Guest Post: Motherhood and the One Piece of Advice That Will Change Everything

Lindsey is a precious woman that I became friends with when Tim and I lived in Amarillo.  We started getting to know each other during Bible study but it didn't take long until we were great friends.  She had her first son about 6 months before Robby was born.  No matter the circumstances she is in, she always has such a sweet, kind, and hopeful spirit.  I cherish her friendship and hope you gain some encouragement from her today!

I am an unbelievably proud stay-at-home mommy to two beautiful little blonde boys, ages 2 and 4.  And being a stay-at-home mom is harder than I ever thought was possible.  No one and nothing could have prepared me for this wild ride called motherhood.  It's all I ever wanted in life, to be someone's Mommy; and yet, even knowing what I thought I was getting into, there's so much you can't know until you're in it; waist-deep, sometimes just barely treading water, other times with the waves threatening to envelop you.
Motherhood is a competition.  I bet you didn't know that until you got there- I sure didn't.  Who is the best disciplinarian?  Who can sleep train the most efficiently?  Or potty train?  Or teach their child to read at the youngest age?  Are you a "good mom" like such-and-such who uses cloth diapers, makes her own (obviously organic) baby food, and nursed for exactly 12 months and zero days?  And even those who aren't mothers have an opinion- about EVERYTHING.  And advice- lots and lots of sometimes well-intentioned, usually unsolicited advice. But I have a little secret for you.  You have to keep it between us.  You ready?  Here it comes. The advice that I have for you is this- You do NOT have to take anyone's advice.  You just don't.  Really.  Nothing bad will happen if you don't try every sleep method, every feeding fad, and every pinterest craft under the sun.  You don't even have to take my advice about not taking everyone's advice.  Got it?  Phew...that's a load off.

You see, most people have sweet intentions.  They just want to fix whatever problem you're having for you.  They want to tell you what worked for them and for their babies, and a lot of people will tell you what they've heard works (even if they haven't tried it or have any kids of their own).  And like I said, most advice has good intentions behind it.  But the truth of the matter is...every child is different.  Every mother is different.  And every family dynamic is different.   Thank God for that freedom!  I don't have to mother like "Wonder-Mom", who keeps the house clean (ha ha ha!), never raises her voice, and always has her hair fixed (ok, let's be honest- who never wears pajamas all day).  I am me.  And that's all I need to be. My babies, for one, have never been great sleepers.  Neither one slept through the night until after their first birthdays.  We tried every book, every method, every piece of advice given to us on our first son.  (By the time we had our second, we knew better.)  I really and truly thought I was doing something wrong as a mom.  How am I failing him?  This (or that) method works for every other kid!  All of their babies slept through the night by 8 weeks!  I am a complete and utter failure!

But I learned that even though children learn a lot from the environment they are raised in, and in a lot of ways they can be trained...a huge part of who they are is just that- who they are, from the time they come into this world.  They are people!  They have their own bents and strange personality traits, their own likes and dislikes.  And some of those things are more manageable than others, but some of those things are just plain impossible.  But I feel like the Lord has taught me that I'm tougher than I thought that I was.  That maybe, just maybe, my boys weren't given to another mother who wasn't cut out for 2 years of all-nighters.  Maybe, just maybe, they were entrusted to me because He knew that He had equipped me for this task.  Not the mom down the street, or the one who always looks so put together at church, but me.   The beautiful truth about my piece of advice is that no one has to know that you aren't taking their advice (even me)!  I've found that when I'm on the other end of unwanted advice, I can smile, nod, and say, "Thank you for the tip!  I'll have to try that!" (And then, I can choose to try it or not.  Either way, the other party leaves satisfied with themselves, certain that they've helped me out in some way.   And I'm still the one in control of how I parent my children.) You see, no one is going to be held to the same level of accountability as you are for how your children are brought up.  "Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is older, he will not depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6)  That command from God is for the child's mother and father.  And while the community that each child is raised in is also accountable to some extent, no one has the influence (both positive and negative) that you have on your sweet babes.  You are the greatest teacher they will ever know, you are the one who has known them before they even took their first breaths.  You are the mama!  What a gift... and what a heavy responsibility!  

