She Was Worth the Wait

They say a baby changes your life.  This is a very true statement.  Adeline has changed our lives in so many ways, in both amazing ways and challenging ways.  They say you never understand until it happens.  This is both true and untrue.  We knew that having a baby would change our entire lives; our Friday night, our Saturday mornings, our finances, our date nights, and the contents of the bins in our living room.  We knew these things would change.

They say you’re never really ready for a baby.  I also think this statement is completely untrue.  A person may never totally understand the huge shift in everything until it happens, but I think that’s different from being ready.  I was ready.  Financially maybe not completely, but emotionally I was ready and that’s not something I could have said 10, 5, or even 2 years prior. 

We have friends who had kids in their 20’s and they are amazing parents with amazing kids.  They decided to do things when they had energy and that was a very wise choice.  I wish I had more energy every single day.  However, personally I have such different world views now than I did when I was 20.  Mr. C and I feel very strongly about certain things, things I’m not sure we would have cared much about when we were 20, and things I’m glad we agree on now. 

In some ways I’m who I thought I’d be as a mother, but in other ways I’m not. 

So far, over a year in, we’re more “natural” parents than I’d have imagined.  We believe in parenting at night and avoiding CIO “sleep training”.   We love babywearing.  We co-sleep and have no plans to stop soon.  I’m a cloth diaper addict.  I’ve been breastfeeding for over a year and pumped while working full-time in a new position.  We avoid all screen time although I’m sure Adeline gets some at daycare.  We were told to give her cereal in her bottle so she’d sleep thorough the night, but we’d rather lose some sleep and give her real food versus filler.  Although patience can be hard (I’m sure this gets much harder), it’s come much more natural than I ever thought it would.  We’ve followed our instincts, which goes against what the American society has defined to be “good parenting”. I understand that these are our views and not everyone feels this way.  That’s fine.  Everyone has the right to parent the way they see most fit, assuming they are not harming their children.

I think I’m a better mom than I would have been 10 years ago.  At 31, I can listen to someone tell me that bedsharing is a crazy idea and then I can go along my merry way with no plans to stop what I’m doing.  I know that I will nurse until we both are ready to wean without giving a crap what someone says.  At 21 I don’t think I could have done this.  I would have second-guessed myself and maybe I would have tried to let my little girl cry for a few nights because I doubted myself.  Maybe we would have stayed with the pediatrician we didn’t have a connection with.  Maybe I would have stopped breastfeeding because it was really hard to keep up with working full-time and pumping and wanting a little bit of time for myself.

There are also the people that say it would be different if we had two kids and all these things we believe in now would not continue.  Maybe it would, but my core values and beliefs would not change.  My core values did not change from zero kids to one.  If anything, they were strengthened.  With two kids I’m sure the TV would be useful at times and I’d be in need of a lot more patience.  Many of the things that bothered me before kids still bother me now though, such as parents taking their 6 year old to a rated R film about assassins, or giving a baby an entire box of sugar-coated cereal rather than some fruit now and then.

Had we not waited, I think we’d have done just fine, but I don’t think we would have embraced parenthood as much as we have.  We didn’t wait because we didn’t think we’d be good parents.  I never doubted that Mr. C would be a fantastic father.  He is even better than I ever expected though.  I truly love being a mom.  I would do anything for this little girl, as most mothers would for their kids. 

I’m very thankful for the time before Adeline when we were a family of two people, a dog named Coconut, and a cat named Oreo.  I’m thankful for the time we had to focus on ourselves, each other, and have lazy weekends.  When we’re home now on a Friday and a movie I wanted to see is out, I know that someday we’ll see it.  Someday we’ll go to dinner again regularly just us, but for now we’re meant to be at home with our little girl.  I’m doing just what I should be when I nurse her at night and rock her to sleep.  We lived our 20’s for us, and we’re living our 30’s with a different focus; still for us but also for this little girl that we waited for and wanted so badly.

Now we’ve moved on to the “when are you having another” questions from so many people.  We’re not sure if we are, or if we aren’t.  For now we’re living in the moment and enjoying the one little girl we were blessed with, as well as holding on to our sanity as we balance it all.