My success as a mother

Since I wrote that post on redefining my success, I've been thinking a lot around my role as a mother.

What does it mean (to me) to be a successful mother?

I've always, ALWAYS, even in the good old days when I thought the journey to children would be quick and painless (ha!), thought that I'd be a good mother.

I had visions of my four children - yes, four - playing together, eating together, going to school, etc, etc.

Then, as I aged, the vision went to three kids, and then two. And finally, when I accepted my infertility, I really just wanted ONE child, any child.

And now I have two :)

Anyway, despite the diminishing vision of a large family, I don't think I ever let go of the romance of parenthood. You know, similar to the twin romance thing I've spoken about before.

I think it's because I've been really good at everything I've ever set my mind to in life (well, except SPORT! Have no co-ordination with ball sports whatsoever!) and naturally, I thought I'd be a good mother too.

And then the reality of parenthood set in...

1. First the babies came early despite me having a really good pregnancy.
2. Then there was the NICU stay.
3. And then there was Kendra. D reminded me of those days the other day just when I was getting misty-eyed about that newborn stage. My word! I honestly don't know HOW we survived. It was by the grace of God (Kendra's second name is Grace, by the way).
4. Her eternal screaming .... and formula issues.... remember she hardly ate a thing for 8 weeks, from the time she came out of hospital until 1 October (otherwise known as The Day We Put Kendra on Novalac AC).
5. And through it all, the sleep issues. Which, I now find out, are really not that bad (but that's a topic for another post).
   

I really had a hard time lining up my expectations with reality. The hard work of twins has almost been a breeze by comparison.

I think it's because of a number of things:

• people don't tell you the truth (also another post!)
• there's a secrecy if you're battling emotionally (I've found that people have no problems talking about the physical work)
• infertiles are supposed to love everything about parenting (after all, you waited so long and paid such a lot of money to get the babies).

I know I felt TONS better when I started talking about the parts that are terrible about this mothering thing. Yes, I felt guilty in the beginning but I soon realised that most people feel the same things but just don't talk about it.

I honestly thought that I was the only one with baby problems because all over Facebook, real life and the blogosphere, I'd hear/ read things like, "oh motherhood is SO wonderful, I love being a mommy, etc, etc" all of which made me feel worse and worse.

Surely I can't be the worse mother in the world???

At one of our infertility group meetings, one brave girl shared that she was on anti-depressants.... turns out 90% of the people there were in the same boat but too scared to say so.

This secrecy thing is killing us!

So, sleeping through the night.

Since the severe sleep deprivation of the early days, my goal and dream has to have the babies sleeping through the night.

And I realised something the other day - the reason I'm so hung up about sleep is not about the babies - it's about ME.

I can't get them to sleep through so I feel like a bad mother and that means I'm a failure.

Which is just crazy. But it's what I've been thinking, deep down.

Because when I looked at my success pages, I saw nothing about sleep - instead my goal is to have healthy, happy, thriving babies.

They certainly are all that and more.

So when my natural tendency to stress about the sleep starts taking over, these days I'm chanting, "my success as a mother is not dependent on my babies sleeping through the night."

And you know what? I feel FREEDOM!

P.S. No pics as this is my 30-minute post for Steadymom