on being a mom

Maura is 12 weeks old this week, and I feel like our life is finally settling. I've been sick for the past two weeks (sinus infection AND a virus) but the blessing in all of it is that I got to spend a few extra days at home in the past week or so and feel like I've finally solidified the bond with my girl. We played together, napped together, smooched and cuddled a lot, and overall, it feels like she knows I'm her momma. My jealously has subsided a bit with Jay; I know for sure we're in this together and that if we could switch roles, he would do it in a second. And it's been a greater joy than I imagined watching the two of them bond. Sometimes when I leave in the morning the two of them are cuddled in bed or on the sofa, and the misery I feel at leaving them is softened by the fact that they seem just melded to each other, like some cheesy physical manifestation of the love between them. She's a lucky girl.

I've been feeling a bit out of sorts, very much missing being pregnant with my girl. In an effort to come to some kind of peace (always a struggle for me), I've been trying to examine what I loved so much about being pregnant that didn't carry over into being a mom. Don't mistake me -- being Maura's mom and Jay's wife has brought me more love than I ever thought possible, and is a thousand million times more fulfilling then I imagined -- yet I very much miss being pregnant, carrying Maura in my belly and protecting her all by myself (and I didn't even do a very good job at that; poor thing got no nourishment from my body from 34 weeks on). I am getting more peace from being a mom than I thought I would, and it's not as if I feel something is missing, but I think I realized today what is going on . . .

(Please note I am not at all fishing for compliments here, and I know to some people I may sound delusional. Be that as it may . . .)

I have never been comfortable with how I look. My biggest issue is that I have never been anything above ordinary. I'm a little shorter than average, a little fatter than average, and while I certainly have my talents, I wouldn't be considered one that stood out in a crowd, particularly physically. My only defining characteristic was that I had big boobs, and I had those reduced when I was 20 years old so I wouldn't be defined by it anymore. But I guess since then, I've had nothing that physically gave me character. I've always done my hair a bit different, cut it short and dyed it many colors. Yet now, at 31 years old, I have finally stopped dying my hair, a trend that started when I was 14. I always wanted to be a little on the saucy side, and I so admire women who are, yet I feel like I've never quite achieved that. But yet when I was pregnant, I was SOMETHING. By belly made my thighs less ginormous (my other obvious characteristic), my belly made people smile, made people notice me, made people care how I was doing. Frankly, my belly looked better in clothes than my non-pregnant body did. Finally, I had character. I had something that defined me physically. And now, as a mom, I'm back to invisible.

I know new moms struggle all the time with their identity and that my feelings are nothing new, but it really does give me something to contemplate. I worry that I'm not as good of a mom as I could be because these stupid things occupy my brain space, and I worry more that my beautiful and perfect daughter will one day think these same things about herself, which might literally break my heart.

But it's a concern; it's there, no matter how much I try to ignore it. And I've tried everything I can: gotten some new clothes that fit my new weird body, cut my hair when needed, gave myself a pedicure. Yet in a little tiny bitty way I feel like I'm losing it.

But then, I look at myself in these moments with my daughter, moments that truly matter, moments I'll never get back, and I know that my love for her is truly more important, and more real, than any feeling of insecurity I face:
Good God I love her.