Mommyhood -- sacrificial love

I have always wanted to be a mommy. That has been my dream and goal since I could toddle around and tuck in my baby dolls. I was always most interested in projects around the house that would develop me into being a good homemaker. While I dreamed of traveling the world and succeeding academically, I centered those goals around my ultimate goal – to get married, be a good wife and mother children well.

I listened to my mother as she talked with my aunts and other grown women. I listened to the mothers around me as they shared some of the difficulties they worked through. I read articles about how hard it is to be a mom. I knew being a mom is hard and life-consuming.

Being a mom has mostly been what I expected. It is wonderful. It is so terribly frustrating. It is the best thing ever.

But one thing I never understood, and that I don’t think anyone can grasp until they are walking through it, is the truth of how physically sacrificial is the love of a mother. I have truly been dumbfounded by this aspect. As a mom I give my body away. It is not mine anymore. I carry a child in my womb for nine months and live my life according to that fact because I love the child growing within me and want to protect him or her. I cannot choose to sleep on the side of my body that I used to like. I cannot choose to eat the food that I liked before or expend the energy that I used to have. I cannot belly-flop onto the silp-n-slide or choose to defer a meal. My body does things it didn’t do before. I give myself to this child and allow myself to go through heartburn, nausea, leg cramps, many aches and pains, stretch marks and so many other changes. And then, of course, I submit my body to labor, to bleeding and to all the strange recovery that comes after I now have my little one in my arms. And yet, these are all things that we are warned to expect.

For me, it was the year (plus) of giving my body to my child through nursing that taught me the most about sacrificial love. I have always just assumed that I would breast-feed my child. I know that this is not an option for some mothers, but I knew that if it was for me, I would do our life this way. I just didn’t know how much it affected life. Of course there is the waking every few hours for the first couple of months and there is also the scheduling of my entire day around his feeding – but even bottle-fed babies require this. But there is also the inability to get out and run first thing in the morning because, well, I would just explode. It affects so many areas of life that I just hadn’t considered. It completely reorders what I can and cannot wear – the clothes that I like the most are now off-limits because they are not nursing-friendly. It changes other things – our lovemaking, the way I try to lose weight (no drastic detox or dramatic dieting), my time away from my baby (now must include pumping breaks), eating foods that sit well with his digestive system – not just mine, and more.

I didn’t have a hard time nursing my son. He had a pretty good latch from the start, my supply was okay, and I never got mastitis. But nursing, in and of itself, is hard. But all along the way I kept making the decision to do it, by God’s grace, because I loved my son. I was learning to care for the wellbeing of another before my own comfort.

I still have a long way to go on this journey of learning to become less so that Christ becomes more, but I’m thankful for the opportunity to learn some of this through breastfeeding.

Oh. And I’m also especially amazed at my mother. Thank you, Mom, for all the sacrificial love you have shown me!