Mommy confessions

I thought I was different... Above it, would put it better.
I don't need to live my life under the expectations of others!
Well, what about your expectations?
And, either way, your expectations are shaped under other's shadows anyways.

I'm drying up. (Some of these motherhood things are hard to write about. Bear with me)
Yep! My daughter is not 5 months yet and my milk production has plummeted. I wanted to exclusively breastfeed. My first month back at work proved that difficult, but she was only taking one or two bottle formula a day and then taking the breastmilk bottles I'd leave. Pumping in the office's bathroom was hard and time consuming and I was getting stares from everyone. Three pumpings a day became two, then one, then none. The last week I pumped maybe I could express an ounce of milk, which seemed not worth all the trouble it required. It was all good since my milk supply was enough to feed Emmalee in the late afternoon, night, late-night, middle-of-the-night, early morning, and morning feeding and I was satisfied with that.
Not anymore. I barely have for that middle-of-the-night feeding, which thankfully has been needed less and less since Emmalee is sleeping through the night (Hooray!)
I feel let down. Let down by my body and by my expectations. I feel a failure. I have serious guilt feelings about this issue that has taken sleep away from me.
"I'll feed her all her first year," I said all the time I was pregnant.

I watch TV with her.
Right now Emmalee is beginning to learn how to giggle. It's the cutest thing. Sometimes she giggles like those babies on tv commercials, but most of the time her "giggles" sound like a squalling bird gasping for air. It's hilarious! Interaction time is longer and more varied, but sometimes she just sits on her infant seat and just stares at her fingers before taking them to her mouth and repeats, or lies in her baby gym and stares at the roof. So I watch the Big Bang Theory with her next to me.
"I'll give her early stimulation," I opened my mouth to say.

I get tired. 
Sometimes I just want to get home and lie in bed. Sometimes I don't want to gobble my food down because somehow everytime I'm eating Emmalee wants to be held or fed at that exact moment. Sometimes, I don't want to bathe her because she fell asleep and bathing her means repeating the process of getting her asleep all over again.
"When what you are doing is worth it, you find the strength for it," I naively proclaimed.

I'm depressed about my body. 
It hits me harder some days. It especially hits me hard when someone approaches me and says: "Are you pregnant again?" I even replied that once with a "Don't be stupid!"
Six months I have to wait to be able to workout again.
"Damn that c-section," I have thought. Really? You know how high infant and mother mortality was before c-sections were available? Do you realize you AND your daughter could have been in those numbers had it not been for your c-section?
Recovery takes longer. We knew that already. The injury makes your belly swell through the day making you look fatter at the end of the day than you did in the morning.
Dropping pounds is hard when you can't diet much because of milk production but you aren't losing weight because you are barely breastfeeding.
Clothes still don't fit after almost 5 months. And I won't even mention the marks in my body.
My sister looks at my belly and says "Those stretch marks are treatable. You should do something about them," to which I said "Why bother? This is just the first of many children."
"I don't care about looks. Motherhood is more precious," a fully convicted Linda professed.


Motherhood is not all peaches and roses.
It's not always pretty and I'm just getting started.
I am human and I lose sight of what matters.
This confessions don't even include my guilt feelings of being a working mom and many more confessions.
Sometimes I need to write down what's bugging my insides and look at it face on. I need to put the things that are bringing me down against the light and truth of the Word of God.

Don't forget your calling:

Titus 2:5

To be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

Never lose hope:

Jeremiah 29:11

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Emmalee will grow at her own pace. You will teach her much. Just do the following:

Deutoronomy 6:6-7

6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

Most important truth on the matter of beauty: Your husband sees you beautiful:

Songs of Solomon 4:7

You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you.

1 Peter 3:3-4

Do not let your adorning be externa, the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear, but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.

Proverbs 31:30

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

God's beauty I should seek:

Psalm 27:4

One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.

You'll have to longer for that physical exercise, but it is of little value anyways and spiritual exercise is at hand.

1 Timothy 4:8

Physical exercise has some value, but spiritual exercise is much more important, for it promises a reward in both this life and the next.

And for your haughty expectations and ranter:

Romans 12:3

3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

Yep! That's what I needed!

Oh the light of the Word!

Something bringing you down? Bring it against the Word!

She IS all peaches and roses! :)