pregnant with a healthy baby boy. That’s right, I’m pregnant with our THIRD boy. Lord help us, haha! But here’s what I really wanted to talk about...I wanted to share with you what motherhood has been looking like for me lately and what I want to do to help make it the best that I can. If you noticed I talked about my childhood dream of being a stay-at-home mommy and my naïve self thought it sounded like the perfect and easiest job! Then I talked about how that changed after having two kids. Two kids under three (soon to be three kids under three) has been no walk in the park. I am knee deep in diapers, bottles, nap schedules, tantrums, early wakeups...I could go on and on. This is not a 9-5; this is the moment I wake up till the moment I lay my head down to sleep (usually with interruptions). I didn’t realize just how hard the early years are with our kids. I know every season has its challenges, but the earlier years are probably the hardest. I have a lot of friends with older kids and they too tell me that the earlier years are the hardest, especially since we decided to have our kids so close together, there seems to be no break lately. Some mornings I have found myself sad thinking how hard my day is going to be, or I’ll stress out thinking about other commitments I have that I don’t think I’ll be able to fulfill. All and all I feel too busy to do anything!
Don’t I sound depressing?!?! Well I do because that’s how I have been viewing things lately. I continue to feel bad for myself and wallow around (being pregnant doesn’t help the moods, either). I find myself venting about how difficult this is and how I wish I had more of a break. I was listening to a podcast the other day, Relatable with Allie Stuckey, highly recommend by the way, and she was talking about, busyness! This could not have come at a better time. She too, being a mother can relate to being busy. She tries to balance her work life, new baby, husband and much more. The entire podcast I found myself saying, “YES, TOTALLY, I AGREE.” I too find myself too busy and lately am having a very hard time prioritizing everything. I’m paraphrasing here, but she then started to talk about trying to look at our busyness in a different way, trying to see how blessed we are that God has given us children which is considered one of the BIGGEST blessings in scripture. I act sometimes like I’m surprised that being a mom is hard, that being a wife is hard, or even being a daughter in Christ is hard! I needed to do some rethinking.
Friends, life is not a walk in the park as we all can agree on; it’s challenging, it’s busy and it’s also a blessing. Why is it so easy for me at least to fall into the trap of this life not being a blessing? I get we are going to have those days where we spill our coffee first thing in the morning, tantrums that make us want to run and hide, and scarcely find quiet moments to read your Bible because the kids decided not to nap. I hope you join me in trying to remember these are all a blessing. As Christians we know that everything happens for our good, no matter what that may look like. Romans 8:28 “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to His purpose.” We need to be thankful for our jobs, whether you’re a stay-at-home mom, a mom who works full time or a mom that works part-time. Whatever it looks like for you we need to be thankful, thankful for the busyness! Don’t be afraid to say no when you’re in a tough season (like we are with a lot of little kiddos), and don’t be afraid to ask for help either. We can balance saying the word YES and saying the word NO. I am learning more and more that I need to be better at saying NO for me personally. It’s ok if I can’t make it to all the friends events during this time or if I can’t make a certain trip because it’s too hard with young kids. What I am honestly trying to say YES to more is my church life. We finally became members at our church we’ve been going to for about a year and we are wanting to get more involved, get into a small group, serve more, meet more young couples within our church, read my Bible more. They took membership very seriously (as a church should) and wanted to make sure we were believers and wanted to grow more in our faith and be obedient disciples. That really made me think that in order for me to be a better mother, wife, sister, daughter and friend I need to know God more and accurately; I need to prioritize that part of my life better!
I feel like this post is a little all over the place...sorry! I had a lot on my heart and I just kept going! I’ve been in prayer about this post too. I hope you see my heart in all this. My prayer has been that it brings you encouragement and joy! No matter where you are in your stage of life, we all can turn our stress into thankfulness.
