No one can ever prepare you for the internal changes that take place after bringing another life into the world. It seems impossible to even begin explaining the feeling that takes over your mind and body once you do.
I am now 2 weeks postpartum with my first child so to say my hormones are all over the place would be a very big understatement. I’m also coming off of hypothyroid meds very abruptly post-labour, so I find myself currently navigating my way through a bit of a thyroid shit-storm if you will, outside of the normal postpartum parameters of course but aside from this very powerful estrogen/progesterone drop making me extra teary eyed these days, something else inside of me has definitely shifted, significantly, since giving birth to my daughter. Like something in me has grown or changed on a molecular level. I feel like the grinch who stole Christmas and my heart grew three sizes that day. And then the true meaning of life came through, and I found the strength of ten Sam’s, plus two.
Life will never ever be the same.
It’s impossible to find the right words having never experienced anything like this in my life before. The amount of love that I can feel pouring out of me is almost insurmountable. I take just one look at my daughter and I can feel myself starting to well up with tears that overflow onto my cheeks for no given reason. It’s almost uncomfortable as someone who has never been so in touch with my own emotions on this type of level before. I feel like becoming a mom has made me a different person. I never could have anticipated the depth of it all.
When you become a mom your perspective and outlook on life becomes real clear, real quick. Certain things that used to bother me suddenly became meaningless. Not even just trivial things, but traumas that have followed me for years and haunted me throughout my pregnancy just kind of fell off my radar the moment that I held my daughter for the first time. All of those little meaningless things are now just irrelevant. I have only one purpose now and I would give up my life for her if I had to. This love is so real.
My husband and I were laying in bed the other night talking about how over the moon obsessed we are with her, we’re like infatuated teenagers who can’t stop talking and thinking about her at all hours of the day, and then it came up about how afraid it made us both that the other shoe was just waiting to drop and that’s the level of vulnerability associated with this kind of love. You are so exposed that you become suddenly terrified that something bad is going to happen, like something will come and take it all away from you. You become the most defenseless you will ever be once you have a child. All your cards are on the table. Life is no longer just about us, and we have everything to lose. But I wouldn’t change anything. It feels euphoric to love something so much.
Nothing will ever be the same.
