Why I had to let go of the “mom guilt”

I was 41 when I discovered that I was pregnant with Hamish.

I had long since given up the idea of raising small babies, was by no means broody, and in 2015 had 4 adult and 2 teenage children.

Missed periods and pink lines

I remember the sunny morning that I decided to test for pregnancy after missing my period.

Brent had gone to work, and I had taken the day off as I was feeling nauseous, dizzy, and just generally under the weather. I was convinced it was because we had been incredibly busy that weekend and maybe I had eaten something that hadn’t agreed with me.

Not feeling any better by lunchtime, I decided to throw caution to the wind and just check that I wasn’t pregnant. After all the symptoms were starting to feel nostalgically familiar, and although I was on birth control, it wouldn’t be the first time birth control had let me down.

We were living in a two bedroom rented flatlet , across the road from a little shopping center and a clicks pharmacy.

Quickly putting on some shoes, I took a walk to the corner pharmacy. The cool Cape winds instantly made me feel better as I entered the store.

Inside, a mild rush of panic came over me. Surely, I was being silly, I thought to myself as I grabbed a pregnancy test, some mint sweets, and a new red hair dye. May as well dye my hair while I had the day off and take my mind off my now week late period.

Walking back home, I reminded myself that I was infact too old to have a baby, and it would be a funny story to share with Brent when he got home.

Twenty minutes later, I sat, wide-eyed on the bed, hardly believing what I had seen. Convinced I was wrong but knowing that those pink lines don’t lie.

Reflections in the mirror

Having become a mom in my teens, I was 17 with my first child. I grew into motherhood with each of my 6 children as well as into adulthood.

I had fumbled my way through bringing them up. I had done the best I knew how with what I knew and the limited resources that 90’s offered young moms.

Whilst I worked out the home when my oldest three were babies, there came a time where childcare for 6 children was more costly than my salary and it just made sense  that I then dedicated my life to being a stay at home, homeschool mom.

I loved being a mom, I still do, and being able to be at home, teaching my children, was and always will be my favorite memories.

However, most of this was done in isolation, without support and with no family of my own after my grandmother passed away in 2003, and with total reliance on my then husband.

Occasionally, we belonged to a church group or made friends in the neighborhood, but we moved provinces so often for my ex husbands work that keeping in contact was hard. These friendships often fell away. With no social media and homeschool support groups, homeschooling was rewarding but incredibly lonely as a mom.

I spent much of my life isolated, in a small bubble of happiness, and although I was content, in hindsight, I can see just how unhealthy was for me and my children.

I separated from my ex-husband in 2013.

This was one of the hardest transition of my life.

Alone, with no family or friends who could guide or support me and now financially responsible after years of dependency, left me depressed, anxious, and grasping at straws.

At the time, my rent was R3500 before electricity and food, and my salary was R2500. Maintenance was not consistent and didn’t come close to covering the short fall.

I’d changed jobs from child care to restaurant manager to try keep our head above water, but this meant my children were alone for long periods of time and I got to spend no time with them during the weekend.

I was depressed, exhausted and fighting endless battles with my children who were acting out due to losing the stability of having me at home and the financial pressure our home was in.The endless guilt of serving my children rice with gravy or watery soup for supper and the uncertainty of not knowing who to turn to for guidance.

We were sinking …fast! 

The hardest decision I have ever had to make was to send my children to live with their dad because financially I just could not support them and even though my mother heart broke that day and I spent a few months wallowing in heartache, as I had no vehicle so would not be able to see them, I knew that they wouldn’t go to bed hungry and they could go to school without worrying about if they had lunch for the day or not.

This is the comfort I held onto each day.

So, I was not in an emotionally good space when I’d met Brent just over a year before I now sat on our bed looking at the two pink lines that would map out our future.

Slowly, I was adjusting to learning to live with only seeing my children occasionally as my ex-husband would change his mind on visitation at a whim.

I was thankfully, even with his irregular visitation, still seeing them more regularly than I had when they first moved to their dad, as Brent was amazing at driving me to fetch them and we would take the children out, creating the family memories I could only dream of when they were little.

However, I was still missing the everyday moments and milestones. 

Along with my guilt and pain of not having the children with me, in the passing months, I had just discovered the freedom of going to the bathroom without little people needing me. I was learning who I was and still discovering the woman inside me.

