A Mother's Day Post

A few weeks before I was put on bed rest Clay and I were staying at my parents house while Clay did training with the army.  We had been there for few days when I started feeling really sick.  I was lethargic, my stomach hurt and I was basically miserable.

Knowing that I was going to be up all night being sick I camped out on the couch so that Clay could sleep without me being a bother.  My mom out of the house so I called her to let her know that there wasn't just some random person on her couch asleep.

After the phone call my mom dropped what she was doing and came quickly home with Sprite, clear soup and a Gatorade.  She then slept in the chair next to me as I threw up every single hour.  Each time she would come hold my hair or rub my back and she did this for HOURS.

When my older sister came to visit she started feeling sick too and my mom snapped right back into "mom" mode. My sister made a comment about how she was an adult and that she would be fine getting her own items but my mom just brushed off the comment and said that she was the mom and she will be taking care of her children.

Though out that first sick night I told her the same thing and how she should go to bed.  Each time I said this she told me that when your child is sick it doesn't matter how old they are, you take care of them.

Flash forward a few weeks and here I am on Mother's Day with two tiny sick babies.  I signed up for this same job my mom did when I became a mother and now I feel helpless in taking care of them.  I trust the doctors and amazing nurses in the NICU to be surrogate mothers for me as I try to help with the little things that I can.  I change a diaper here and take a temperature there.  I hold them as long as they are happy or until my bladder feels like exploding.  Even during this time my mom is still taking care of me by reminding me that the little things that I do make a difference to those babies.

Mother's Day this year definitely has the potential to make me feel small and inadequate but it also gives me the chance to reflect on all the mother figures in my life.  Clay's mom has been such a support to him in a way that I couldn't be.  I know that she has helped prepare him for these hardest of times.  I can think of many women who have stepped into that mother role for me and became the voice in the back of my head guiding me though life.  I can only hope that one day I can do the same with not only my children but with others I come into contact with.

I am excited, scared, exhausted and thrilled to be taking on this new role.  Each time a new development happened in this pregnancy the first thing I would do it call my mom.   It got to the point where Clay would just hand me the phone with her number already dialing.  I remember holding back tears when a nurse came into the operating room after they delivered my babies and told me that my mom was right outside the doors.  I couldn't think of anything I needed to hear more right then.

 Sometimes a girl just needs her Mama.

2 day old Rhett, Mom and I in the NICU