It's okay........

When Georgia was about a month old I got a Facebook message from a friend out of the blue who I hadn't talked to in person in a very long time.......and really, we'd never been super close friends........given more time I'm sure it would've happened though.  She's pretty awesome.  She used to live in my town, she went to college with my husband and they were pretty good friends, and I did happen to star in a home-made version of the Real World with her that a group of us made one late, late, late night when we were about twenty.  It. Was. Awesome.

I assure you.
But......not the point here.

Her message to me was one I'll never forget.  It was an amazing gift to a bleary eyed new mom who had struggled so long to have a child and had finally gotten one.  An amazing one.  A little girl that was created to be my daughter.  And one that brought with her the most incredible blessing in the form of an open adoption; an added bonus to how phenomenal she was all on her own.

And I 200% believed all of those things to my core.  I loved my little girl like crazy.  I was immediately obsessed with her.

But sometimes, in those first few months when I was exhausted, cranky, my usually clutter free house was a disaster, and I watched my husband get to go to work everyday I secretly wondered what we had done.

This friend's message told me, "It's okay.  It's okay to feel baffled at your new life.  Not baffled because you don't know how to mix up a bottle, soothe a crying baby, or treat diaper rash.  But baffled because you wanted this so badly, you worked so hard for it, it wasn't easy, and now.............it's hard to remember exactly why it was so appealing."

She went on to tell me how guilty she'd felt for feeling those things when she was finally blessed with a child.......after a heartbreaking road to bringing one home.......a horribly heartbreaking road.  People asked her constantly, "Don't you feel lucky?" "Aren't you happy everyday?"  "Do you feel like life is perfect now?"

And gut wrenchingly the answer isn't just a resounding yes.
It's a yes, but.....................

However, the freedom to say the 'but' doesn't really exist does it?

Especially for those of us who have publicly struggled to have children.  It's like the things that are taxing to new mothers who came by it easier than us don't apply.  And we in turn feel like we have no right and there is no space for us to feel the same way as every other mother USA. 

And I'm not a proponent of a lot of public griping and whining.  But I am a proponent of being honest.  With yourself, with a few close friends, with your spouse.  And honest in a way that helps you get healthier when you're feeling like your drowning.......healthy enough to know that it's okay to live in a land where eventually the YES is a resounding one.......but for a while it's okay to initially have a 'but,' even after all those years of waiting and infertility treatments and heart-ache, and sad baby showers (that weren't yours), and questions like, "you're still trying aren't you?," and thousands of dollars spent, and growing pains.  A 'but' is okay.  It's normal. And I kind of think that if there is no 'but' you should share whatever you're on with your other new mom friends.

So if you're adopting a child......,if you're working so hard to bring home the most amazing thing that will ever pass through the doors of your house.......know that it's okay.......it's okay to privately long for the old life in a passing moment of desperation.  And they do pass--when you smell your baby, you see your husband hold her, she smiles at you, she sleeps eight hours straight for the first time, she touches your face, she falls asleep on your chest, she makes little chirping noises while she sleeps, or someone says, "you're going to be a good mama........it's hard now......but I can tell," those moments pass.

The desperation and the longing for days gone by are okay....it doesn't mean you're an unfit mother, unaware of the sacrifice someone else made for you, or that it's how you really feel.......they're just crazy moments all tangled up with thousands more good ones because being a new mom is hard.  No matter how you became a new mom.

It's okay.
So thank-you friend for your Facebook message all those months ago.  It's still sitting in my in-box forever, because it's true and helpful and honest.