Becoming Mothers

My Grandma Gray as a new mother with my mom, Peggy, on her lap.
My Grandma Gray as a new mother with my mom, Peggy, on her lap.

After months of holding a special secret close to my heart, I am now able to shout to the world the marvelous news that Dave and I will be welcoming a new grandchild into our family later this summer!  Maggie gave us her news before Christmas but asked that we keep it on the q.t. until after her first trimester had passed.  Keeping such wonderful news under wraps is not an easy thing to do.  I’d like to say I was able to honor her request to the letter but found myself letting the news slip from time to time, unable to contain my joy.

Babies change everything.   This baby, like all babies before her (wishful thinking on my part) will transform the lives of her mother and father, Maggie and Jan as they enter into a new dimension of their relationship together as parents. She will transform Teresa into a grandmother and Isolde into an aunt.  For Dave, Any and me, we will be transformed into the grandparents and uncle of this incredible new little person.  For Seth and Caleb, this new child of God will be a sister (or brother) in this amazing, patch-worked, incredibly functional family that is us.

Change is not always easy and neither is pregnancy.  While some women seem to skid through the nine months without even a hiccough, Maggie is plagued by nausea and migraines making some days very difficult to bear. Combining this constant feeling of physical un-wellness with a long dreary winter can result in not a fairy tale ending but an overwhelming feeling of being in a long dark tunnel with the heavy burdens of parenthood at the end.  And so, as in all things, there are good days and bad.

We had a long phone chat a couple days ago and she shared some of her fears and doubts about parenthood.  As I fumbled for words to reassure her that all would be well (because it will be) I remembered my first few hours totally alone with infant Maggie.  Dave was deployed and a neighbor had brought us home from the hospital and dropped us off at the house. For that first night, it was just her and me.

I remember looking at her little body, swaddled in a flannel blanket, sleeping in a converted dog bed and thinking, “I am someone’s mother!”  I guess it was in that very moment that I took ownership of my new role.  That first night alone with her were so intimate.  Her body still fed off of mine and there was no one else to hear her squeak in that special way infants do. I slept on the couch with her dog bed on the table beside me, recording in a little notebook each time she ate and pooped, as if a chronicle had to be kept of her every moment of life.  Fortunately my mother arrived the next day to spend a few weeks with me and my record keeping on paper was suspended.  In its place I have a heart full of memories, each recording our mother/daughter history from those first few moments.

For me, motherhood, although not always easy or even pleasant, has always been such a gift.  God gifted me with such an incredible daughter and son who have completed me in ways I could never have imagined.  I know it will be same for Maggie and Jan.  They too will have their challenges and obstacles, but outmeasuring those will be moments of sublime joy and satisfaction in their children.

 

 

One Reply to “Becoming Mothers”

  1. Monica,

    I am so thrilled for you. Amazingly enough I will become a grandmother in September. Matt (younger son) has been married for 2 years and he and wife Sarah are expecting a child. Would love to keep in touch. I read your blog often and miss our times together.
    Many many congratulations to your ENTIRE family.

    Bethany

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