On Becoming Someone's Mama

Unless you don't know already, I'm expecting a baby! She is due on February 2 and we are becoming more and more anxious to meet her, not just feel her kicks.

I have a few observations about becoming a mom.

1. Mom's sacrifice a lot for a little person they know nothing about. Especially in the first trimester of pregnancy (and for some all throughout the pregnancy like my sister) we endure physical difficulties such as perpetual nausea, exhaustion, and a plethora of strange things our bodies do to us while forming a tiny person inside.

2. Morning sickness is worse than I imagined (and mine wsan't even that bad). It's not always like you feel normal and suddenly you have to puke, although that can happen. More often than not you feel like you're unwell with a stomach virus. You might feel better at noon, or you might continue to feel ill all day. I know one lady who had to stay in bed for 12 weeks of each of her five pregnancies and would throw up as much as twelve times a day.

3. Becoming a parent can be overwhelming. (I've got to take care of this vulnerable little life and be responsible for it until they turn 18 years old?!?!) Yet, the longer I anticipate the baby coming, the more excitement I get.

4. Each culture has very different ideas about what is good or bad to do during pregnancy and immediately after the birth. Chinese culture has an especially long list of superstitions, traditions, and practices that are not going out of vogue any time soon. Western thought is much, much different on these things and affords expectant and new moms a lot more freedom than Eastern culture. This merits a blog post of its own.

5. The first few weeks when you start feeling a baby kicking inside of you is very faint, and it seems somehow wrong that there is a living thing, maybe the size of your hand, kicking and squirming on the inside. Does it remind anyone of a parasite? (I apologize to my daughter if she one day catches a glimpse of this blog. I truly don't think of you as a parasite, but it truly is a strange sensation. Since you're not a boy, you have the chance to find out for yourself one day.) By the way, Rex loves feeling the baby's kicks, too!

6. Somehow, there is a love that grows for this unknown person growing inside. When all I know about the baby is that it exists, that it is growing, and that it is my child, it is still possible for a special kind of love to grow. I now know that my baby is a girl, that the doctor said her tummy is a little big, and that she likes to suck her fingers and spin in cartwheels (or did, she might be too crowded now), but I know nothing about her personality, her potential, what she will become one day, or anything.

7. It is super easy for my mind to become entirely absorbed by the subject of babies, baby prep, and baby care, as well as the development in the womb week by week. Four more months seems like an eternity to wait for her arrival, and yet it is also so very short!