You always hear about how motherhood changes women and how you instantly love your baby. I thought I understood it.
Now that I am a new mom, I know it. The experience of motherhood has been the single most impactful experience of my life and has changed me in many ways I could never have imagined.
Seeing and holding my baby for the first time after carrying him, feeling him grow inside me, and knowing I have created this perfect little miracle, has given me the biggest sense of accomplishment.
When my baby looked up into my eyes for the first time, nothing else in the world seemed to matter.
Somehow all the pain and discomfort pregnancy and delivery had caused me was no longer important, and was now simply a thing of the past.
Luckily for me, my mother has owned a nursery since I was nine-years-old, so I was comfortable around a baby and never had those feelings of nervousness about caring for my baby as most new mothers do.
But nothing prepares you for becoming a new mom.
As a mom your love affair with your new baby can be euphoric at times, but it’s also exhausting at other times, not to mention that the physical changes your body takes on are flat-out amazing if you really think about it.
They take a toll in terms of weight gain, stretch marks, and so on, not to mention your wardrobe.
Since the birth of my son, I have had to re-arrange my lifestyle and my priorities, as everything changes.
Before my baby, life was certainly less chaotic and definitely more predictable, but not nearly as wonderful.
Going out of the house is not a spontaneous event anymore. I have to make sure that I have all the accessories a baby needs, and work around his schedule.
My social life is now non-existent, because I would rather spend time with my child than go out. I’ve found that friends who don’t have children just don’t understand what it’s like.
My son is definitely my first priority, and housework and having a social life are definitely my last. As a new mom, your feelings and focus on your baby can be so strong that you can barely think about yourself, let alone anyone else; it’s now all about them.
I used to spend hours fixing my hair and makeup before leaving the house. I shopped for and wore the cutest and most up-to-date fashions.
I still try to look nice and take care of myself, but the focus is so different now. I would rather spend those extra few minutes lying in bed cuddling with him or getting him to giggle, than to spend it fixing myself up. I now have about 10 minutes in the morning to get myself ready.
After 11 months of sharing almost every free minute with my son, it's easy to forget what life was like before he arrived.
It has now been almost one year since Jaylen first came into our lives, and I'm having trouble finding the right words to describe what this year has been like.
New, exciting, humorous, exhausting, different, amazing, blessed ... every aspect of my life has so much more meaning with my son now in it.
I am incredibly thankful to have been given the opportunity to be a mom and to experience all of the wonderful changes that go along with that.
I wouldn’t give it up for the world and hope that, one-day, everyone gets to experience the joy that having a baby brings to your life.