5 years: Since my Life Change Forever || My Motherhood Journey

5 years have passed since my womb was cut open to get a little baby out of me, this post is almost a whole month late but… better late than never.

Last time I did a walk through my motherhood journey the kid was only 2 years old you can read that here and I said on that post that it felt like I have been doing this for my whole life. Looking back now, I don’t remember how I went by life before living without him.

Once upon a time

Lets go back to the beginning of this story, I had been with my husband (yes he is my husband now but that is a story for another post) for 5 years and we were bored HAHAHAHAHA, ok no, the year before I had asked him if he saw kids in his future, you know stuff couples talk about, and he said he didn’t know yet, mind you this was a 33 years old man by then, I wonder how on earth he doesn’t know yet? In my case I always knew it was not my priority to have kids, like I wasn’t against having one, but it was not something I saw like I needed to have to be happy.

A year went by and we actually were full on living together by then, no more long distance and we were doing some renovations in the house, one thing I always had like a hard rule was I wasn’t going to get pregnant unless we had a bedroom for the kid, I didn’t want to have to share a bedroom with any potential child I feel like a couple needs its own space as well as the kids need to have their own room. With the renovations we ended up with an extra room and that was when my by then boyfriend told me we should try and seek for a baby.

When he told me this, we had discussed getting marry and he told me he didn’t wanted to get marry, he “didn’t believe in marriage” according to him, he wanted to spend his life with me but didn’t see a need to get marry, I'm not going to get too much into this here cause this is for that other post I mentioned before, but I will say once he told me he wanted to have a baby with me, it kind of solidify our relationship I saw it as a confirmation that he wanted to actually be committed to us enough to think about having to be bonded to me for the rest of his life with something that not even a divorce would be able to break, being parents of another human being.

Careful what you wish for!

Now, I have always had hormonal issues, I went by years without having my period, at first there were some cysts and to be honest I was very irresponsible with that and never had them check after the my doctor told me I had them at 18 years old I took the treatment she send but then went on to live my life and never went back to check why the treatment didn’t actually worked and I still had my super irregular period, literally could go by up to a year and a half without having a period, and if you are a woman you can imagine this was heaven for me, not having a period was AMAZING!
But then, when I started with my partner I obviously needed to have protection and started on the pill, I have to say even to this day I miss the pill, it made my period not only come back it was like clock work, every 28 days and it lasted only 3 days and It was so light verily had any pain and the bleeding was minimal (not to mention it did help me lose weight).

After 5 years on the pill, when my partner told me we should start looking for a baby, I stopped taking the pill, my thinking was, well my hormonal mess will come back and even probably the cysts I didn’t had check out before were going to be a problem, so it may take us a while, and we probably will even need to go to the doctor… We have a saying in my country is not pretty but will try to make it more PG13 “male reproductive organ of a poor man impregnates easily” and well I have to say IT IS TRUE!

I stopped taking my pills by the end of November and I was pregnant by the start of January 2018, I have to give credit to the Chain too, since I joined Steem Hive just 8 days before I got pregnant, talk about a reward payout!

I obviously didn’t know this, until 5 weeks later in February, when I don’t know why but I just knew something was off with my body, I was more sleepy than usual and was just seeing maternity stuff all the time I don’t know how to explain it honestly, on Valentine’s day, I was planning on making a 3 leches cake a a gift for my boyfriend and needed to go to the market to get some ingredients, so I went in the morning and while in the market I just thought to myself I should do a blood test (this is more common and cheaper than the drug store test) since I had a delay in period of 10 days and even tho I was assuming it was my hormonal issues I wanted to be sure.

I took the test and the lab was going to have the results in the afternoon, so I went home to wait , now the funny thing is I didn’t ended up getting the ingredients for the cake in the morning since the store was out of the stuff I needed, so I decided to try another store in the afternoon when I was supposed to go back for the results. I didn’t told my boyfriend I had taken the test, and just told him I needed to go back to get the ingredients I was missing for the cake.

The lab was closing earlier than the store so I need to go by there first, and as soon as I got the results in my hands I couldn’t wait I needed to see, I needed to know!! As soon as a unfolded the piece of paper and saw that big Positive was shocked.

My life changed and all I did was smile

I remember clearly the moment, and the one thing I know I did was smile, a man that was in the street and saw me coming out of the lab with the results in my hand must of noticed my smile cause It was not like I was showing it or anything and he just said ”Congrats” I guess he figure the results + my smile = pregnancy.

I went straight home, I didn’t even though about going to the store, I had already the best gift to give to my boyfriend for Valentine’s day, as soon as I enter the house and went to him he was just laying on the bed watching TV, and I just handed over the piece of paper to him and told him ”here is your gift for today” , and he opened it, let me tell you there is not a man more dry than my BF, he just said ”oh so this is what you were to the market for” I told him yes and he smiled and that was it. I WAS PERPLEXED, like dude I just told you we are going to be parents and you act like nothing, I was like well you are not happy about it? And he was just like “well we were trying for it, is not like is a surprise” OMG I remember it and still want to kill him.