So, on seeing those two lines. I didn’t feel the euphoric rush of joy that most new moms feel.

I felt panicked! 

I was working in childcare and loved my job. However, it certainly wasn’t going to be enough to sustain me and a baby.

To make matters even more complicated, Brent and I had only been dating about a year. He was great with my kids, whom we saw every two weeks and on occasional holidays, but did he want to, or could he emotionally at almost 50 , become a dad again?

Also, how do you explain an oops! In your 40s? When society and women’s magazines tell you how much control you have over your body and choices?

I cried for a long time that afternoon. Long, hard, ugly tears between anxiety ridden sobs.

Hello Daddy

Brent came home to a beautifully cooked meal and a much more composed girlfriend that evening. Somewhere into our meal, I produced the pregnancy test ,like a magician revealing magic from a big black top hat.

He was silent as his eyes fell on the plastic tube that I had unceremoniously flashed before his eyes . His only words before wrapping me into his arms were, ” I’ll support you,  no matter what you want to do.”

That night, I cried many more ugly tears. I cried for my children whom I missed tremendously, for the memories and moments I had and was losing with them, for the moments I felt I had failed, for the uncertainty of what to do , for the guilt of loving a little baby if my other children weren’t with me and for the love of the only person who had ever let me be vulnerable enough for them to be strong for me.

That night, I cried ! 

I cried for love, for loss, for hope. 

A fluttering

By the next morning, I was ready to take on our new chapter and let the adventure begin.

I woke to the sound of the birds chirping in the trees outside, and I knew that God had answered a silent prayer. He knew my heart. He knew my longing, and he knew I needed to heal in the only way I knew how …as a mom.

That morning, as I leaned over a sleeping Brent and planted a kiss on his cheek, I knew I’d been given a second chance.

None of my fears or anxieties had calmed. I still held the weight of the world and a bucket full of mom guilt on my shoulders, but I felt the smallest sliver of joy.

Like my heart could beat again !

Suddenly, I recognized the woman looking back at me in the mirror. She knew who she was. No longer did she need to try to find herself. No longer was she searching for who she was meant to be.

A different beginning

The rest, as they say, is history.

In those 9 months, my mom guilt grew. I struggled to feel joy when I missed my other children. I felt guilty about the moments that I was excited about the baby because I was missing so much of their lives.

Their anger and pain and divorce trauma weighed heavily on me, and as they acted out, I took each action personally. Another knick in the heart ,another moment I had failed, another mark that the little baby I was bringing into this world may have been better elsewhere.

Each day, Brent patiently weathered the storms of my emotions and watched me melt into the only role I truly knew … of mom.

He loving listened to my fears, my pain, the guilt I felt, and he gently reminded me of how we could infact do this. We could raise a child together, with the knowledge we had gained over 20 odd years of parenting, with the hindsight of life having dealt us a few knocks along the way and with each other to lean on.

I’d never known this kind of unconditional support. 

I’d spent a lifetime relying on myself emotionally, even in my previous marriage. I’d carried burdens I didn’t know how to share as my role was of the “strong” one, the person others came to.

To have someone there for me was new and frightening. I rebelled against it often, not trusting the words I heard, and each time, he would hold me closer until the day I heard his words and believed them.

A baby and a broken leg

Just after midnight on the 22 of September 2016, we welcomed our larger than life, little red head, Hamish into this world.

Brent stood loving looking into his newborn son’s eyes, telling me that this was his chance to redo the things he felt he had failed at with his oldest son.

I don’t think I have ever loved him more than in that moment.  He was promising the best of himself to this tiny baby, and in turn, he was promising the best of himself to me.

Later that morning, in the darkness, as I nestled my little boy to my chest, I cried. Soft, quiet tears. Months of emotions came pouring out, and I remember looking down at his perfectly formed little face and promised that I would do all the things I felt I hadn’t for his siblings for him.

But, I struggled with the guilt that ate at me in the first few weeks. 

I struggled to hold and enjoy my baby or buy him something without including his siblings who did not live with us.

My home didn’t magically feel like the home I’d had with my older children. It wasn’t loud and busy. It wasn’t full of children needing me, talking my ear off, and making piles of dishes in the sink for me to moan about.

In fact, it felt sadder, more lonely. It was a house without a heart.

