Words cannot describe how much I love you. Your birth was everything I dreamed it would be – relaxed, completely natural, and quick. I got to pull you straight up to my chest for a cuddle, and I was fully alert and awake for it. I got to take you in, to stare into your gorgeous eyes.
Over the coming weeks and months, I revelled in your enormous grin. I’ve never seen a baby smile as much as you, and it fills my heart with joy. I’ve fallen for you in so many beautiful ways.
I wish I could say it has all been like that. That it has all been beautiful and easy and happy.
I wish I could say I’d always been a good mother to you.
And I’m sorry that I can’t.
I’ve been struggling with postpartum depression, and it hasn’t been easy. There have been days when it feels like we haven’t stopped screaming at each other, or like I have reached the end of my tether and simply cannot parent you anymore.
But, as we seem to have come out of the worst of it for now, I hope you can forgive me these times.
And I thank God that we are (mostly) in a good place again.
And I thank you, my dear boy, for bearing with me. For being patient, for understanding, for forgiving, for forgetting. It’s really really difficult, this raising of two children 2 and under. Maybe one day you will discover just how hard it is. But for now, I ask that you remember the good days, the happy moments, the cuddles and laughter and joy.
Joy.
When I was pregnant with you, that was the word that God kept speaking to me about you. It was the word I kept praying over you. And in that dark patch over those first six months of your life, I didn’t understand how that could be.
But it’s true. You bring so much joy. To us, to others. You have the biggest grin I have ever seen on any child, and somehow it possesses the ability to make me forget the hours of screaming, the trials of parenthood.
You bring joy. It is your gift. It is your calling. It is you.
“You were born to change this life. You were born to chase the light… You were born to make things right.”
Love,
Mummy x