In his defense he is like this since the day I met him so it was not unusual for him to no show any big emotions and he did had a point in the fact that we were trying so it was obviously something to be expected but hey I wanted to have like a funny WOW or something I don’t know, it doesn’t matter this is the same gift I have give to him ever since the last 5 years LOL I just point at his kid and say here it is the gift that keeps on giving every Valentine’s day.

Pregnancy

Back then my boyfriend worked a crazy schedule of 7x7 which means, he was in the field 7 days and 7 days at home, so, I was at home 7 days all alone (not truly since I do live with my mother-in-law but yeah is not the same and I felt alone) my family lives 7 hours away from us, and I had the All Day Sickness (is not just morning those are lies and we shouldn’t call them morning sickness since they last all day) My pregnancy I believe was the reason I fell in love with the chain and the community, I used to spend all day on discord just chatting in the PALNet server, and laying on bed, I just didn’t had energy, since I got pregnant in January and had the kid by the end of September it felt like I just spend a whole year pregnant.

It was only 38 weeks and 2 days, and to be honest I hated it all the time

Gender disappointment

This is something we don’t talk about much and maybe because people will judge once you say you are disappointed of the gender of your baby, but it happens and is ok being disappointed because you wanted a particular gender and turns out it wont be that, it can be disappointing, considering it takes so long to have one baby, it is freaking expensive and you don’t always want to have another, then it is ok to be disappointed the thing here to know is this doesn’t mean you wont love you kid, or that you are not happy to be pregnant with him/her.
I was afraid of not liking him, I wanted a girl and the disappointment I felt was huge, if we add to that the fact I felt horrible the whole time I was pregnant, I was really, really scared.

The love of my life

I remember the moment I knew I love him, I had travel back to my hometown for a special ultrasound where they check for any abnormalities and to see if the pregnancy is doing ok is a more in deep ultrasound than the regular one and I went there just to get it done, but when I got to my mom’s house I got a fever turns out as most pregnant women do, I had gotten a urinal infection, this was the cause of the fever.
This fever was so high I had shivers and had to be taken to the ER, while on my way there, all I did was cry, thinking that I must of done something wrong and I shouldn’t had made the trip and how it was my fault that my baby was in danger and every time I had a shiver I cried even harder thinking that if I felt this bad my poor baby was feeling even worse inside of me and it was all my fault.

The ER doctor calmed me down and explained to me what was happening and why and how my baby was actually ok and he didn’t felt any of my shivers or even knew I was having a fever. The kid was perfectly fine and I could go home nothing serious was going to happen.

This was the moment I knew I loved him, beyond my own life, I knew he was the love of my life.

Then when he was born I confirmed it, there was what I had wanted all my life to find a charming prince that would be the love of my life.

The baby stage

I have to say not only was my kid an easy baby, my partner really came through and was a hands on dad, he was not perfect and sometimes I wanted to kill him while I saw how peaceful he was sleeping while I was wide awake with his child in my arms but, I really did good picking him as the dad to my kid, we share as it should be the responsibilities and I didn’t feel alone or overwhelm with the kid.

Now this is taking care of baby talk, but what was and still is overwhelming is the crazy never ending fear of something bad happening to your kid while that you may no be able to prevent, from the moment he was born at first I thought it was cause he was so little helpless and just so delicate but, he is 5 and the fear has not left me one second, there are so many things that could harm him and if you use social media or watch TV, there is even more, I sometimes feel this is something we should talk more often so expecting moms, and women in general who are seeking to have a baby know what is in their future, like I knew as a mom is normal to always be worry but I didn’t know there would be this intense.

When he was a baby it was even more overwhelming, I really think I have learn to control it more especially since he has grown, knows how to speak and can be a bit more independent than a little baby is, and to be honest I think the pandemic was actually a good thing too, since this kept us at home, I didn’t had to worry much, but I used to have this thoughts all the time of all the stuff that could go wrong from him simply dying from sudden infant death to some crazy person kidnapping him or something, there were sleepless nights and not because the baby was awake, it was cause of my brain not being able to shut up.

Toddler

Once we got to this stage there was a new fear, to add cause Motherhood is fun, and that was the fact that he didn’t talked, so there was the possibility of him having some development issues, being on the spectrum or having a physical disability with his ears, so that was fun, and I know a lot of people told me to just wait and give him time that he would eventually be talking that not all kids develop at the same time and each kid is unique, and I know this, I know, but as a mom this is something that even if you try you cant help to worry about.

He was born 2 years before the pandemic but was a toddler during it, so this for me made him a pandemic baby, he was too young this I think held him back a bit with his speech since I couldn’t just let him interact with other kids. Also, he is the kind of kid who gets bored really easily so keeping him entertained was not always easy, even tho we have a huge backyard, and his dad even made a small pool area for him to play in, he always wanted to go out and it was difficult to explain that we couldn’t to this little guy of 2 years old.

