Motherhood

It feels like just yesterday I was laying around feeling so sick I thought I would die! My pregnancy with Emilee was a rough one for the first few months. I literally wondered if it would kill me sometimes! This time, I am quite ill, but I feel so blessed to still be able to function.

The first time I did this, I would lay there in bed thinking, how in the world am I going to do this when I have other children to care for? Heaven help me!!! I realize each pregnancy is different, but I am wondering if indeed heaven helps us rise up to the challenge and do what we have to do! I don't claim to be a super mom or anything like that. If you saw my house, you would see that the dishes are piling up, the shelves are rather dusty and we only get around to vacuuming every few days, however, I feel so much more capable than I did the first go round!!

Tyler is so helpful!!! He takes such good care of me and Emilee, but I realize that I need to be the one to step up and take care of things! He does have a job after all!! The extended family has been so good to me too! Watching Emilee, helping me clean etc. Thanks so much!!

All of this teaches me just how amazing my mother and mother-in-law are! They did this multiple times, and I know they didn't just lie around being waited on! They both inspire me to buck up and do what sometimes feels so impossible!

After I completed my first delivery without an epidural, I said to my doctor,"Now I have joined the ranks of the strong woman", to which she replied, "Michelle, you always have been a strong woman, or you wouldn't have done it." That compliment meant a lot to me, as someone who has wimped out a lot when things get hard. I don't mean to insinuate that a woman who has an epidural is not a strong woman, it was simply something I needed to prove to myself. It also made me realize that all women are strong and amazing! We will all go through things in our lives that will prove that to us!!

Hooray for husbands who are willing to cook, clean, and hold our hair while we puke! Hooray for babies who are willing to happily play with toys while we lay lifeless on the couch! Hooray for ourselves, for getting up and finally cleaning the nasty bathroom! And Hooray for our Mothers who have gone before us, and are proof that yes indeed we CAN do this!!!