Regrets, I Have a Few
Being a new mother means feeling a need to say I’m sorry.  By Merrin Dungey

Since I had my first child three months ago I’ve dealt with an endless string of sleepless nights, the relentless cycle of feeding and pumping and changing and comforting, and the slow realization that my life will never be the same again. Now that I’ve emerged from the fog of being a new mommy, I have a few things I need to say.

I want to start by apologizing to my vagina. I just … I just didn’t know what was going to happen. I thought it would be easy. All my life I’d been told I have "child-birthing hips." That turned out to be a dirty lie. I pushed for three hours, and I put you, dear vagina, through hell. I did my best to protect you, and I apologize. I can only hope that the bad feelings between us can be healed. This relationship has gotten really painful, and it’s been weeks now. Please let the healing begin.

I’d also like to say I’m sorry to my husband for all my inappropriate name-calling in the delivery room and the resentment I felt because I had to carry our child for nine months and you didn’t.  I will have sex with you again someday, I promise.  Don’t hold your breath or anything, but we’ll get there. I’ll wear attractive lingerie again as well. These grandma underpants aren’t forever!

And honey … about my boobs. While I appreciate your attempts to touch them, try to understand that they are not for you at this time. These are working breasts, they are under construction at the moment, and we appreciate your patience. It’s funny: I can see a mixture of fear and delight in your eyes at the size of them. And trust me, they are something to fear. I never thought a boob could dwarf the size of my baby’s head, but it is true. Little Maisey’s bravery in attacking them day after day is impressive. I must apologize to her as well. I had no idea they would operate in a sprinkler fashion, and I have sprayed her in the face many, many times. But the way she fights through it is quite something.

I apologize to every woman whose baby shower I attended before I became a mom. All those useless stuffed animals and baby booties I bought … well, I’m sure they might have come in handy at some point, but I should have stuck to the registry and gotten things you truly needed.

I also must quickly apologize to my cats for bringing home the new “hairless cat that gets all the attention theses days.”  I’m sorry you are no longer permitted to sleep on the bed and that you have felt it necessary to let me know how you feel about things with your poo.  Message received.

I apologize once again to my husband, this time for criticizing you about the way you dress our daughter. I know she’s my very own personal doll come to life, and I like to play dress-up. But you make such weird choices. Why would you put her in a sweater when it is 85°F? It’s the middle of the day–a night-gown really? It’s bedtime, sweetheart, why is she wearing a hat? I recognize this is not America’s Next Top Model, but I do ask you to think about what makes sense sometimes. That’s all.

I must also apologize to every new mom I ever bumped into before I had a baby for judging your appearance. I mentally criticized your old sweatpants, your over sized T-shirts, and your haphazard ponytails. I figured you just hadn’t taken the time to get ready before you went out or were in dire need of a makeover. Now I understand those precious minutes you savor when the baby goes down for a nap–the desperation to make the most of them. I could shower! I could eat! I could sleep! Check my e-mail! Work-out! Do laundry! Have sex! (Well, maybe not just yet, but…) I could do so much if she would just sleep a little longer. Then, inevitably, there’s that sound through the baby monitor. (Stop. Wait. Listen.) Was it for real? … That was just a sneeze, right? … She’s not up,right? … Oh, please, I’m almost done eating, the coffee’s finally ready, I thought I could shower. Just five more minutes please. Just … nope. She’s up. She’s hungry. She’s wet. She’s something. And once you’ve got her fed and changed and played with her, you’re on the clock to get that errand done before it all unravels again. I get it now: There is absolutely no time for a blowout or blusher.  I was a complete jerk, and I’m sorry.

I see how people look at me–with that mixture of pity and disgust–in my old nursing tank covered in spit-up and the same maternity shorts I wear every day. I’m like the Elephant Man. I put my daughter in fancy clothes to compensate for the monster pushing her around. I see the stares. I know what you’re saying. Well to heck with you, you small-pants wearing Miley Cyrus fan. I just had a baby. I am not always this fat.

