Being a New Mom

When I was a kid, if you were to ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would tell you, "A wife and a mom." I knew from when I was a child that's what I wanted to be, but I never knew when it would happen, or if it would happen.

When I was 26 I moved to Tacoma and became a nanny for two kids in Brown's Point, and for 6 years I help raise two of the coolest kids on the planet. It was by far my favorite job, and as close as I thought I would get to being a mom, having no prospects and closing in on the big 3-0. Little did I know what God had in store for me!

Right after I turned 29 I met Jesse at a college group at the church we currently go to. He was the only other person there that was close to my age and I took interest in him and tried the best I could to let him know that. I was not aware at the point that he didn't get any of the hints I was giving him that I was interested, until I sent him an encouraging email after Bible Study one night. That is when things got rolling!

To make a long story short, Jesse and I dated for 3 months and then got engaged, just knowing that we were M.F.E.O. (Meant For Each Other). What's even stranger is one year prior to meeting Jesse, I had a dream I got married to a man with dark hands. After we started dating I noticed his hands were a little darker than his arms...him being half Mexican, and it clicked, he was the man of my dreams, literally!

Moving forward to our first wedding anniversary, we started talking about trying to have our first child, and shortly after that, surprisingly, Ella was conceived! I spent the next 10 months trying to wrap my head around the fact that I was finally going to be a mom...and now that she is here, I still am trying to wrap my head around it!

This past month has been a whirlwind of emotions as I have adjusted to being a new mom from the high on the mountain top in love feeling with my baby to the overwhelmed, crying for no reason break downs from hormones and lack of sleep. I even have felt a tad crazy at times and have had to make late night calls to a good friend to talk me down from my craziness!

The other part about being a new mom that I have felt up and down about has been the whole breast feeding thing. At first Ella was tongue tied so she could latch on properly and was actually causing me to blister...this caused an additional pain to what I was feeling from my c-section. Not a pleasant experience like I hoped for. I thought after this that i was not going to be able to breast feed and that devastated me.

Once she got her tongue clipped she started feeding like a champ, but I kept waiting for the pain in my breast to go away. I developed a sharp pain in one of my breasts that would continue on hours after I fed her. Breast feeding was not what I expected it would be. I heard about a friend who switched to formula and I started to feel a little jealous.

I have very mixed feelings about whether I should continue through the pain and frustration, which isn't fun for me or Ella, or ween her off the breast and bottle feed her. I want what's best for her, which I thought was breast feeding, but could my constant frustration and pain be what's best for her and I? Am I worried about what people think if I stop breast feeding? Will they think I was just a wimp and gave up? Or is the guilt of quitting and not giving Ella breast milk getting to me?

Whatever is going on with me, what I do know is, Jesse and I know what's best for our child. I never realized how much advice and people's opinion I would get when I became a mom. Its almost too much and I have to learn sometimes to just turn their voices off. With that being said, Ella will soon be a formula fed baby, and I will make this decision based on what is best for us, and not on what other people are telling me to do.