I’ve written about being a mom before and how much fun it is. But one of the things I’ve never written about, at least I don’t think I have written about one of the most profound reasons I am thankful for having had a baby. So let me share that with you here.
When I was pregnant, I went through all the fears that mothers-to-be experience naturally. I worried that I wouldn’t be a good mother. I worried about whether I would resent the baby for taking up so much time. I worried about whether I would be able to do all the things right and to give my baby a great experience from day one on.
Our First Christmas
I worried and worried and then she was born. In a little over a week, she will celebrate her sixth birthday, but I still remember the weeks following her birth with absolute clarity of vision. She was so tiny and so easy to hold and so easy to love. You hear those stories about the moment they lay the baby in your arms and how your heart redoubles in size and strength.
It’s all true.
I’ve never felt the kind of love, I felt in those first few moments and then in every moment since. In the three weeks following her birth, we were revving up for Christmas. We expected almost a dozen people to be at our house and we shopped accordingly. Christmas in those days was always crazy with all kinds of gifts and spoilage for our friends, family and loved ones.
There was also a running joke about how loot oriented I was. I loved to get loot. I love to open presents and see all the neat trinkets, decorations, DVDs, CDs and more that I would receive. But this Christmas was different. This Christmas, the greatest gift I wanted was a good night’s sleep and my daughter’s health and happiness.
All the presents we received were sweet and kind and thoughtful, but I could not dredge up the enthusiasm or the greed that decorated my previous Christmas’s. Instead, I wanted to hold her, I wanted to sing to her and I wanted to see her smile. I wanted to enjoy the depth of the giving as opposed to the receiving. Every Christmas since has been more of the same.
You might say, that our first Christmas really opened a new chapter in our lives and in this case, it really did for me. It was a personal revelation and one that I have enjoyed and embraced. Being a mother has made me a better person and for that – I will always be thankful.
Why are you thankful for being a mom?
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