When becoming a mom is everything and nothing like you thought it’d be

This year as Mother’s Day approaches, I’ve been thinking a lot about this journey of motherhood I’ve been on. Mine has included four live births, a d&c to save my own life, and two miscarriages. And those are just the babies. This has been one of forgiveness, grace, love, loss, anticipation and expectation, exhaustion, ease and difficulties, and lots of hope.

I dream of this bridge a lot. I never know where it’s going, why I’m on it, where it’s taking me or if I’ll make it. Sometimes it’s a ladder and I just keep climbing higher and higher, and when I’m not sure I can go any further, I turn back and there’s my Grandpa Cal, encouraging me to take one more step, telling me I’m going to be okay and I can do it. Today I’m back on that bridge.

This post was going to be a lot different until this thing happened earlier today so I deleted it all and started again. This man I’ve known for a few years, who knows I have raised my oldest son on my own, during a conversation about what my son will do after graduation, told me that his “dad did a good job raising him.” This seriously triggered me.

STOP RIGHT THERE. I felt this anger rise up from my belly and through my heart, landing as a lump in my throat. What the hell?! Who says that? NO! I did a good job raising him!

I decided I’m done being ashamed and hiding and pretending like this doesn’t happen ALL.THE.TIME, and as though my story is something to be ashamed of. I know if it happens to me, it happens to other women as well. I’ve been dealing with this now for 18+ years and I’m over it. This isn’t something I talk about much. I assume people just know I had to be young. They have no problem asking me if he sees his father. I’ve gotten really good at making things up or just dodging the question. Neither feels good, but I know people aren’t prepared for the truth, so I lie. I have carried this shame with me for so long now, I simply can’t any more because I realize, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Brené Brown says that, “shame needs three things to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence, and judgement.”

I have been living under the heaviness of these three things that the weight is now too heavy to carry. I feel fear interwoven with courage, strength and truth.

His ‘father’ should be in jail for what he did to me, yet I learned at a young age that the fucking patriarchy has a ridiculous amount of power on how things go, and that as an 18-year-old woman, trying to report a rape, I gave up right then and there at the police station. The police told me because I was young and that he was someone I knew, the court would throw it out; that the stress caused by me reporting the rape wasn’t worth it, and I should just move on with my life.

So I did. I moved on with my life. I’ve never complained about having become a young mom or that I carried this baby considering what happened. I loved him and perhaps my perception of this pregnancy was different because I was in a loving relationship when I was raped and we thought the baby was his. The possibility of conceiving while on your period is really low and after talking it over with the Ob, we decided to keep him. While that relationship didn’t last, of course the child did.

Even with the difficulties, I never complained about the sleepless nights or missing out on a ‘normal’ college experience. He was never a burden. He made me a mom, an identity that I identified with so deeply, I could never imagine my life without him. I stayed driven and determined to achieve my goals and prove everyone wrong. I completed a bachelor’s degree with a minor in four years. I worked close to full-time and had my son 100% of the time. We traveled and explored the world as much as we could. I provided him everything I could.

My first-born was a son I did not choose to conceive, but he is a child I chose, to keep and love and raise as best I could. Never in my life did I think people would have so many questions, opinions about my choices and a child I clearly loved, and that some people would try to use it to hurt me, to say I was “raped,” as though I was lying. Those things used to really bother me because who were they to try to make me feel bad about myself and my child?

I know my story is not truly unique. I know horrible, unfortunate things happen to women. I know it doesn’t matter how a child is brought into this world as a gauge of how much they will be loved or that their life is worth is less because they weren’t born into a two parent home. Motherhood is fucking hard enough; no woman should ever be shamed for how they became a mother whether their child is alive, with them, or not. It is raw, joyful, heart-wrenching, fulfilling and yet not, ugly, hard, beautiful, powerful, a complete roller coaster of emotions. It is endless love.

This is my 19th Mother’s Day. I’ve been a mother for my entire adult life. As part of my journey I’ve had to give myself so.much.grace. I have forgiven myself a million times. These kids I’ve brought into this world are so much more than I could ever have asked for, that even when I don’t know how I will do it another day, I do. For them, and for me because becoming a mom is the one thing I always knew I wanted to do and that I felt confident in, and even though I’m a mom like so many others out there, I’m really proud of the mom I am, of my conviction in how I want to raise my kids, and the woman I have become. The path so far has been like climbing mountain after mountain, slaying dragons and cutting back overgrown forests just to get here…I wouldn’t have it any other way because without the choices I’ve made, I wouldn’t have these kids or this life.