So when you choose whose advice to listen to and whose to simply nod and smile at, consider this- when God knit your little one inside your womb, He chose you.  And He chose your child.  He chose you for one another, knowing that you would be the ONLY ONE in the world who could give your child just what he or she needs.  That truth humbles me to no end when I can't stop comparing myself to other mothers or when I beat myself up over "messing everything up".  I am Benjamin's mama and I am Malachi's mama.  No one else is.  No one else answers to our Creator for them in the way my husband and I do.  So when the Holy Spirit whispers words of wisdom to me about my boys, I'm pretty careful to take that advice!  Otherwise, it's a nod, a smile, and a "Thank you."
Lindsey

Guest Post: Motherhood and Intuition

Our first guest poster is Amanda.  I've known Amanda since our junior year of high school.  She has gone through many trials throughout her childhood and early adult life.  She is now married to the love of her life, Jody, and they have a 16 month old son, Cooper.  She radiates such joy and love to everyone she meets.  This is part 1 of 2 about her journey through Cooper's illnesses and hospitalizations   I hope you enjoy what she has to say!

I had finally fallen into a deep sleep.  When the doctor woke me up close to midnight, it took me a few minutes to get my bearings and remember where I was.  I blinked at him as the room came into focus, along with four interns and the two nurses who had been by my son’s bed most of the night.  Why were all these people staring at me?  The doctor was saying something but I was so confused as to why so many people were in the room.

“The lab just called me.  Your son’s lab work isn’t looking too good and we need to get him on a stronger dose of antibiotics immediately.”  He went on to explain how this fancy machine would slowly administer a continuous stream of antibiotics into my 9-month old baby boy’s body.  He explained the implications of what this all meant but I didn’t hear any of it.  My head was spinning.  They all filed out of the room leaving me alone to process it all.  The doctor’s words kept flying through my mind:  lab results, antibiotics, meningitis, septicemia, fatal.  

This was it.  After 9 months of advocating and fighting for my son, Cooper, I was now being told there was nothing I could do for him besides pray the antibiotics would work.  As a mom, I had never felt so utterly helpless in my life.  I wanted to curl up in a ball and sob and cover my ears and scream and hide.  I wanted to wave the white flag, throw in the towel, quit.  But any mother who’s ever survived experiences like these knows that isn’t an option.  Your child needs you so you remain strong and fight the tears and the fears.  

I sat there staring at my son as he fought for his life in that stainless steel hospital crib.  I saw his battle for life flash by in an instant.  You see, I’ve had to fight for my precious Cooper from the moment I knew he was in my womb.  My pregnancy was a rough one and so was the delivery.  Within the first few weeks of his life I knew there were some issues and so the fights began.  It started with a condition with his stomach.  He was projectile vomiting so I was told repeatedly it was viral, it was colic, it was an allergy.  My gut told me otherwise and we headed to the hospital, hoping for more experienced doctors.  We were admitted and he underwent surgery within 12 hours.  Next up came hydrocephalus.  I told the doctor at multiple visits that I was concerned about the growth, shape, and size of Cooper’s head.  I received the “You’re just a worried mom” speech.  Three months of advocating later, Cooper was diagnosed by a neurosurgeon with hydrocephalus.  Then came the breathing issues.  You could hear Cooper’s rattling wheezes at the other end of the house.  This was a much harder battle to fight.  After seeing 7 different pediatricians who all said it was a simple viral infection and 1 respiratory therapist and 2 emergency room visits for respiratory distress, Cooper was finally diagnosed with three different congenital respiratory conditions.  As a result of these, Cooper was constantly sick with one illness after another.  Along with many other medical issues, I, as well as Cooper’s doctors, quickly discovered that Cooper was the exception to the rule.  One of his doctors said, “With Cooper I know if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably an elephant!”  

