Motherhood

I entered the world of motherhood in March of 1999 totally green, totally not knowing what I was doing, totally unprepared, yet totally in love with my newborn baby boy. (FYI - I was also totally in love with my husband, a trait that continues to this day.) We stumbled over names for a long time, but landed on Johnathan Andrew for my almost 9lb firstborn. We struggled through breastfeeding, constipation, and diaper rash but did so with a glow and innocence of first time parents. A few months later we decided that this had been SO MUCH FUN that we'd like to do it again.

In October of 2000 we welcomed our second son, Matthew Russell, and he slid into our family with much laughter and joy. Like his brother, he made his appearance excruciatingly late. My babies seemed to want to remain inside 10 days longer than expected. Cue multiple inducements here. Unlike his brother, Matthew ate, pooped and potty trained like he'd been doing it all his life. We lived like this, just the four of us, for while, life getting busy and regular with 2 little boys. But alas, this was not the end of our family's story.

April of 2003, our third son, Eric Robert arrived on the scene. He arrived on his Grandfather's 70th birthday, and inherited the name Robert after this great man. (Sadly they only celebrated one birthday together as my father-in-law was taken home to Jesus in July 2004, shortly after their shared first and seventy-first birthdays.) To say I was shocked to find out we had another boy would be an understatement. Although we had not found out the sex of any of our babies, my mother's intuition told me this time I was having a girl. Clearly that intuition was wrong. When the doctor said, "It's a boy!" I literally yelled, "What??" (My husband likes to remind me of that.) But with that came the fresh feeling of, "I don't know who you are. You are not the baby I thought I was having. I had bonded with HER, not you." I remember the moment, the specific time when I prayed the prayer of release saying through my sobbing tears and holding my baby Eric tight, "I'm sorry I don't love you like I want to, like I need to. Jesus, I give you HER. Help me to love Eric like the true gift he is. I want to know and love HIM. Help me Jesus." That put us on a trajectory to love and life that has kept us connected through the ups and downs of the last number of years.

In the years that followed Eric's birth, we suffered a few miscarriages in our human efforts to have another baby. One in particular was devastating for us. I recount this experience in the blog post entitled Loss & Life. If you read that one, and then follow up with Part 2 of the experience, you will see that our fourth son, Mitchell David was born in November of 2006. Unlike when Eric was born, this time I was fully prepared for another boy. My doctor recommended that I find out the sex of our baby this time. Her wise words were, "If there is any tiny little piece of you that wants a girl, you need to find out. You need to deal with that before you are holding this baby in your arms." Wise, wise words that I am thankful for! When I went for the gender revealing ultrasound, the technician was VERY reluctant to tell us what we were having. She kept saying things like, "What do you have at home?" and, "Now remember that we can never really be sure when we do these things. We can be wrong" and, "If I were you, I would be preparing...now remember that we can never be 100% sure...but if I were you, I think I would be preparing for...a boy." She said it kind of sheepishly, like it was going to physically hurt me or she was afraid I might yell or throw something at her. But I didn't do any of those things. I said, "Yay! Thank you! That's exactly what we were expecting!" And in truth it was exactly what we were expecting. Why would it be any different?

These are the 4 boys that made me a Mom. And they are the 4 boys that continue to make me a better Mom. They are the reasons I can share about motherhood and all it's joys, blessings, struggles and trials. They are the greatest things I have ever done. I love every day of my boy-mom Motherhood life.

They are truly one of the main reasons I am blessed beyond belief.