#225: Motherhood Mud & Miracles
One of the most remarkable things the human body can do is create life. There’s the physical aspect, the actual growing a baby and then giving birth, which is extraordinary in and of itself. Perhaps the MORE amazing thing is the mental and psychological transformation one experiences as a parent in the actual caring for and raising of a child. It’s a BIG reorientation toward the WE mindset, and mostly out of the ME mindset. Even if you thought your balance of ME - WE was already WAY over on the WE side of things, you may find pockets of space or behaviors that you didn’t want disturbed. All the old ways of being are up for reimagination or repurposing to work with the new being in mind. That doesn’t mean it’s easy to adapt, but it may offer a richer, fuller experience where something greater than simply surviving is possible.
- Corey
Motherhood Mud & Miracles
One of my favorite parts of the morning is opening the curtains to my favorite room in the house, which happens to be my baby’s nursery/my yoga room. Although this may sound sweet at first, it’s not because that’s how I wake up with baby. That sounds beautiful. But, in fact, I typically wake up in the pitch blackness to my baby crying and/or screaming at 5am…which is not, in fact, my favorite part of the morning. But, a couple hours later, her Dad takes her out for a morning walk and I come back into her nursery and transform it back into my yoga room…..
Towards the end of my first pregnancy, so many people used to ask me, with excitement in their eyes, about our nursery. At first, I was confused. I didn’t realize this was such a big thing and I didn’t understand why it was a big thing, if so. I mean, I knew we had to have a place for baby to sleep, but she was just a baby. I didn’t know why she needed such a beautiful room full of lots of things. After perhaps the fifth time being asked, my confusion began to turn to anxiety. After all, I was more than 8 months pregnant and we didn’t have a nursery! We didn’t have a beautiful room and we didn’t have all of the things!!
Spoiler alert: You don’t need a beautiful nursery and you don’t need all the things…Unless of course you want to and that brings you joy.
For me, it didn’t. I just wanted a little baby to snuggle up next to me, and, ideally, sleep.
So, when Ellie was born, she co-slept with us in bed (following safe co-sleeping techniques) for months. And then, after many months, ended up with a crib in my yoga room.
This was a difficult experience for me to swallow at first. My first, very codependent baby was sleeping in a separate room than me. And that room happened to be MY room. For anyone who is a religious Friends watcher, this is the equivalent of Ross’s sandwich.
My yoga room was sacred to me. It was the space I got to be ME. It was carefully, albeit minimally, designed with a few of my favorite things. So, turning it over to Ellie was pretty metaphorical for how Ellie took over my life in general…(ha! / not always that funny).
Long story short, it took me almost 1.5 years to rediscover myself as this new-old ME, while also being Ellie’s Mom. And it took me equally as long to re-fall in love with my yoga room/Ellie’s nursery.
Today, I love that these two spaces co-exist.
I love that I can open the heavy, blackout curtains in the morning and shine light on her sweet little crib and pillow, side-by-side to my yoga altar. I love that I can roll out my mat besides her rocker, still scattered with bedtime books from the night before. I love that I can see myself practicing in the mirror with ultrasound and pregnancy pics plastered on the wall behind me.
Because, this is who I am, all wrapped up into one, simple, organically designed space. A space that came together and evolved little by little. A space that went back and forth, filled with struggles and sweet snuggles. A space filled with all of me...All of me totally given up, at one point, to something greater that needed me more. And a space that returned to nurturing me as ME... as my highest self…now able to separate a bit from solely "Ellie’s Mom", but still equally celebrating both. And, after much hard work (mostly emotionally & spiritually) this happens to be the person that I am most comfortable and confident being today.