Preschooler

As soon as he turned 3 we enrolled him on the school, I was so afraid he didn’t speak yet and my fear of him not being able to tell me if something bad had happen to him was something difficult to overcome but that didn’t last long, not even a week, School is for me the best thing that happen to my kid, on the first day of school he left the diapers and never needed it again, and by the end of the week the kid that didn’t spoke not even said mom, was speaking more than 50 words!!!

School was a fun thing to have while on a pandemic, he had hybrid classes, one week in school, one week online, also when he went to the school, he needed to maintain the biosecurity protocols in place, he was only 3, and even tho being raise during a pandemic help with him being used to this, it was difficult to say the least.

But he is smart and loves school, he really like his classmates and teachers, we are lucky his school is big and has a lot of extracurricular activities.

From not speaking even a word to never shutting up

I saw the speech therapist who treated him before he got in the school and asked her if there was a way to reverse a bit the work she had done to my kid, cause OMG, he talks ALL THE TIME, like there is nothing he is not thinking about that he doesn’t feel the need to speak about.

I don’t want to complain about everything but really He never shuts up 🤪he wants to share every piece of information with everyone and this sometimes can be a bit embarrassing lol. I do love he speaks his mind, really is a smart kid and always has the sweetest things to say to me. The fact that his so vocal about his love the best part of it all, his dad like I said before is so dry he could be held at gunpoint and still wouldn’t say I love you to save his life, and don’t @ me saying he doesn’t say it cause he doesn’t love me, is not that, he doesn’t even says it to his mom and I know for a fact and without a doubt he loves his mom. So, to have a mini version of the dad but more affectioned is one of the best things ever.

The boobs and the freedom

The kid was breastfed for 4 years and 6 months, and this was something that made it difficult for me to do a bunch of stuff, he was exclusively breastfed for the first year of his life and it was on demand kind of situation, this meant that he got the boobs time whenever he wanted to, usually every couple of hours, this left me with little to no time for anything else.

As he was growing one would think he would start eating more solids and leave behind the boobs, but nope, this was a main concern at first cause he really didn’t like to eat much and I was afraid he would go anemic or something, but once I took him to the doctor and they made all the tests, it was determined that he was as healthy as could be and actually a bit overweight LOL even tho he didn’t ate much!

A major factor for me to continue with the long-term breastfeeding of him was that he was such a healthy kid, even with covid all around us, he never got even a cold, the few times he got sick was mainly cause of food poisoning but other than that he was healthy as can be, and this was all thanks to the breast milk.

But, it was starting to really make me feel trapped, for starters, he only was falling sleep with me cause he used to breastfed for sleeping, also, in the middle of the night use to search for the boobs so, he was still co-sleeping with us, to add salt to the wound, last year when the Caracas Blockchain Week went on, I couldn’t go, cause I couldn’t leave him, he still was breastfeeding so leaving him was not an option. This made me feel so much FOMO you have not idea!

To be honest it was my fear of him not being protected by the breast milk the one thing holding us back, but then I had to go to the doctor to my gynecologist because my period was again acting out and since I wasn’t on the pill cause I got my tubs cut when my kid was born, this was an issue I had to finally deal with, my doctor told me it was the breast feeding that was messing with my hormones, and what was causing me to not have a period, so I needed to stop the breastfeeding 🫠

To be honest the whole weaning process was quicker than what I thought, the kid understood that breastfeeding was actually doing me harm and he didn’t want to be the cause of his mom being sick, and it took us just a a few days of him saying goodbye to his boobs lol.

My best friend

5 years are the golden age in my opinion and taking into account that I don’t have other kids to compare lol don’t take my word as law but, in my case this is true.

He is the most sweet and gentle and he is so affectionate, is impossible to know him and not like him, he is also a well behave kid, still a kid tho so he is always doing some crazy stuff I need to save him from, but he is not a spoiled brat, he is respectful of his older and helpful, always looking for ways to help and be kind to others.

I consider him my best friend cause we spend all day together after he gets out of school and we are always planning new games or stuff to do. He makes my days better just by looking at his face, he is something I didn’t know I needed but came into my life to make it better in every way possible.

I love watching and how his train of though works, how he is learning something new every day, discovering new things and seeing him try things without a fear in his body, seeing him happy and sleep in peace every night I could watch him forever.

It hasn’t been easy but there is no regret

I never thought I would love to be a mom, but now I don’t remember what was life like before meeting my kid, I wouldn’t go back for anything in the world, having him is the best decision I made in my life and I will be forever be grateful I got to enjoy him as my child.

As always, thank you for reading me, would love to read about your own experience on this, so please leave a comment or better yet, make a post in The Motherhood Community.

_{Picture Credits: All images are of my property unless said otherwise, the emojis are made with Bitmoji.com & Icons with icons8
Disclaimer: This is an alt account to post personal and short content, for Hive tutorials, initiatives and more please go to my main account @victoriabsb}