How Becoming a Mother Did Not Change Me

I remember the moment so clearly.  I was lying on the operating table with a big sheet separating my husband and me from our newborn son.  I was about to see the little one I’d been waiting for the past nine months.

I couldn’t wait for that instantaneous bonding that was supposed to happen the first time I laid eyes on my child.  I couldn’t wait to have a momentary flash of knowledge, of understanding that I was now a mother.

Only, it didn’t happen.

The doctor raised up this red, screaming baby and said, “Here he is!”  And I felt nothing.

The nurses cleaned him off, bundled him into the ubiquitous striped hospital blanket and handed him to my husband.  My husband grinned and placed him by my cheek for me to kiss.  I did.  And, I still felt nothing.

Well, not quite.  I felt sick.  Literally.  The drugs pouring through me to make this C-section possible were doing a serious number on my sensitive stomach.  So, I kissed my newborn’s face and promptly threw up.

I knew I had to be a failure.

What mom didn’t feel an immediate connection to her child?  Was I missing some key maternal hormone?

Six years and countless conversations with other moms have taught me that I am not, in fact, a failure.  Not everyone feels an overwhelming, instantaneous bond connecting them to their new baby.  In my informal surveys, almost half of all mothers do not.

Do I feel like a mother now?  Absolutely.  Do I love my children? Resoundingly yes.  Do I pray for them daily and do all that I can to raise them in the faith?  Definitely.

Has becoming a mother been a completely life-altering experience that has changed me forever?  No.

Whoa.  What?

It seems counter-cultural, and nearly heretical in our day and age, to say that becoming a mother has not changed me.  Let me explain.

How Becoming a Mother Did Not Change Me

In many practical, everyday, glorious (and some not so glorious) ways, I am different now that I am a mother.  I can change a diaper with my eyes closed.  I have seen every episode of Wild Kratts.  Friday nights generally entail a movie on the couch that my husband and I often fall asleep during.  I have three little ones that I love more than I ever thought possible.

On the outside, my life definitely looks dramatically different than it did seven years ago.  But, on the inside, so many things haven’t changed.

1. I Still Have My Own Dreams

I don’t feel that I need to make my children my entire life.  They are an enormously important part of my life.  Along with my faith and my husband, they are my top priorities.  However, I do have other dreams that are also important to me.

I want to write a book.  I want to become a reading teacher who inspires thousands of kids to fall in love with the written word.  I want to build a blog that helps people dialogue about faith and family.  I want to be a loving daughter, sister, and friend.

If I neglect these other dreams, I will become a narrower version of myself.

I by no means say this to start a debate between the work outside the home moms and the stay at home moms.  I respect each woman’s right to choose her dreams.

My dreams didn’t go away once I became a mother.  They just got bigger.

2. I Still Am as Uncrafty as They Come

I have never been a creative, crafty person.  My home will certainly never be featured in a magazine.  I couldn’t decorate a cake if my life depended on it.  Therefore, if I compare myself to the multitude of mom posts I see on Pinterest, I am a complete and utter mom failure.

My personality and my core competencies haven’t changed now that I am a mother.  At first I thought that my lack of interest in decorating the nursery meant that I was lacking some mom gene.  Then I realized that decorating had never been one of my core competencies–something that I was passionate about and gifted in.

However, I do love picking out books to read with my children.  I had a blast teaching my oldest to read.  I get a kick out of playing Memory and Candy Land with my daughter.  I like taking my kids on hikes in the woods.  Once I embraced my parenting core competencies–reading, teaching, spending quality time together–I became a lot more content with myself as a mother.

3. I Am Still Overwhelmingly Imperfect

For years I had this idealized version of my future “mom self.”  My “mom self” would never get angry at my children.  She would dispense wisdom like it was candy.  She would be a fountain of all patience, love, and peace.

And then I actually became a mother.

Now I realize that my sins have accompanied me into motherhood.  I have always struggled with patience, and that did not magically change with the birth of my oldest son.  If anything, it is tested more often.  There are more opportunities for me to fail miserably.  But there are also more opportunities for me to grow.

As an Orthodox Christian, I take Paul’s call to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling” pretty seriously.  Motherhood is the path through which God is choosing to save me.  He is drawing me closer to himself each day–as I learn to love and serve my children more, as I fall down on my face and weep bitter tears over my failures, and as I grow in godliness along this path of salvation.

I didn’t become a saint overnight when I became a mother.  But, through the grace of God, he is making me one anyway.

And so, in many ways, becoming a mother did not change me.

I am still me–dreams, talents, imperfections and all.
What do you think?  How did becoming a mother change you?  How did it not change you?

(Linked to Frugal Fridays, Way Back Wednesday.)