To the woman who is unsure if she will ever want to become a mother.

Since having my first son/baby, I was inducted into the exclusive club of motherhood. Lots of perks come with this membership, but so do many unexpected tasks, one of which being a source of "inside information" for all other women who have not yet been admitted to our club. Friends and complete strangers have asked me questions about what its like to have a baby. Some have a gleam of dreamy, hope in their eyes when they ask me about my experience, and I can see their hunger to one day receive the title of "Mommy." while others look terrified, and ask me about my experience with all the hesitance that a new recruit would inquire about the reality of the battle field with a seasoned soldier. I try to be straight with them, and share my limited experiences in an honest way, but I myself am still learning what the title of "Mother" entails, and in many ways, I too feel on the outside of this club.

One of the most common worries, or perhaps assumptions, that I've heard is "I don't think I would make a very good mom." or "I don't think I would like being a mom." These are two very different concerns, but they both come from the same source, and that is a lack of experience as a mother. It's tough because having a child isn't anything like adopting a goldfish or buying a car. Once they are in your life, they are there to stay. Next to getting married, its the biggest commitment you could make, and no matter how you slice it, your life will never be the same again. The fears that come from what that life will look like, range from, "Will I be miserable if I have a baby?" to, "will I make the baby that I have miserable?" And it's true, if those fears turn into reality, there is nothing you can do to reverse the decision that you made to become a parent.

Like I said, when a friend or stranger would ask me questions about motherhood, I would always try to answer honestly, but it's also impossible to give any kind of insight into what another woman's experience with it would be like. I could however, promise them that many of their fears were well founded. When people tell me that they don't want to have a baby because they think it would stress them out too much, or that they are worried about never getting their body or life back, or that their relationship with their significant other would suffer, all I can do is nod and say, "Yeah, most likely." But that's not the end of the story, despite the fact that most people would stop listening at that point. All of the above are true for me. I've been stressed to the point of crawling on hands and knees, with tears pouring down my cheeks, while screaming, "I can't do this!!" (That was a rough day.) My body is mushy and saggy in places that it used to be firm and tight, and I don't stay up past 9:30pm. And when Judah is having a bad day, Hunter and I consequentially will often have an exchange of unkind, selfish words. You could say that my life is nothing at all like the one I once enjoyed, and although the trade didn't make my days easier, it absolutely made them more meaningful.

In short, you can expect the things that you fear to be a part of life with a baby. But what's difficult to explain to a woman who has never known the feeling of being a child's mother, is that there is an inexplicable love, joy, and peace that overwhelms those fears that can seem so daunting from the outside, looking in. My moments of bliss will be very different from Susie's, Katherine's, and Louise's, so I can't tell them how much motherhood will mean to them and how much it will grow them, but the reality of the beautiful changes is just as real as the painful ones.

But that is all just icing on the cake, and truly, when you get down to the heart of it, not at all what being a parent is about. I think that part of the reason why women today are so torn with the idea of becoming a mother and giving up the life they know, is because it means, once that child is born, they must sacrifice their time and desires, in order to serve the needs of their baby. In short, their life takes the backseat and the baby becomes the number one priority. When faced with this truth, juxtaposed with our culture's neon sign that says, "YOLO, You do You, Follow Your Heart, Love Yourself" it creates a comparative mindset in which the two lifestyles are weighed in order to determine which will bring the most joy/happiness. "Ugh, babies are so cute but I'll have to give up my late nights on the town with my girlfriends." or "I want to have a big family someday but not right now while I'm young and free!"

We believe that if we give up the best days of our life, our young and wild days, that we will never get them back. There seems to be a tendency for women to think that they will live THEIR lives and then when they are done "having fun" they will settle down to have kiddos. Really, when we think this way, we are just living for and thinking about ourselves, agreed? I'm not saying that this is bad. But is it fair/safe to say that this thought process, if it is the one that you follow when musing about potential parenthood, is driven by living for the comfort and pleasure of yourself?

I'm by no means an old woman. I'm still in my mid twenties and have a whole heck of a lot farther to go down the road before I can "look back" on my life and reflect on the lessons I've learned. BUT, I have gone far enough down this road to learn that the more I seek to make myself happy, the more miserable I become. I don't think this is karmic, or the universe working against my happiness. It's not like I try to go get my nails done and contract a fungal infection, then spill my starbucks, then get robbed on a cruise. When I pursue things that make me happy, they often work out, and you know I love mani-pedis, cafe au lates, and sun kissed skin as much as the next girl, but they don't fill me up. Pursuing moments to "treat yo self" isn't bad, but its very disappointing and hollow if its your only driving force.