I realized as I watched him sleep that night that he had never made it longer than two weeks without an illness, each one of them requiring medical intervention.  Was this really it?  Surely there was another expert I could call on!  Surely we should double-check his lab work?  Do more tests?  For the first time in his short life, I had no plan of attack.  No other doctor to turn to.  He had the best of the best.  There was absolutely nothing else I could do besides sing, “You are my sunshine” for the 5,023rd time and comfort him.

Several hours later, Cooper started to fade and he was transferred to the PICU at Arkansas Children’s Hospital where he underwent a spinal tap and many other procedures and tests. Thankfully, the antibiotics began to take affect and within a few days, we headed home with a happy, healthy boy.

Even now, 8 months later, I’m still fighting for him.  Cooper’s speech is delayed and it’s obvious that something isn’t clicking the way it should.  I continually receive comments such as, “Oh it will come, give it time” and “All children develop at different rates” and my personal favorite, “I wouldn’t worry about it.” These were the exact same comments I received when I was fighting for his respiratory diagnoses, which eventually caused him to fight for his life in the PICU.  If I had given it time or chosen not to worry about it, Cooper wouldn’t be alive today, charming everyone he meets!

But here’s the thing.  No one knows Cooper better than I.  As mothers, we are given a God-given gift of maternal instinct.  On a daily basis the Holy Spirit whispers to my heart truths about my son.  There are times when family and doctors are concerned about something but I have complete peace.  The Holy Spirit calms me and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it isn’t a big deal.  Other times, when everyone around me is saying it’s no big deal, my heart knows otherwise.  And that’s when I fight.

I fight until I wear myself out and then I fight some more!   

It is this maternal instinct that saved my son’s life over and over and over again.  I had to fight for him constantly and I’m sure the journey has only begun!  I had to battle doctors who have spent half their lives studying the human body when I myself know precious little in comparison.  The only knowledge I bring to the table is that which the Holy Spirit provides.  I have had to battle my own family members who have argued with me to respect the doctors’ observations and listen to them.  I’ve had to battle friends who have accused me of being overly worrisome and dramatic. It’s been an exhausting, and at times, lonely journey.  But it’s all been worth it!  At this exact moment, my baby boy is sleeping in his crib.  He was cleared last month from his neurosurgeon with no further signs of hydrocephalus and no further need for treatment.  He has tested out of two of his four therapies.  He breathes clearly the vast majority of the time.  He has no residual issues from the meningitis, H1N1, or RSV.  He’s alive and healthy.

That night in the hospital room, even as I sang “You are my Sunshine” and felt such a strong sense of panic because I no longer had any other course of action to try to save my son, I realize now that I did everything within my power.  All of the fighting I did leading up to that night is what saved his life.  If I had backed down and listened to all the naysayers and even the doctors who patronized me, Cooper would have been too weak to fight as hard as he had to in order to overcome such a brutal onslaught of infections.  

So fellow moms, I leave you with this:  Allow the Lord to guide your heart as a mother.  If you find yourself in a situation where you know something isn’t right, push aside all criticisms, all observations, all advice, and trust what He is telling you.  Seek second, third, fourth, twentieth opinions.  Don’t give up until you have a peaceful, calm heart about the situation.  Even the doctors are only humans and no one knows your child better than you do.  In this world where everyone has an opinion and everyone is an expert you have to filter through it all and determine what is best for your child. Siphon out those who criticize or judge.  Surround yourself with true prayer warriors who have faithfully demonstrated their love for your child and for you.  But most of all, trust your gut!

