The Blank Check of Motherhood

Motherhood isn’t what most people say it is.

It’s one of the best choices I ever made…but it isn’t free or always fun or even a trophy. It’s sacrifice and hard work and a kind of love that can’t be explained.

I knew that motherhood would include sacrifice. As the oldest of my siblings, I had watched my mom throw up every pregnancy and how her body changed and her sleep was interrupted. I watched her give her time and energy. I watched her sacrifice her desires at times. She said NO to things like coffee dates with friends and going to all the family weddings because sometimes there wasn’t a babysitter and my Dad was self-employed so he had to work. She did a lot of things that required her to put our needs above her own…knowing that motherhood meant giving up things up for a time.

Her youngest now is 17. So now she can do coffee dates with friends again and if she and Dad want to get away for a weekend, they can do that. Everyone is self-feeding, self-dressing and self-entertaining now. But it took a bunch of years to get there. About thirty years of saying NO to her schedule and YES to raising a bunch of noisy, messy, and busy humans.

Now I see her sacrificing for motherhood in a different way. She has teenagers and twenty-somethings and four in their thirties. She also has three bonus daughters (soon to be four!), a bonus son and thirteen little humans who call her “Muh”, the name given to her by the first grandchild. So now she has even more people to pray for, sacrifice for and love.

But for all the beautiful things I watched six feet in front of me for my whole life, I never anticipated my motherhood journey to be like it has been.

I found out I was pregnant in the spring of 2021, four months after getting married. We were happily surprised. Five days later, I started vomiting. (Thanks, Mom for that gene!) While the severity of my sickness ebbed and flowed through out my pregnancy, vomiting never left completely. At my best part of the journey, at least once a week, I still hugged the toilet. Then came the acid reflux and heart burn. And the not sleeping. And the not being able to get comfortable. Most moms have some form of discomfort during pregnancy. But even in the intense throwing up and being weak from vomiting, I knew that it was a temporary sickness for an amazing reward. One day, it would be worth it. I’d be all better soon!

On December 16^th, 2021 I gave birth to our Noah. Instantly, my acid reflux and nausea left. Now I could get to the good part!

A couple hours later we found ourselves waiting in the hospital room to schedule reconstructive surgery for the fourth-degree tear (Noah was broad shouldered AND got stuck on his way out!) I had during his birth. I had no idea what I was in for. I didn’t even know what a fourth-degree tear was. I’ll spare you the surgery details, but suffice it to say that neither I nor my husband had any clue what was ahead for us. I couldn’t even get up go to the bathroom without him half carrying me. It was a different level of pain than I’d ever experienced before. I had to have help changing, showering, and going to the bathroom. I was in bed for weeks trying to heal.

Two weeks into motherhood and I started developing some issues with nursing. It had always hurt like crazy but I’d been told that was normal. But two weeks in I started dealing with mind-blowing pain. I did all the things. Every random natural remedy you can think of, I tried it. Multiple times. I talked with lactation consultants on the phone. Tried more things. Eventually it moved to mastitis in my right breast.

Nothing cuts that kind of pain. I CRIED just thinking about nursing each time. I’ve had a high pain tolerance for most of my adult life…but this…this was a whole new level of intensity. It never went away and my baby still had to eat. I about went out of my mind every time I nursed. I wept. I prayed. I cried some more.

Finally, seven weeks into mommyhood, we called in another lactation consultant. This one came to our house and spent three hours with us. I’m so grateful for her time and experience. She is the one who alerted us to Noah’s extreme tongue and lip ties. This is why he was losing weight and my mastitis infection was getting steadily worse.

We immediately started supplementing Noah with formula to get his weight up and went to the Emergency Room to get checked out. They didn’t seem concerned, but referred me to a breast specialist and in the meantime, the pain continued to get worse.

A few days later, I sat on an examination table, praying that there would be answers. I was at the end of myself. I’ve never been so weary in body and spirit. That kind of intense pain day after day will take it out of you. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t get comfortable. And with a newborn you nurse a lot…so the amount of pain per day was through the roof.

Two minutes and the doctor was direct and clear…the mastitis that had turned into an abscess from a staph infection. “You have to stop nursing right away and we need to schedule surgery this week. We have to clean out that infection immediately.” My world was already spinning too fast but this seemed like too much.

Fast forward a few more days to healing after another major surgery. Now I was in pain again, but differently. Both breasts hurt so bad that I couldn’t even hold my baby. That maximized the physical pain into emotional pain as well. And when I cried at night because I hurt and I just wanted to be a “normal” mommy and do normal Mom things like hold my baby and take him for a walk in the stroller, my husband couldn’t even hold me to comfort me. The pain wouldn’t leave. I was ten weeks out from having Noah and there wasn’t a light at the end of the tunnel. Most moms were back to work by ten weeks and I was still in bed or on the couch. I felt robbed.

The pain was more intense from my second surgery than from my reconstruction after the birth. I almost passed out several times during the healing part. To be honest, I don’t even remember much from those weeks of healing. They say trauma does that to your brain sometimes. Survival was my only thought. My husband and I are forever grateful to my sister, Hope, who kept extending her trip to help us. She had agreed originally to come for two weeks and she ended up staying for over two months. I literally don’t know how we would have done it without her. She ran the house, cooked, did our laundry and took care of Noah, plus looked after me during the days so that Tim could continue working and taking care of me at night. I rely on her memory for things during that time because I have very few from that period of time.

I’ve learned something about motherhood. Besides the fact that I have a whole new appreciation for my amazing mother, motherhood is like a blank check that you sign for up to the amount of your entire life. We don’t always know what is ahead for us when we say yes to being a mommy. We don’t know the challenges we will face for the sake of our little blessings. I have scars that will forever be reminders of the sacrifices that motherhood cost me.

And I WOULDN’T CHANGE IT FOR ANYTHING.

Noah has been an amazing little image bearer to remind me of the God Who gave him to us.

I’m past the extreme pain now. I can drive myself places again and hike with my family and we’ve since had a little girl that Noah calls “Sissy”. So while most things are some sort of normal again, other things are forever changed because of those initial motherhood moments. There are lasting reminders that without supernatural healing, I will never be healed again.

“Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us. We are pressured in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed. We always carry the death of Jesus in our body, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body…” 2 Corinthians 4:7-10

Maybe this is what it means to “carry the death of Jesus” in my body. Why? So that the “life of Jesus may also be revealed” in me. These aren’t the favorite pages of my story, friends…but they are the very ones God has used most for His glory. Because in those moments of pain and sorrow and uncertainty, Jesus was there. Holding me when I couldn’t be physically touched. Whispering to my heart the truth I needed to hear when no one else knew what to say. With me when no one else could be. He is so faithful. So kind. He is the Great Comforter.

Motherhood is a cross in a sense. A tiny picture of sacrifice like Jesus did for us. Giving His life and body so we could live. Being a mommy is like that too sometimes. Beautiful and broken. And so worth it.