Nothing excites me like seeing a nursing mother and her baby, I just can’t help but applaud them for their bravery and hard work especially first-time Moms who despite their lack of experience are still able to take up the role of motherhood, they aren’t fully trained for this new role they assume, no matter the books they read, research’s and pieces of advice they get they just have to learn more on the job because they’d be new cases, new methods, and options they’d have to explore while learning on the job.
When I see a first-time Mom, I don’t hesitate to applaud and appreciate them because these past months I’ve been opportune to take a peek into what their lives look like behind the scenes, and without mincing words these women are the real MVPs, figuring things out, being overwhelmed yet putting up a strong front is something to be applauded.
A very good friend of mine gave birth a few months ago and prior to when she did I had written her a very beautiful letter
https://peakd.com/hive-165757/@ibbtammy/to-my-pregnant-friend)
This my friend happens to be one of the strongest women that I know. I watched her rock and slay while pregnant to the point that she made pregnancy look so easy. My friend was so strong that she didn’t stop working while she was pregnant as a matter of fact she was in the office a few hours before she gave birth.
Watching her pregnancy journey I was so proud of her and silently wished I could have so much energy like her when I get pregnant.
After she gave birth she started her motherhood journey with so much enthusiasm that it felt like nothing to her but with time we saw her begin to struggle. She was overwhelmed with everything just like every woman after childbirth.
The saddest thing about motherhood is that there are no past questions, nothing that aptly describes how you feel or what you should do.
There were days when my friend would call and start sobbing and other days she felt numb. Now all of these started when her mum left her house after staying with her for three months after birth.
Over here there’s something called Omugwo, it’s the period of time when a woman’s mother, mother-in-law, or any older female relative helps to take care of the mother and her newborn baby for a period of three months before the mother of the child is able to bathe the child properly and tend to the child without needing assistance. Over here babies are bathed differently, so it’s always tasking.
After my friend's mother left she felt so lonely and overwhelmed.
For the longest time, I have read about Postpartum Depression only on the internet, in novels and poems but for the first time, I witnessed it.
There were times when she’d burst into tears because her baby was crying and she didn’t know what was making the baby cry and some other times when she’d have to stay up all night tending to her baby.
This new role she assumes feels so big for her that she sometimes can’t wrap her head around it and it makes her feel bad for not being able to handle everything.
This is the same fate for most first-time Moms, being clueless and emotionally drained yet you just have to find a type of coping mechanism to help with your emotions and everything in between.
For a lot of first-time Moms, the journey seems so difficult but the good thing is they still want to go on that journey again and again and the more they go on that journey the better prepared they are.
To every first-time Mom out there, the ride might not be a jolly one at the moment but trust the process as it would be rewarding in the future.
All images are mine except otherwise stated.
Thanks for stopping by
Loads of Love🥰🥰
XOXO
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