Mother's Day Thoughts

So it’s my first “official” mother’s day. Last year I was sort of a mother, with a plum sized child, but this time... He’s about 17 lbs and very much a real member of our family.

People always say, “You don’t know what love really means until you have your own child. Then you realize that you love even more than you knew you were capable of.”

While I thought these were sweet mushy-gushy words, I never really believed that I would attest to that. I never thought I would be protective or have that “motherly instinct.”

Fin’s eardrum burst again this week. That wasn’t the worst part. The night preceding the eruption, Fin had been up all night in intense discomfort. Because he can’t talk yet, a guessing game begins. I’m not the best guesser at 3 in the morning.

We tried everything. We changed him, fed him, held him, sang to him, undressed him, and finally we decided he might be too congested to breathe. In the middle of the night, Will put the restless and emotionally frail child on the changing table and preceded to bulb his nose.

While Fin has always hated this…I have never heard him scream like he did. He was in pain and tired, and his cry was just one of intense discomfort. He was screaming because of the additional pain we were causing. While I knew this was what was best for him, it literally felt like my heart was being ripped from my chest.

I understand babies cry, and I’m the first one to tell you that crying babies are normal. I hate it when parents think their child must always be pleased and never unhappy. But at that 3am hour, I had to leave the room with tears in my eyes, because I couldn’t bear to see my child hurt like that.

You never know what it means to love until you have a child.

What’s interesting about my profession…is that I have 23 additional children. While I don’t share those 3am moments with them, I spend seven and a half hours with them. Some of the kids have no mom. Some have an absent mom. Some have an uneducated mom. And suddenly I find myself becoming a comforter, protector, educator, and encourager to 23 additional children who don’t share any DNA with me.

On this mother’s day, I’m overwhelmed with how blessed I am. I am so thankful for Fin and the joy he brings to me. I am so thankful for Will and the ways that he teaches me how to love. And I’m so thankful for the 23 other children who teach me even more about being a mom.