Motherhood and "Failed" Plans

A few weeks ago, Tim and I met up with a college friend who was up here to play a concert (oh ya, we are totally friends with a rock star!).  He and his wife are expecting their first baby so while we were showing him around Anchorage he asked if we had any advice.  I don't give advice unless I am explicitly asked.  I don't care for unsolicited advice and I don't want to be that person who pushes my methods on everyone else.  However, if I'm asked, I'll totally tell you what we've done and how it's worked or not worked.  So amid the general advice we were throwing out, he asked a question that I hadn't truly looked back on and thought about.  He asked what things had we planned to do a certain way but then had to change.  In other words, what plans had "failed".  Well, let's see.  I had planned to breastfeed Robby for at least a year but because of a surprise pregnancy a couple of months after he was born, I had no more milk production by the time he was 6 months old and we began using formula.  I vividly remember mixing that first bottle and having to leave the room while my husband gave it to him.  I felt like I was failing at providing my son the absolute best, since that's all I had been told throughout my pregnancy and early months of motherhood.  Thankfully, Robby loved it and actually thrived much better on it.  That provided some peace in my heart.  Ok, what else?  I had planned to have a natural, epidural free childbirth with Charlie as I had done with Robby.  But after many hours and a stalled labor, I gave in and asked for the epidural.  Within 30 minutes, I went from a 6 to a 10 and was ready to welcome that little guy into the world!  While I lamented over the fact that I wouldn't be able to fully experience the labor and delivery of my second baby, he was born just as healthy and alert as his big brother.  We had not planned to use the "count to 3" method to modify behavior or to use time outs.  But after a babysitter used the "cool down corner" to get Charlie to stop hitting and calm down in order for her to talk to him about how his behavior wasn't acceptable, we realized that it's actually a good tactic for him since he tends to get so emotionally wound up in situations.  These are only the few examples I could think of on the spot while we were talking to him.  I know there are others we have experienced and there will be many more in our future.  

While we could look at these plans as failures, they are really just learning points.  We learned that my body stopping milk production and having to switch to formula was not a horrible thing.  It was the beginning of a new life inside of me and a huge blessing of modern pharmaceuticals that I was able to continue to nourish my growing baby.  We learned that having to resort to medication in order to get my baby out safely was more important than me holding out and possibly causing harm to my child.  We learned that Charlie is a different child than Robby and we need to adjust our parenting styles between the two of them in order to shape them into gentlemen.  I'm learning as much, if not more, about parenting than my children are learning about life each and every day.  They are ever growing and changing which means my plans must be ever growing and changing.

While we were talking about how our plans and ideas had changed, I mentioned to our friend that no matter what happens, always be a source of encouragement for his wife.  As her husband, she will look to him for acceptance of the way she is doing things.  If her goal of having an all natural birth works out, that's incredible!  She just did one of the hardest things a woman could do.  But if something happens and she can't, the end result of having that baby in her arms is the same and she did an amazing job!  If her ideas of solely breastfeeding workout and she can keep it going for a year or even more, that's amazing!  But if her milk production is low and she has to supplement with formula while she works on getting it back up or if her body shuts down production all together, research the best formulas together and tell her how proud of her you are for working so hard to provide the best possible nutrition for your child.  

I've said it before and I'll say it many more times: motherhood is tough.  We moms need encouragement from people who have done things the way we have but also acceptance from those who have chosen a different way.  We are no less a mom than the next mom simply because our plans changed and we are now having to do things in a way that we didn't expect.  We all have plans.  Plans that will go accordingly and plans that will fail.  The failure of those plans doesn't matter.  What matters is that we recognize if (when) we need to change the way we are doing things and keep on with our journey.  