This is why I think that women in their late thirties and forties who are all of a sudden ready to start growing their families make that decision. Its not just because biologically their clock is winding down, but they've been around the block enough times to realize that its kind of boring and depressing to live just for yourself. In fact I'd warrant that they are relieved to pour themselves and their energy into an outside vessel. What better recipient to receive it than a baby?

In short, what I'm trying to say, is that being a parent, specifically a mother, is not about you. That's the whole point. You don't have a child so that you can be happy or feel fulfilled, because believe me, there will be days when your little one makes you feel anything BUT that. It is an act of service and sacrifice, but in losing yourself, you truly do gain something far greater.

This brings me to another point, and a topic of conversation that I never thought I would let within a hundred million sentences of my blog posts. I don't like to make definitive statements about what I believe because I feel so much room for growth in my head. But here we find ourselves, in 2019 with the first state of our indivisible Nation Under God passing a law that allows an infant to be killed at full term.

Evidently, the Governor of New York praised the passage of the legislation, calling it a "giant step forward." He said, "Today we are taking a giant step forward in the hard-fought battle to ensure a woman's right to make her own decisions about her own personal health, including the ability to access an abortion," he said."With the signing of this bill, we are sending a clear message that whatever happens in Washington, women in New York will always have the fundamental right to control their own body,"

I believe that a child is human before their heart is able to even beat, but we are far past that point of reasoning now. A baby who is fully formed and capable of living independently of its mother's womb is now made vulnerable to the wishes of the woman who initially fostered it's life. The baby is not a part of her body but a resident of it. The decision for a woman to kill a child in her womb based off of the claim that she should have ownership of her body is no different from a landlord setting fire to her leased house with the tenants inside. A heart is stopped, a life is taken, and a body, removed and independent of the woman's, is harmed. Though my metaphor is weak in some major areas (i.e. her life may not be at stake in this scenario) I stand by my belief that though there be two evils, both of which posing the probability of death for either the mother or the baby, that to actively take the life of a human, whether it remain within the womb or not, is wrong. It isn't because I value the mother's life less than the child's. I am in no place to say whose life should be spared or taken any more than the doctor or mother is. However, there is a difference between premeditated murder, and the death of a patient who the doctors fought hard to save.

God help us. Our lives are not about us, and the farther we inject this poisonous belief into our systems, the farther we will go in our pursuit of whatever selfish desires we have.

Admittedly, not every woman and man should be a parent. I am not advocating for that. But seeking to serve and love nothing apart from one's happiness will prove empty and fruitless. I've said it once, and I'll say it again, but I am the number one person in need of absorbing and taking to heart this truth. I wake up each morning thinking about what it is that I want to do. I have such a difficult time parting with not only my finances, but my time. I guard it and am reluctant to give it to anything that has not been accounted for on my schedule (unless it benefits or is enjoyable for me). There is so little room in my mind and heart for anything or anyone other than myself. Being a mother makes this fault so apparent and forces you, rather rudely, out of your own self-centered world. I am very thankful that it has too, because although the process of losing the ability to live in a way that puts myself first is very painful and often, not something I enjoy, it has also slowly begun to transform the way I perceive my time on this earth and unveil, so to speak, the truth behind why I am here and what my purpose in life really is. And believe it or not, it isn't to improve my wardrobe or backpack across Europe.

There is an old saying, a very old saying, that goes something along these lines: Those who seek to gain their life shall lose it, and whosoever would lose his life for my sake shall find it.

There are so many meanings that run through out the depths of those words. I imagine phrases like these to be much like the ant colonies that my mom had us create for homeschool projects. Do you remember those? The clear sided panels that we would fill with sand and ants? I do not have the space or the writing ability to explore each direction that could be taken within this context alone, but I am becoming more confident every day that my title as mother has relieved me of a burden, even an enslavement, to my own selfish failings, and given me a purpose and peace that I never would have known otherwise. This is not accredited to my son. In fact I know that there is potential for a parent to become too wound up in their identity as a caretaker. It is through inadvertently serving the One who gifted me with Judah that I find my peace, and so it can therefore be attained in any task or title that I take on if done in glory and service of Him.

So if you are wondering if being a mother is right for you all I ask is that you be honest with yourself about why you have your doubts. Is it out of fear that you would not be enough? Because if it is, I can go ahead and tell you that you won't be. No mother ever is. But there is grace in motherhood and finding the freedom to explore that inadequacy is more liberating than you could imagine. But if it is out of fear of giving up something, like your freedom or your time or even your life, reconsider the value of those things in the state that they are currently being used. Giving them up, may in fact, bless you with so much more than you ever dreamed possible.