When you’ve waited & waited, and then waited some more, to get your miracle baby, I think it’s (fairly?) common to feel like all of THIS is somehow not actually yours. There is this unwelcome feeling that surely you are seriously delusional and it’s only a matter of time until you’ll snap out of it and this is all gone. I had this feeling that eventually we would be back to the very familiar circumstance that we had grown so accustomed to, the circumstance that, honestly, we were a little comfortable living in. I don’t doubt that these feelings were intensified by the fact that we grieved a loss, a very BIG, and very real loss of our first pregnancy.
Fast-forward through the sleep-deprived-pumping-feeding-hormone filled summer to that first fall as a family of three. I had this unanticipated feeling of gratitude on Halloween. I’ve never really loved Halloween, and we weren’t planning to dress R up for this first holiday of hers...but sure enough the day came and I got the festivity bug (or maybe it was a little Mommy guilt?). Whatever drove the decision, we 100% needed to celebrate.
Somewhere between handing out candy to the tenth Elsa that night and burning myself with a hot glue gun (Riley’s cotton balled wig pictured), I suddenly & overwhelmingly felt like a Mom for the first time. Riley was five months old at this point...and I never felt like she was wholly mine, until this photo of us was taken. I know this might sound like a very sad truth, maybe a little messed up on my part, ha! But I just see it as part of our beautiful / unconventional journey to and through parenthood. I will always love this picture and the genuine joy that it holds!
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