Michelle's maternity photography session was accompanied by her husband, who has been supportive throughout her pregnancy. Michelle used to think that motherhood was not for her but all of that changed once she turned 40. Michelle had been busy tending to her career and dreams but decided that she was ready to have a child of her own. Michelles shares her unique experience with pregnancy and details how she fell in love motherhood and her baby boy, Maverick.
It wasn’t until around 9 weeks after Maverick was born that things changed
"At a certain point, I actually wasn’t sure if I wanted to have kids. I wanted to get my college degree, enjoy life, establish my career, and travel. I always felt like I was too young to have kids and that it would limit me in pursuing my aspirations.
My husband has a daughter from his previous marriage. I met her when she was 3 and she is now 13 years old. Part of me felt satisfied with at least having a stepdaughter and having the joy of watching her grow up. The other part of me wanted to know what it was like to have my own child who would look at me the way that my stepdaughter looked at her dad.
Even at 38 I was on the fence of having my own child but I started fertility treatments because I didn’t want to regret not having kids later. Part of me was actually relieved the first couple of unsuccessful IUI tries. I was willing to accept that kids were not in my fate. The hardest part was telling my parents that I didn’t think I was going to give them grandkids.
To give it a last fair try though I did IVF for the third round. It was a horrible experience with all of the shots and side effects of the hormones but I wanted to make sure that I gave it my all. On the day of implantation, with my husband and stepdaughter by my side, I cried because even after all the trouble that I went through I still wasn't sure if this was something that I wanted to do and I knew that it was a decision that I couldn’t reverse. Part of my hesitation was that I loved my marriage and did not want it to change. My family and friends lived in a different part of the state and I felt that I wouldn’t have the needed support to care for a baby. I was going to be 40 and my husband was 50, so I wasn’t young and it was hard for me to ask him to start all over again. I also feared that I would get postpartum depression. After crying for an hour I still decided to go through with the implantation.
The IVF was a success and I was pregnant. I thought that my outlook on having a baby would change but it didn’t. I couldn’t come to the realization that there was a human inside of me. I just saw ‘it’ as cells and science. I had a lot of complications with the pregnancy that put me in and out of the hospital. I had a lot of doctor and specialist appointments, I had to continue the hormone shots for the first trimester, and I suffered from several large fibroids going through necrosis which was excruciatingly painful. I almost had to terminate the pregnancy because of the pain but bore through it with careful watch from the doctors and specialists. I hated being pregnant and still wondered if I made the right choice.
My sister also got pregnant 4 months after I did. It was nice to go through pregnancy with my sister. We approached things so differently. While she didn’t love being pregnant either, she was so happy to be having a baby. She read all the books, took classes, cried when she heard her baby’s first heartbeat. She was over the moon. I wished that I had that same feeling.
Even after I had my baby I wasn’t attached. The first couple of months were expectedly hard with no sleep and having to feed the baby every 2-3 hours. I felt like a slave. My husband and stepdaughter were so supportive though and my parents came to help which was great. I think that support alone kept me from getting depressed. Watching how much my husband and stepdaughter loved the baby made me so happy.
It wasn’t until around 9 weeks after Maverick was born that things changed. Something hit me and I fell in love.
Shortly after I started to get attached, COVID-19 hit. While the pandemic has been horrible, I am truly thankful for the quality time that it has given me with my family and especially my son. Raising a baby under quarantine has been a blessing. My husband would otherwise be travelling for work every week but has been home to experience every bit of Maverick’s first year of life. The four of us get to do more things together that would have been lost in the hustle and bustle of life like it did pre-Covid. One of my fears of having a kid was getting FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) but with everything and everyone on lockdown there hasn’t been much to miss out on. The unfortunate part however is not being able to see my parents, my sister and brother-in-law and their new baby. Thank goodness for FaceTime.
I never thought I would be the person to have their phone filled with thousands of pictures of their baby doing the most mundane things. I actually look at the pictures before I go to sleep at night as they bring me joy. I hated breastfeeding in the beginning and couldn’t wait for the minimum 6 months to be up, but I’ve been breastfeeding for almost a year. Working from home during the pandemic allows me to just be down the hall and I still get to feed Maverick throughout the day. I look forward to those breaks to spend time with him. I love it when he looks at me, when he puts his palm on my chest, the way he smiles when he sees my husband, and the way he plays with his sister. Watching him hit his milestones like smiling, laughing, dancing, and communicating through pointing, has been the highlights of my days especially during the pandemic.
He is turning 1 next month and it has been a fun ride. I may not have had the ideal experience in becoming a mother, but it was mine and it was perfect for me. I realized that this was one of the best decisions that I had made."
0 Comments