Motherhood and Love

The internet is a wonderful and horrible thing.  While we have so much information at our fingertips, it also allows words to be slung at people without having to be accountable for how they hurt.  Whether it's a Facebook post belittling a mother because of how she chooses to handle her children's sleep, or an instagram picture that is attacked because a mom snapped a picture of her baby on the changing table without a hand or strap holding him on it, or a forum post where formula is called evil and poison when a mom is asking advice on struggling to breastfeed.  Maybe that mother who chose to sleep train was suffering through such horrible postpartum depression that without adequate sleep she would have psychotic thoughts, therefore sleep was an absolute necessity.  Maybe that mom who snapped the picture of her smiling, happy baby had just put him on the changing table and was standing right there to catch her newborn (who was not even rolling over) in case he fell, therefore not needing the slew of mean words telling her she's doing it wrong.  Maybe the mom who was struggling with her choice to have to switch to formula because there was no more milk production was actually pregnant with her second baby and didn't know it yet, therefore having to switch to formula was a necessity for the nourishment of her child.  These things have happened to me.  While I have also had instances happen in person (like a lady telling me at Costco that I was harming my children with the 4 containers of formula that I was purchasing and that breastfeeding is the only way for my child to thrive.  And a lady who yelled at me at the grocery store parking lot for returning my cart while my child was already in the car - never mind I was parked next to the cart corral), things that happen on the internet usually get out of hand because people are not posting with love, they are wanting to prove a point and push their ideas of what they think is the right way to parent rather than thinking of the heart of that mother that is struggling.

What would happen if we as mothers started thinking carefully before we commented on people's posts or pictures?  What would happen if we considered writing in love instead of attacking?  What if we put our own opinions and ideas aside and focused on the heart of a struggling mother?  I believe that we could win the battle on these Mommy Wars.  We could come to a truce and realize that you do things the way that work for your family and I do things the way that work for mine and they are different but we still care about our children just the same.  We still want our children to grow up to be kind, loving, and well adjusted, we are just approaching it in different ways.  None of us were handed a manual when we were handed our babies for the first time.  Maybe you read parenting books and blogs, maybe you just decided to wing it, either way we all had no idea what we were actually doing when we first became mothers.  Sure we had ideas of how tired we would be those first months but we didn't actually understand until we walked around unable to speak or eat because we didn't have an ounce of energy.  We had ideas of how breastfeeding would be but we didn't realize there would be times we would sit crying unconsolably because it hurt so badly or the baby just spit up everything he ate and there wasn't anything else to give him.  We had ideas of how we would punish our toddlers but we didn't know how absolutely exhausting consistency would be on us or them.  The point is, we don't have the manual telling us the absolute right way to handle every aspect of motherhood, but when we are met with the encouragement of other mothers who have walked this path before us, we can gain strength from their words and know that we CAN do this.

Thankfully, even though we weren't handed a parenting manual, per se, we as Christians were given the Bible to show us and encourage us in what we should be focusing on as parents.  Our pastor recently preached a sermon on how to raise Gospel kids, not good kids.  There are three aspects of parenting that we are called to perform: manage, nurture, and love.  Our children are ours to protect, provide for, and defend.  We manage them by telling them to brush their teeth, by making their meals, and by providing them with an education.  We nurture them by teaching, disciplining, and correcting them.  Our job entails showing them how the Gospel is applied to every aspect of life.  That Christ is the center of the universe but He still was obedient to his Father and completed His mission on earth.  We need to remind them of grace but also that there are consequences when they step outside of the boundaries.  We are also to show them love, not by overlooking when they misbehave but by constantly reminding them of God's promises, elevating Christ, and pointing to His justice, mercy, and humility.  We need to give a daily reminder that no matter what they do, God is passionately pursuing them.  Thankfully, we are given hope.  Hope that the Holy Spirit will light our child's heart on fire for Christ.  That hope keeps us from despair when our child chooses not to love Christ as we would hope and keeps us from pride when our child does the right thing and is pursuing Christ. (Here is the link to Brent Williams' sermon if you're interested in hearing it in it's entirity  http://midtown.truenorthanchorage.com/sermons/sermon/2014-07-20/real-life:-good-kids-or-gospel-kids)

So let's remember in all of our internet and personal endeavors to say things in love.  Think about your struggles and doubts and allow that to lead you to have compassion.  Try to focus on our unified end goal for our children instead of nitpicking all of the trivial and morally neutral ways we could use to get there.  Let's cry together and laugh together.  Let's be moms together.  United.  In love.