This post is part of the New Mom Monday series! A series about moms and their advice to new moms! Books and videos can only teach us so much, but there’s something special about hearing from real life moms. Honest, true, and always beautifully inspiring!!
♥ What’s your Name?
Michelle
♥ Tell us a little about yourself!
I’m 28 years old. I work a full time job in content marketing, alongside blogging & freelance writing, plus taking care of my son. My husband is a teacher for at-risk youth. We live in beautiful western Oregon and enjoy movies, hiking, and reading.
♥ How many kids do you have? What are their names and ages?
I have one son, Forrest, who is 15 months old. I also have a furbaby, a chocolate lab named Remus, who is 3 😉
♥ How do you find your “me time”?
Oof, this one was a struggle for the first 10 months of my son’s life. He was not a sleeper… or really a napper. He is very independent now, but until we made the decision to sleep train, he was touching me 24/7–to sleep, to eat, to play… he had to be touching me! That first night where he slept in his room… I felt like I had all the time in the world! Now, I get pretty much everything home-related done once he goes to bed at 6pm. During the day, I work, write, and blog from the kitchen table while he plays in the living room. In the evenings, I make sure to reserve 1 or 2 hours just for myself–no writing, no blogging, no cleaning, nothing. I sit in the bath tub; I lie in bed and read; I watch the ID Channel. It’s just about “me” and I make that expectation very clear with my husband!
♥ What is the best baby related book you’ve ever read?
I’ve sat and thought about this one for a long time! I’m an avid reader (I read at least a book a week), but I honestly can’t think of a typical “baby-related” book to write about here! One of the best books about motherhood that I’ve ever read is Life After Life by Kate Atkinson.
♥ What’s the most useful baby product you have? Why do you love it?
Our Homedics white noise machine! I ordered it off Amazon Prime one night and I have it on auto order in case it stops working… it’s that important!! My son cannot sleep without it.
♥ If you could say something to yourself when you first brought home your first baby, what would you say?
“It’s ok to stop pumping right now. Don’t torture yourself.”
♥ How much planning did you do before your baby was born, and how do you think that it helped or didn’t help?
I’m very Type A! I need a plan. My husband and I had everything planned out for the baby–my maternity leave, the insurance situation, everything. It all absolutely fell apart, however. A week before my maternity leave was due to start (two weeks before my due date), I went into the hospital for preeclampsia; I was induced 4 days later as it rapidly became severe. My son was born on the exact DAY that our insurance deductibles reset–good bye savings! Good bye plans! We were in the hospital for a week due to my son’s low birthweight and hyper jaundice. I was exclusively pumping round the clock and sobbing hysterically the whole time. Nothing–and I mean nothing–about my pregnancy, delivery & newborn days went according to plan! All the planning did not prepare me for the reality of what was about to happen to me!
♥ What do you believe are the top three pieces of advice a new mom or someone trying to conceive should know?
1) Your life will absolutely change. I know you know (I did too) but I also… really didn’t know. And it’s totally ok to miss how things used to be. You’re life will be different–better in some ways, worse in others (the sleep… really, the sleep), and it’s okay to be wistful about pizza nights with your partner pre-baby! 2) Nothing goes according to plan. Really, nothing. I had everything laid out in my head of what I would do and how I would be. I threw it away a few days in! 3) Don’t be afraid to ask for help. But remember: you’re the mom. No one can tell you how to be the mom to your baby.
♥ What is your best memory so far of being a mom?
The moment they flopped that tiny little newborn baby on my chest, I looked down and saw what I had been waiting for my entire life: it was him. It had always been him. Truly, love at first sight.
♥ Give us the short form version of your birth story.
♥ Lastly, for fun, define motherhood!
Motherhood is so much about nurturing another person. This little human that I’m responsible for: I feed him, I clothe him, I teach him right from wrong. But in a lot of ways, motherhood is about nurturing myself as well. You matter as much as your children and they want to see you feel good about yourself. They want to see you succeed as much as you want them to succeed.
