Five months ago today our hearts broke. I don’t recall ever hearing about a heartbreak from happiness, but I now now it holds true. Every day I am astonished that I get to be the lucky one. I’m the luckiest mother in the world to get to snuggle up with my precious Pearl, day after day and call her mine. She is my very own baby, what?! The truth is, I wasn’t prepared for this. Sure, these last five months have been the most challenging months of my life, from an all-too-eventful: traumatic birth, to being so sleep deprived my bones hurt (I’m sure every new mom can relate), to being riddled with anxiety over everything. I’m pretty sure every other sentence out of my mouth the first two weeks home started with “Is this normal…?”. Quickly followed by a relentless internet search and a call to the pediatrician. Days would merge into nights with only the light through the window alerting me that another day had passed. In the early days family and friends would pour in, bringing sanitized snuggles and delicious meals. Night after night we fed, yoga-ball-bounced and swayed Pearl to sleep. Then one unexpected day, the fog started lifting… around the same time that she cracked her first smile, I started to uncoil and feel like myself again. Motherhood is still the most difficult and the most wonderful job I have ever had.
My iPhone fills so quick its scary, and I find myself quickly becoming one of “those moms” who whip out photos of their baby quicker than a hiccup. And since I don’t see that changing anytime soon, here are a few highlights taken with my “big girl camera” and my phone over the last five months. Rather than bombard my blog with weekly posts of my daughter, I think I’ll space it out a bit.
A special thank you to my amazing, talented side kick at this wedding. Janine Soltman, you are the best!