I guess I should apologize for my anger.  But in solidarity with new moms everywhere, I’m not going to.

But I would definitely like to apologize to my former self. I always thought I had a few pounds to lose and could look better. I never knew how great I had it. What I wouldn’t give to fit into my old clothes again! I look at them longingly day after day. Hi, jeans. Hello, Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress. You were all so good to me. (Sniff.)

I should have slowed down and enjoyed my freedom more when I had the chance. I used to beat myself up if I slept past eight or stayed out too late. I was a fool. A fool. What did I know? Oh, to do anything at all at a leisurely pace–shop, eat, read the newspaper–and anything without having to wear a monitor. Waiting. Listening. For her.

While I’m sending regrets I should apologize to my pre-baby boobs for not appreciating them enough. They were a great pair of boobs–not too big, just enough décolletage. And now … sigh … who knows what will be left of them once I stop nursing? I’m sorry, former boobs. I truly am.

I’ll never be sorry about deciding to become a mother, though. There may be no going back to my old body or my old lifestyle, but having Maisey is worth everything I’ve had to give up and then some. But you already know that.

To find the original article click here to view Parents digital magazine.

All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief.  I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, and one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past.

Everything in all the books I once poured over is finished for me now.  Penelope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton, Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education have all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories. What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations — what they taught me, was that they couldn’t really teach me very much at all.

Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout.  One child is toilet trained at 3, his sibling at 2.

When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow. I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton’s wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane?  Last year he went to China.

Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made.  They have all been enshrined in the, ‘Remember-When-Mom-Did… Hall of Fame’. The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language, mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, ‘What did you get wrong?’. (She insisted I include that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald’s drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?

But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.

Even today I’m not sure what worked and what didn’t, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I’d done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top; And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity. That’s what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.

-By Anna Quindlen, Newsweek Columnist and Author

I want to you close your eyes (well, keep one eye cracked so you can read the next few lines) and think back. Back to a time before you had children. Can you remember that far back? Can you remember a time of deadlines and paychecks and meetings and real world jobs? Beds that get slept in for longer than 3 hour stretches? Saturday mornings that involved sleeping and only sleeping at 6:30am? I have a vague recollection of life BC (Before Children). Heck, some of you are still there.

While catching up on one of my favorite bloggers, I came across a great post today. I think it applies to mothers everywhere, not only SAHM’s. When I’m on break I’m a SAHM. I don’t do anything but focus on Avelyn. When I’m in school I have to split my time between her and school and work/clinical. Trust me, neither situation is easier than the other and they both demand the same amount of time. For me personally, the only difference is the amount of guilt involved.

Well, as I was reading this article from a post, my mind was racing. I was getting all up on my high horse wanting to punch Ms. Child-Free from Tacoma, WA in the kisser and tell her to stick it where the sun don’t shine. I was cheering on Newspaper Lady screaming Yes! Yes! You tell her Newspaper Lady! I had so many emotions I didn’t know what to do. Should I email it to all my mom friends? Should I post it to Facebook? Nah, I will blog it of course!

[click on the picture to open in a new window. hold ctrl and push + to zoom in if needed]

I just loved Newspaper Lady’s description of a mother’s life. Any mother’s life. Work inside or outside the home, it doesn’t matter. When you become a mother your entire life changes. Justlikethat. And nobody, nobody, but another mother, can ever understand that change.

I guess I said all that to say this – let’s all put down our Hammer o’ Judgment. Next time you feel compelled to ask yourself what in the world your mom friends could possibly do with all that “free time” just take a deep breath… and then reach alllllllll the way around and kick yourself in the ass. Kidding. Just remember that we’re all different. We are (mostly) all working hard at whatever we’ve chosen to do no matter what or where that takes place. I have never met anyone who appreciates assumptions being made about their life. That being said I will be so bold as to assume you don’t appreciate that either.

Now, with all of that being said, isn’t my Hobo and her guardian angel amazing?

75 days to Mommas graduation!