never the same

People will say of having children, that afterward things are never the same.

(Jeff, Benjamin, and Mindy - December 18, 2002)

When you become a parent, your life changes dramatically. Gone are the lazy Saturday mornings. Vanished is the possibility of a spontaneous (child-free) date with your spouse. You now schedule appointments, outings, and shopping excursions around your child's schedule - or possibly the financial possibility and availability of a babysitter.

People try to prepare you for the inevitable changes, but nothing they say or do can ever really communicate what it will be like. And of course, different people have different experiences. Mothers endure hormonal shifts, the baby blues, postpartum depression, difficulties with a nursing relationship, seeming to have not enough milk, having far too much milk, engorgement, colicky little ones, babies who eat near-endlessly, quick recoveries, slow and painful recoveries, grief over the birth experience, wonderful births, chubby babies, low-weight babies, sick babies, healthy babies, early sleepers, and sleepless nights that seem endless.

There are mothers with amazing support systems, and mothers who have no support at all. There are mothers with attentive, eager, active husbands, and mothers whose husbands simply don't participate in baby care. There are mothers who are bonded more closely than ever with their baby's father, and mothers whose relationship ends up suffering. There are mothers who spring back to their pre-baby weight effortlessly, and mothers who fight (desperately) for every pound closer they get to those favorite jeans.

Mother - parenting - is complex and intricate. It utilizes every resource, causes you to stretch, strengthens creativity. It changes you.

You can never look at a piece of furniture, or a kitchen knife placed too near the edge of the counter, or a pair of baby socks, in quite the same way again. Something vital and personal has changed...forever.

Becoming a parent means setting aside selfishness and your own agenda, and working for the greater good. It means loving someone else more than you love yourself.

And it's just the beginning.

(Benjamin - December 18, 2002)

Because once we hold this precious new life in our arms, life is never the same. We are never the same. Forever changed - forever learning - seeking to discover just who this little one is, and the person we are becoming because of him. It's a beautiful, trying, stretching process.

And I wouldn't trade it for the world.

¹⁷Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. -- James 1:17