Five Years Ago
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I’m frosting the cake on my daughter’s fifth birthday. It’s a delicious looking cake, and I’ve eaten almost half the frosting already. I decided to indulge my sweet tooth, plus Guin said she wanted a black cake (chocolate) for her birthday. So, we are making a double chocolate layer cake with peanut butter buttercream frosting, topped with chocolate ganache, crumbled Reese’s cups and Reese’s pieces. I’m putting on the final touches when it hits me. FIVE years ago, my oldest daughter was born. That means that FIVE years ago, I became a mom.
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I remember that evening like it was yesterday. We had spent the previous night in the hospital because I thought I was in labor. I was 5 days overdue, I had been having contractions every 5 minutes for a couple hours and I figured this was it. No, they didn’t hurt but I just figured that I was tough like that. I figured that labor wasn’t going to be painful for me. Boy was I wrong! So, we had spent an uneventful night in that hospital bed, going from 1 cm dilated to maybe a generous 1 1\2 cm. We got sent home, feeling tired, drained, and oh so done with this pregnancy! That night though, as I was trying to get some sleep between contractions, my water broke. It was like a big balloon inside me kept getting bigger and I literally heard a “Pop!” and I knew this was finally it! Another tell tale sign of my ignorance- I figured since my water had broke already, there wouldn’t be any more liquid coming out so I simply put a thin pad in my underwear and off we went to the hospital. When we arrived, my pants were completely soaked and I waddled inside feeling like a complete noob.
Guinevere Irene was born that following day just after noon. I remember getting upset at my nurse because she told me to try a football hold to nurse my daughter, that maybe she would latch better that way. But I had never seen my mom nurse that way so I was determined that I absolutely would not try anything different. That first night was tiring as she just wanted to nurse the whole time. At approximately 3 am I rolled Guin in her crib to the nurse’s station, bawling and asking if someone could look after her while I went bathroom. I was too scared to leave her by herself for even a few minutes. I came out of the bathroom and the nurse said, “I think she’s just hungry!” I felt like I was going to pull my hair out, “what do you think I’ve been doing for the last 5 hours?!” My introduction to motherhood wasn’t as easy as I had been expecting. Walking into the hospital that night before, I thought I knew everything I needed to know. Walking out of the hospital the following day, this façade was left shattered behind me in the hospital room.
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I try to dissect my emotions- how does this realization make me feel? It feels like the years have flown by in a flash- how can that night be five years ago already? How can I have a daughter old enough to go to school? All her milestones are just one big blur. A few memories jump out at me; Guin with a tiara on her head at her first birthday party; swimming with her at the lake the summer before Emerson was born; her hands around my neck for her good morning squeeze; her blabbering on her phone while acting like me- I don’t really look like that, do I? How are those moments already just memories, all jumbled together?
While it feels like it has gone so fast, I also feel like I’ve been a mom forever. Mom life and my daily mom routines are so normal. Long gone are the days before kids. It’s normal to wake up without needing to be at my job for a certain time. It’s normal to have a flexible schedule. It’s normal to look forward to naptime and quiet time. To cook supper everyday and do the dishes afterwards. How distant seem the days when this was not my life.
The paradox of time- sometimes going too fast and sometimes going too slow.
