Being a Mother

29weeks 4D Ultrasound

It still seems as though it was yesterday when we went to the Doctor's office to meet our Little Peanut for the first time. It was on the 10th of January 2013, a very nice day considering I was still on annual leave from work and I got to stay in bed until the morning sickness subsided :). For the first time in about a week I had a little bit of energy and was beyond excited to get out of the house. Anyway, we got to the doctor's office and she went through all the necessary questions/paperwork while my boyfriend patiently answered....I chipped in here and there but for the most part, I just wanted to get to the ultrasound part...I know, I wasn't very patient...still am not...LOL. So eventually, after the paperwork was done, we did the ultrasound and yep, it showed a lil peanut growing inside me. Needless to say, my boyfriend and I don't know how to read prenatal scans so we just saw a tiny spot in the circle and that just made us happy. To top all this, we got to hear the heartbeat. Thee most perfect lil sound I've ever heard. When we left the doctor's office, we went straight to a fancy restaurant and celebrated with a picture of our Peanut on the table with us :).

Fast forward 7 months later. It's 2am in the morning and I'm lying in bed awake because no sleeping position is comfortable. By this time I am now 10 days overdue and thoughts of induction are invading my mind when suddenly I start getting craps. Honestly, they didn't bother me until an hour later when it hit me that I might be in labour. Then I started timing them and to my surprise, I was indeed in labour. We called our Midwife and headed to hospital - Genesis Clinic. With just a lil over 6hours of contractions, I was 8cm dilated, I thought, this is fantastic!!!. We knew that soon enough, our lives are going to change forever and of course it didn't take long and our BabyBear was born. Minor complications but everything was just perfect.

Just Minutes after birth

She was the most perfect little human being I've ever seen. A lil pale but perfect. And yep, she looked just like daddy, which wasn't surprising to me at all because from the moment I first saw her when we did the 29weeks 4D ultra-sound, all I saw was daddy's lil girl. I remember our Midwife turning to me at that moment  and saying, they grow up soooo fast, cherish every moment. I just looked at her and smiled with appreciation but didn't think that's true.

We took her home after 3 days in hospital, Nerve wrecking but very exciting, and we settled into life as parents. I breastfed her, daddy changed nappies and everything was just great. We had to go home to my mother's for a couple of months - Tradition - and eventually came back to our house when BabyBear was 3 months old. I still could not wrap my head around how quickly she turned 3 months old. I got consumed so much by looking out for milestones and making sure that everything is okay with her that I completely lost track of time. And before we knew it, she was 4 months old. Seriously....what is going on?

4 Months Old

 My heart broke a little because it soon hit me that I'd have to go back to work. Something that I was never prepared to do. I've gotten so used to being at home with our little girl and now suddenly I have to leave her for 12 hours each weekday and go back to work! I guess it goes without saying that I cried myself to sleep just thinking about this but unfortunately it had to be done. I found myself having to literally re-adjust to being at work. when I was home with BabyBear, the first half of the morning was photoshoot time, I dressed her up, took her pictures - which explains why I have over 10 000 photos of her only - and did all sorts of fun things with her before nap time. And now suddenly I had to sit in front of a computer and attend meetings. I remember thinking, Life is not fair and I do not deserve that. I swear I went into mini depression every single time I left home for work in the morning. The only hope I had was seeing BabyBear's glowing face when she sees us after work and that kept me going. Honestly, it still does, to this day.

Fast forward 4 months later and BabyBear is now 8 months old. It's very ironic that i say *fast forward* and it literally feels like everything was fast forwarded back then.
It is such a bitter sweet thing to watch your little person turn out to be independent right in front of your eyes. I wanted to hold on as much as I could, I breastfed her even at odd times and cuddled her and many a times she just pushed me and wanted to play. For a second I thought she hated me because I leave her in the morning for work...Crazy, I know, but I was running out of options and excuses to make me feel better.

8 Months Old

So instead of enforcing a sleep routine, I ended up encouraging her to play at night. Just so I can get some quality time with her. And at that moment, it hit me that in just 6 months, she will be a whole YEAR old. Are you kidding...So Fast!!! I thought this was crazy but I had to deal with it. BabyBear was growing up, a little too fast, and there was nothing I could do about it. So eventually i came to terms with it and I started embracing it. I thought, soon enough she'll crawl and walk, and talk, and the list continued. And strangely enough, I found and still find comfort in knowing that her growing up this fast will give us a chance to be best friends fast :). It made it a little bit easier to know that some mothers are going through the same thing and feeling exactly how I feel. Our babies just grow up so fast and it hurts.

12 Months Old

By the time BabyBear or should I say Kbear turned 12 months/1 Year I was a 100% fine with it. It hurt a little but I was happy. Oh, and by the way, I say Kbear because she's a big girl now, and BabyBear just doesn't cut it anymore :). Kbear is now 18 months old and in just 6 months, she will be 2 years old. Honestly, I don't even know how to handle this feeling. It's all happening too fast and too soon but I'm just soooo happy that every single morning when she wakes up, the first thing she sees is mommy (me) - Daddy doesn't mind :). And I'm planning to keep it this way for many years to come.
It has been an incredible journey and trust me, when people say, they grow up fast, they mean it. One day you have a newborn Peanut tomorrow you have a little Lady telling you *Naughty*. I'm just so glad that I captured each and every moment through photos and I'm even more glad Kbear is our daughter. It still saddens me to think that the growing up won't stop and some day she'll be 6years old and ready for school. It makes me sad when she wants to feed herself without my help. It breaks my heart when she wants to walk and not be carried. But it brightens my heart when she runs to me just to give me a hug. It melts my heart when she kisses me for no reason. And it fills me with such joy when she offers me her saliva-filled snacks simply because she doesn't want to eat when I'm not eating. So even though time flew by so fast, even though I want to turn back time to when she was newborn...I'm just as happy now with her as a toddler and for this, my heart overflows with love.

The joys of being a mother.

xoxo