It’s so hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel in a hard season. Especially in motherhood. Especially in brand-new motherhood. New Mamas, this one is for you.
I know it’s tough
Bless your sweet heart, you truly have no clue what you are doing. You don’t know what’s normal or what you should be truly concerned about. You don’t have any frame of reference for a general timeline of how things are supposed to go.
It’s almost too easy to get stuck in a difficult season and not know when or how it will be ever over. Sometimes that season is so short–literally maybe just a week or so–and you feel so silly for having such a difficult time of it. But you don’t know on Monday that this every-hour-on-the-hour-middle-of-the-night-wakings ordeal was just a fluke and it will all be over on Friday and that’s ok. Mama, please know that you weren’t silly because Wednesday really was so hard. This too shall pass.
It’s so scary when you are faced with something that you don’t even know what to Google first because the issue seems too foreign. You don’t even have the words to explain what your concern is to your doctor or your friend. How could you? You’ve never done this before and you simply just don’t know the lingo. Yet. Mama, please give yourself grace because you are learning so much about that child each and every day. Tomorrow you’ll understand things better than you did today.
The expectations can feel so overwhelming sometimes, like everything depends on you doing everything perfect. Even when you get the information or learn the new skill, it can be so defeating when your execution is a little off. This time. It’s only a little off this time. You’ll get the hang of it, Mama. Remember: practice makes perfect. Keep at it! This too shall pass.
My promise to you
I get it, ladies. I, too, am in the middle of one new challenging season after another in this journey called Motherhood. I’ve been a mom for 10 months, and I am far from perfect. I’m far from having it all figured out. Beyond far. Another Mama told me what I’m about to tell you, and I hope you believe me.
We won’t be a new moms forever. It’s logistically impossible. At some point, I promise, we will have been mothers for longer than 15 seconds. At that moment, we will have experienced a whole host of things. We will have wisdom that we didn’t have before. We will know the answer right away and fix it the way those amazing Mamas always do. The unknown, the uncharted, the unfamiliar–it will all go away soon. Not now, but soon. I promise.
So in the meantime, let’s cut ourselves some slack. Take all the help wherever, whenever and from whomever you can. Learn to laugh at yourself sometimes, and don’t take everything as life or death. Because one day, we–yes, US!–will be the Mamas with all the answers, and we’ll want to reassure the next generation of moms that they can make it. One day at a time. This too shall pass.
