When the Season is Hard | For the New Mama

Dear new Mama that is struggling because the season is hard,
The beginning of motherhood is not defining of the rest of motherhood.
No single season is.

I first wrote this years ago, but there are so many dear friends that are with child during this worldwide pandemic – facing unknowns, changed plans, disappointments, hardships, and loneliness that I wanted to share this again. I have changed just a little bit to reflect the years that have passed and some for clarity.

I am so thankful for the passage of time and God’s grace. I don’t talk about it much, but the honest truth is that the beginning of motherhood was painful and lonely and hard for me.

13 years ago everything hurt – welcoming your sweet new babe into the world isn’t suppose to be so lonely. It isn’t suppose to hurt so much. A mama’s arms should never be deprived of the warmth and weight of her little one, her heart shouldn’t ache knowing he slept away from her, amongst monitors and cords.

13 years ago a little boy entered the world five weeks early and just 3 weeks after a move across country. We had no friends or family in our new town and my husband was out of town {but did make it back just in time for the birth.}

I had been to (what we came to call our home) church a few times in the three weeks I had lived there and on the day I went into labor I called one of the church ladies. I had no car and didn’t even know where the hospital was. She picked me up and drove me to the hospital in a convertible.

I had no hospital bag prepared and packed. There was no birth plan. No cute outfit for baby to wear home. We hadn’t purchased our infant car seat yet. In fact, the hospital records hadn’t even been updated with my information and the lady who drove me had to go back to my apartment and sort through paperwork to find my personal copies to bring in.

Baby entered this world in the midst of chaos and with the witness of many doctors (a team was waiting for him since he was a preemie) and oodles of students who were observing the removal of my cerclage (yes, scary. In labor and cervix still tightly stitched together) and the arrival and treatment of a preemie.

I saw brief glimpses of my baby before they whisked him off. I didn’t get to hold him until he was almost 24 hours old, and then only for a few moments. The first week of his life was in the NICU and we had a total of two visitors during that lonely time. I would spend 8-12 hours sitting by his side, leaving only to go use the hospital grade pumps and then at night when Paul picked me up on his way home from work.

When my baby was finally released from the hospital I was there alone to gather him up and drive us home. Paul had to work and despite the incredible kindness of the body of believers we were plugged in with, we had only known them 4 weeks and knew no one else to call and ask for help.
Paul was suppose to be gone overnight that first night. I wept all the way home from the hospital knowing that it was just me and baby for his first night in our home.

I had to stop to pick up a prescription and remember sitting in the car trying to figure out how to stop the tears for a few moments and how to carry a newborn and my purse into a pharmacy. It was a complicated, delicate balance suddenly forced upon me and I felt fully incapable.

I remember entering the pharmacy and wondering how I was supposed to keep all these germy people away from my preemie. Someone had a nasty sounding cold and it made me pull my baby closer. When I finally was handed the medication I gratefully retreated to the silence of my car.  I cried the rest of the way back to the apartment. Tears are a gracious comforter to a weary and overwhelmed hormonal mama.

I am so very thankful that, for whatever reason, Paul was waiting back at the apartment. A sweet, unexpected surprise. He wasn’t suppose to have been there, but God graciously made it so that he was. Baby’s first night in our home, and all three of us were together.

When I became mama it didn’t feel good. It was really lonely. It hurt. There were no visitors admiring the new babe, no help, no relief for the arms that ached to hold that which had just come from the womb. It just hurt.

That introduction to motherhood was more than I could bear. I couldn’t do it. But God allows things in our life so that we will seek Him – so that we will run, tears streaming, and give Him our cares and worries and burdens.

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” {Matthew 11:28}

Rest. I needed that rest. And God graciously provided that. It all still hurt, but where there might have been bitterness and a hardened heart God worked gently to gnaw that away and show me the things that I could be thankful for.

I had an early, but otherwise healthy, baby.
I had loving and supportive friends and family that were emails and phone calls away.
I had a devoted husband, now turned daddy and I loved watching this giant of a man tenderly hold our sweet little one.
I had a home that was safe and warm.
I had plenty of food to nourish myself, and in turn my baby.
I had a heavenly Father that loved me and a Savior that died to give me eternal life.

That rough beginning was never intended to be the last chapter of my story. And, dear mama, your challenging season isn’t the final chapter of your story either. The seasons change and some of them are ridiculously harder and more challenging and, frankly, just more painful than other seasons.

When the season is hard remember that it will not last forever.
Right next to Matthew 11:28, where it tells us to come to Him, all who labor and are heavy laden, and He will give us rest, I have penned in my Bible some wise words from a friend — “we come by considering all that He endured on the cross.“

Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint. – Isaiah 40:30&31

Dear mama, turn your eyes towards Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.