The Little Moments That Make Me a Mother

From the time I found out I was pregnant I eagerly awaited the day my baby would arrive and make me a mother. I envisioned myself having this transformation the moment she arrived, a sort of “A-ha!” moment, but once little Fern arrived, I didn’t have that “Aha!” moment where I immediately felt like a mother.

I wondered when it would come, over the following months I realized that it isn’t one single moment that makes one a mother, it’s a series of little moments that happen over time. In the almost six months that I’ve been a mother I’ve been lucky enough to experience many of these little “mother-making-moments”.

Taking Fern to the ocean and seeing her face light up with excitement and wonder as the breeze brushed against her face and she felt the sand and surf on her tiny toes…that was a little moment that made me a mother.

The first night that Fern slept in her own room and I snuggled up next to the baby monitor all night, sleeping maybe three hours total from getting up at least 18 times to sneak into her room to make sure she was breathing … that was a mother-making moment.

Laying in the grass and reading books together…mother-making moment.

Those times I was exhausted and on the verge of tears, during marathon nursing sessions and Fern looked up at me with a sweet smile that instantly melted away any of my bitterness … those were mother-making moments.

Even during pregnancy, when I’d feel Fern’s little kicks and punches and hiccups and I’d talk to her, those were some of my very first moments of motherhood in the making.

Every little grunt and giggle, every cry, every snuggle … all of these things are magical little moments that root me more firmly into my role as a mother.  With each of these little moments in time, I begin to sink my feet a little more deeply into this place of motherhood and it is beautiful. It makes me cherish all these little moments and relish in this most blessed time of having a baby; a time that is flying by all too quickly, but is oh, so sweet.  It’s the little moments every day that make me a mother.