Moms, Not Martyrs: Lies I Believed before Having a Baby

My husband and I talked about having kids before we got married. It was a five minute conversation where we concluded that we did, in fact, want them, and that we would wait a few years before having them. That was it. We got married and settled into figuring out cohabitation, sex, and who on earth was going to do the dishes. As the time approached, though, I started to look into what exactly the new parent life involved. To be honest, it didn’t look good. All I seemed to see were stories about the constant discomfort of pregnancy, the sleeplessness of the newborn phase, and the impossibility of caring for yourself as a mom, let alone maintaining your marriage or career. And that’s completely leaving out the trauma of birth, which was also apparently inevitable no matter how much you prepared. That’s what the internet told me about being a new mom. This overwhelmingly negative portrayal of early parenthood is so pervasive that it’s no wonder that so many young women in our culture believe that having a baby will ruin their physical and mental health as well as their futures, and that abortion is their only option. I don’t need to say that parenthood is hard. It absolutely is, and if my experience has been easier in some ways than other women’s, it was harder in others. But the process of pregnancy, birth, and new motherhood has been my favorite chapter of my life so far. The things I’ve learned about myself, my husband, and more importantly, about the God who made me and my son with infinite care, have made this stage of my life far more of a joy than I ever expected.

The First Lie

The first lie I believed was that pregnancy and birth are, by and large, extremely hard and generally terrible. My pregnancy with my son was unremarkable. This was a huge blessing, because my first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage at 9 weeks, and we were only slightly more pleased than anxious to find we were pregnant again only a month later. My OB joked once that I was the most boring patient she had at the time, which I take as a compliment (second only to the time she told me I had “great pelvic structure” during a membrane sweep). Of course, some women are plagued with issues during pregnancy, but for most of us, things go pretty smoothly without extraordinary efforts. I like to describe myself as “crunchy curious,” since I have no patience for homeopathy or essential oils, but I hired a doula, did prenatal yoga, and drank tons of red raspberry leaf tea in the third trimester. I was also working full time as a lecturer of English at a small university fifty miles away, meaning that I commuted two hours a day and sucked sour candies while lecturing to stave off nausea in the first trimester. Pregnancy had its discomforts, but it was generally fine.

Birth was freaking awesome. I know that sounds hyperbolic, but I was so convinced that it would be the worst thing I had ever experienced that I was astonished by how much I loved it. It was intense and physically demanding, but so freaking cool to feel the things that I’d read about actually happening in my body. And lest anyone think this positive perception is due to drug-induced amnesia, let me clarify that I had a completely unmedicated labor, pushed for three hours, and finally delivered a surprise giant of a baby. My son was 10 lb 6 oz at birth, in the 99th percentile for weight. And yes, I tore and needed stitches. But I got those stitches while holding my baby boy for the first time. I told my husband the next day that I couldn’t wait to do it again.

Pregnancy and birth taught me how incredibly thoughtful our Creator was in the way He made women’s bodies “fearfully and wonderfully” to bring our babies into the world (Psalm 139:14). We are the first home our children will know, the first place that will shelter and provide for them on earth, and that’s the most amazing privilege I can imagine. And even if your pregnancy was difficult, or ended in a birth that wasn’t what you wanted, you still successfully sheltered that baby while he or she was in there, and that’s incredible work.

The Second Lie

The second lie I believed before I became a mom was that the newborn stage is primarily a time of sleep deprivation, constant crying, and struggling to understand the complex work of early parenthood. Truthfully, those first couple of months were extremely hard for me, but not for any of the reasons I had heard. Due to a tumor I had removed in my teens, I didn’t have enough breast tissue to successfully breastfeed my son, even though my doctor at the time promised it wouldn’t make any difference. We had to supplement with formula from day one, and even with pumping 8 times per day, I couldn’t get my supply up enough to exclusively breastfeed. We saw four different lactation consultants and an ENT who diagnosed a tongue tie that complicated feeding even more. I struggled with postpartum anxiety and intense feelings of failure and shame over giving my son formula, as it didn’t square with the image of the perfect mom I wanted to be. But God was gracious enough to give us a happy baby who smiled early, only cried when he was hungry, and started sleeping 12 hours a night at 9 weeks old. Making those decisions about feeding him was hard, but truthfully, I made it much harder than it needed to be. I thought moms who gave formula didn’t care enough about their kids to make breastfeeding work, and the “breast is best” mentality I saw all over the internet confirmed my opinion. And here I was medically unable to feed my son without formula. Maybe those other moms were also making the best possible decision for themselves and their babies, too. My Heavenly Father has been trying to wean me from my addiction to control for at least the last fifteen years, but I think this experience was the “fall” that finally broke my “haughty spirit” of pride (Proverbs 16:18).