My guilt grew even more. How could I be surrounded by the cutest little boy and the most loving man and yet still feel so empty and lonely?

Whilst my children were visiting and my one son, Shaun lived with us…I missed having all my children at home. My guilt now was no longer for how much of their lives I was missing but also how much they were missing getting to know their brother and how much he was missing having them in his life.

And then, I broke my leg when Hamish was 5 weeks old. I had to have surgery. Leave a tiny baby with his dad and would spend the next few months recovering and being almost bed bound.

Leaving my 5 week old baby with his dad was not something I had ever done. I’d only ever left my children to go into hospital overnight to deliver a sibling and in the 20 odd years of bringing up my older children before they went to their dad I had spent one night away when I drove with a friend to Port Elizabeth from Aberdeen and one night when I went away with a friend after coming to Cape Town.

I wasn’t prepared for the rush of emotions that hit me. 

I felt like I had failed him already. Unable to be truly happy and now to have to leave him.

That night, alone in the quiet hospital as the moon shone gently through the window, I was scrolling through my Facebook memories when I came across a poem that I had shared often, that I had read religiously and that I used as a comfort on the days when the sink over flowed with dishes or the laundry pile looked like a new mountain to climb…a poem I truly loved.

 

If I Had My Child To Raise Over Again 

If I had my child to raise all over again, I’d finger paint more and point the finger less.
I’d do less correcting and more connecting.
I’d take my eyes off my watch and watch with my eyes.
I would care to know less and know to care more.
I’d take more hikes and fly more kites.
I’d stop playing seriously and seriously play.
I would run through more fields and gaze at more stars.
I would do more hugging and less tugging.
I would be firm less often and affirm much more.
I’d build self-esteem first and the house later.
I’d teach less about the love of power and more about the power of love.

A promise

I’ve always believed that life is what you make it. That only you can make yourself happy and that in choosing to live in gratitude and acknowledge the positive in your life you become mentally stronger and happier.

That we have choices and we can choose to live in the past or be brave enough to embrace the future.

But most importantly that we can break old habits or learned behavior and change to become the people we want to be if we decide to or if we know better to do so.

That evening, with the silver moon shining on me, I decided to stop living in guilt. I couldn’t change the past, even if I wanted to.

By living in guilt I was stopping myself from being present, from enjoying the little time I did get to spend with my older children and from giving my love and attention to the tiny baby who needed me.

The guilt wasn’t helping me be the best me I could be. It didn’t help me parent better, and It wasn’t helping my older children.

The guilt I felt couldn’t change the past, but it could severely damage the future! 

I had to let it go! 

I decide to wake up and be grateful each day for a new beginning, for healthy children, and for the small moments of joy, beauty, and positivity in the day.

I decided to focus on the things I could do. For example, I might not be able to do homework with my older children, cook them supper each night or be there in the evening but I did get to look after, feed and play with a little baby who nedded me just as much.

I found small ways each day to include my older children in Hamish’s day, even though they couldn’t be there. A favorite book, a remembered rhyme, a play idea one of them enjoyed.

And I started loving my little boy for the wonderful little person he was. 

Old habits die hard

At first, it was a conscious effort to say to myself :

• What am I grateful for today
• What has brought me joy
• What 3 positive things have surrounded me
• What can I do with Hamish today that brings me peace
• How do I celebrate his individual uniqueness today

But

Slowly, it became natural, and we fell onto a new rhythm. 

This new rhythm didn’t look anything like I had known before. It was a different road to navigate. It included step- parents and co – parent schedules. It included Christmases away and missing some family members at gatherings or parties because a sibling was working or had to be at another parent that weekend.

The guilt didn’t just dissappear,  it didn’t get less, and some days, it felt heavier, but it became manageable.

It stopped being the focus of the day, and it no longer dictated the mood of our home.

The guilt was recognized. It was compartmentalized, and it was reminded that you can only change the future.

Slowly, we found a new normal. This may not look like another families normal, but it is ours.

And

If there is one thing 31 years of parenting has taught me, it’s to find what works for  your family, even if it doesn’t look the same as what works for other families.

If you are working through some mom guilt, know that you can’t change the past but you can change the future.

Be brave enough to live for today and let go of the guilt in order to change tomorrow.

But most importantly know that you are enough mamma, exactly as you are.