Let's Talk Motherhood - Seasons of Life

I'm so excited to be back this month with the Let's Talk Motherhood series! I've teamed up with some amazing moms to share in a conversation from each of our perspectives on different seasons of life. These bloggers have answered the following questions on their own websites, and all of their perspectives are linked at the end of this post for you to read! This interview collaboration series was created to connect, encourage, share, and relate with other moms. No matter how different our perspectives may be, we're all in this amazing and challenging journey of motherhood together.

On different seasons of life as a mother:

1. What is something you want to remember about this particular season of your life? I think above all, I want to remember how happy I am right now. I also want to remember the little things, like how Conrad is in the drunken baby stage of walking, and how he is constantly chatting to himself and everyone around him. I want to remember how much Conrad laughs when we chase him, and how he'll grab my hand and start walking. How he talks the whole time we're on our morning walks and how much of a personality he is developing. This is such a joyful season of life for me as a mother, and I just really want to remember that.

2. Through each new milestone in your child's life, (like the transition from crawling to walking or gaining independence in other ways) how have you adapted and transitioned your own life as well? It's interesting, because I think the biggest thing I've learned from each new milestone is that everything gets easier, and harder - at the same time. Once he started walking, I didn't have to hover over him 24/7 - but now I have to chase him down before he gets into things he shouldn't. It's awesome he can feed himself better now, but now he's starting to throw his food too. Like I said, it gets easier and it gets harder. But I feel like I struggled to adapt to the milestones at first. It was hard for me to let go of each stage of Conrad's life and I felt like time was so fleeting that I was reluctant to move forward. Yet other times, I was so desperate for sleep that I would long for seasons of life in the future when I wouldn't be up throughout the night. But as this first year of motherhood has gone by, I am learning to embrace each milestone and allow myself to be more flexible and more patient with myself and others. I'm letting go of what I had in mind before and just going with it.

3. What was the transition into motherhood like for you? How did you manage adjusting to such a different season of life? The transition into motherhood for me was devastatingly hard if I'm being honest. While I've always wanted to be a mom, I didn't feel ready to be one when I found out I was pregnant. Then, the intensity of Conrad's delivery and the time in the NICU created a whole new set of challenges. I struggled with severe postpartum depression and anxiety, along with PTSD from the delivery, so it was difficult for me to adjust for quite some time. It took a lot of faith, and a lot of hard work, and a lot of leaning on my husband for support to find my rhythm with motherhood. It's crazy to look back on how difficult those days were and how much I struggled to embrace motherhood, because now I can't imagine life any other way - and wouldn't ever want it any other way.

4. In three words, how would you describe your current season of life? Peaceful. Joyful. Exhausting.

5. What advice would you give to mothers that are struggling to embrace the season of life they are in? Give yourself some grace. It's okay if you're struggling to embrace where you're at (the entire 7th month of my sons life was pretty miserable for us all with 6 teeth coming in at once and a sleep regression - I get that not every season of life is going to be a happy one), but don't let your mind get trapped in the past or the future. Be mindful and practice gratitude. Be kind to yourself and know that you can find joy in every single day. My advice would be to start a gratitude practice! Doing that has genuinely changed my life and has helped me so much to embrace the now. The harder you search for reasons to be thankful for the present moment, the easier it will become to see that there is good in every season of life, no matter what it may look like.