The Third Lie

The third lie I believed about becoming a mom was that it meant I would have to stop taking care of myself. You’ve seen them: the memes and jokes about not showering for days, eating scraps off your kid’s plate, or being unable to spend a single moment alone for days at a time? That doesn’t have to be the case, but you will have to bite the bullet and ask for help. My son is almost 7 months old, and I’ve never missed a shower. He would happily nap or sit in a swing or bouncy seat in the bathroom door while I enjoyed the hot water and listened to a podcast. (Pro tip: install a detachable showerhead before giving birth. It’s a gift from God if you have stitches, and it’s great for baby baths in those early months. They’re $20 at Walmart). I put up a good number of freezer meals before he was born, and between that and the support of our friends and church community, we had plenty of healthy and delicious meals until I was feeling up to cooking again. I also made a rule during the early months that I had to see or talk to someone other than my husband every single day, so I scheduled a succession of phone dates, walks, and visits with friends to combat postpartum isolation. Those talks refreshed my soul (Proverbs 27:9), and I made it through the challenges of breastfeeding and postpartum anxiety because of their support and advice. We need to ask for help. I see moms online wondering where their village is, but your village can’t support you if you don’t ask.

The Fourth Lie

The fourth lie I believed about new parenthood was that it would ruin, or at least severely challenge, my marriage. This has not been the case at all. From counting pushes during labor, sitting with our son in the hospital so I could sleep, and cleaning the house when we got home, my husband was my champion and protector when I needed him the most. And in the months since, I have fallen more deeply in love with him by watching him sacrificially love me as Christ loves the church (Ephesians 5:25). We do spend less time together than we used to, but we’re also more intentional about the time we do have. There are fewer evenings in front of the TV, but more dinners out on our deck with the patio lights on and the fireflies blinking around us. There are fewer date nights, but more chatting during the bedtime routine or the Saturday farmer’s market trip. And we are both so obsessed with our son that we often catch ourselves looking at pictures of him on our phones after he goes to bed. Our marriage has been renewed by becoming parents because it gives us another common goal in raising our son and the babies that will hopefully come after him. Sleep deprivation and anxiety took their toll during those early weeks, of course, but overall, having a child has been just as great a blessing and reward as Scripture promises (Psalm 127:3-5), and has only made our marriage stronger.

The Last Lie

The last lie that I believed before becoming a mom was that there would be times I would regret having a baby. Now, I’m not condemning parents who have days like this, and it’s completely possible that those days are still in the future for me; after all, my son is only 7 months old. But even on the hardest days in the newborn stage, I never had a second where I longed for my life before motherhood. Because he’s not just “a baby.” He’s not even just “my baby.” He’s Jakey. He’s my little buddy who smiles at me when I lean over his crib in the morning and babbles when I read to him. He loves my off-key singing and thinks my curly hair is fascinating. He laughs when the dog sneezes and smiles at strangers everywhere we go.

Nothing about parenting feels hard compared to the joy he brings me on a daily basis. Because of my son, I have a greater awareness of the grace of God and the sacrifice of Christ. I more clearly see what the Incarnation means and what condemning His Son to pay for the sins of mankind must have meant to the Father. When I look at Jakey, I think about how my delight in him mirrors the delight God feels in His children, how my concern and care for my baby reflects the Father’s care for us. Motherhood has helped me know and trust God in ways I never have before, and if I had been deterred from it by the lies the world told me, I would have missed out on some of the most meaningful experiences of my life.