I didn’t expect my heart to feel like it’s being pulled in two directions at once. Nobody really talks about how hard it is to love your new baby while grieving the little world you had with your first. This is me, writing it out in real time, hoping another mama finds it and feels less alone.
Moments like this really ground me in the reality of why I decided to reinvent this blog in this season of my life. I have found myself in a period of intense emotions that is not spoken about enough. So when I landed here, I learned how important it is to share not only the struggle but the message and resilience behind it.
It’s 6 a.m. My daughter is stretched out next to me on my bed, and my son is stretched across me nursing himself back to sleep. I hear both of their breaths, I feel both of their spirits, and moments like this I cherish as these two mini humans I birthed exude the stillness of life around me.
These are precious moments I’ll never get back. But here I am, boohoo crying… why is that?
After publishing my last blog, as I was closing my tablet, I came across the featured photos from my widgets. It was my daughter right before she turned two—all small and bright-eyed.
I scrolled through memory lane, listening to her little voice and remembering all of our adventures, until I broke down crying, fully engulfed in a strange and deep emotion. A jambalaya of nostalgia, love, grief, guilt, and longing. Watching days I’ll never get back, experiencing the overwhelm of the fleeting moment, feels so heavy.
Nobody told me this transition would be so hard. Nobody told me that my heart had to tear apart to grow again.
So two realities can be true at once: being deeply in love with my newborn while also mourning the idea of it being “just us” with my firstborn. And that duality is the truth behind having more than one child, though the split is not a separation.
I love my son. Looking into his eyes is a new feeling for me. The not-so-new newness of his arrival made it so much easier to bond. It was like an instant. I truly understand the love people speak about when a mother has a son.
But the love my daughter and I built was so much more spiritual. She gave me a brick in a world where I had no foundation, and for three years we made our own bricks from dust to begin to build such a beautiful home.
She introduced me to God, she made me see myself, and she’s the reason loving my son was so easy. She taught me how to love, she showed me what that was, and now that my heart is splitting and raw, I’m not just learning how to love—I’m learning how to expand in love.
That’s tough. It’s REALLY tough. And everyone told me it’s a brief feeling. That coming into a life with a new baby is hard, but those feelings fade.
So imagine how I felt when those feelings lingered—and they didn’t just linger, they intensified with each week. On top of the emotional and physical load of just caring for the two of them every day. Trying to stay out of survival mode in a struggling economy. To still be a person, a friend, a partner, a mother… these tears that fall are drowning me.
But I step back. I breathe, and I open. Open my heart, open my mind, and open my soul. I expand into the reality of my situation and surrender to the growing pains.
People might have shared their experience, but not once did I hear it was easy. And that’s okay. The hardness of it all squeezes itself into the cracks and crevices and pushes outward just enough to sneak myself in to fill the space.
The process of birthing a baby reflects the reality of how it feels to adjust to motherhood. It can be slow and quiet at moments, while the next can be fast and intense. The entire process, you lose and find yourself over and over.
Your body makes room, it contracts, it dilates, it bleeds, it breathes. And that is the best way I can describe the feeling of postpartum.
There’s a deep joy in the whole process, where you really look at God and wonder what made you so special—to create life and to create the miracles of your children.
In my humble opinion, I might be enough for my children, but I will always look at God and wonder why I was so blessed. The responsibility of it all is exhausting, but it’s an honor to have.
I can go on forever about the magic of my children. But I wrote this so it’s out there, and the next mother who comes along struggling with the same feeling can find this and know that yes, that pain is real.
But that just means the love is real, and it does grow, and that growing does hurt.
But you are a beautiful and strong woman who is so many things, but most importantly to your first baby and all that come after that… you are a mother.
Raise them with grace and God’s will, and they will honor and cherish you forever.
Thank you for listening.
See you soon.
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