Navigating First-Time Parenthood…

It’s been a while since I’ve shared part of my life on here! It’s so much easier some days to connect on IG having the technology right at our fingertips!

Anyways, a lot has happened over the last year. We moved into a new home last December, found out we were expecting a month later and welcomed our bundle of joy in late September. Life has certainly been moving in the fast lane! Just thinking back on the day I found out I was pregnant, I start feeling all sorts of ways. I remember leaving work that afternoon and calling a friend about what type of pregnancy test to even buy while at the store…literally had no clue what I was doing. I raced home and immediately took the test and within about 60 seconds that test read positive…. total shock ran through my body. Still uncertain about the reality of the whole situation, I proceeded to take about five more pregnancy tests to assure it was true. It was. It was real and it was happening. Jimmy, working from home was downstairs in his office. I freaked out in the bathroom for about 20 minutes alone…and in a complete panic began trying to cleverly come up with some cute “pinterest” way to lovingly tell him we would soon become parents. Scrambling to come up with something, I remembered that I had bought a book months earlier geared towards new dads…thinking well “someday,” I’ll be able to give this to him, I simply held on to it until it was time. Not remembering where it was since we had just moved and not everything was unpacked…I ran through the house flipping things around until I eventually stumbled on it. There it was, in a random container of junk drawer things. I grabbed it and quickly running back upstairs. Considering my nerves, all I could come up with to surprise him with the news was sticking one of the many pregnancy tests I took into the book and giving it to him while also somehow expressing how I felt about us and this new chapter. Don’t worry the pregnancy test had a cover on it… haha 😉

When I went downstairs and opened the door to his office, I threw the book (with the positive test inside of it) onto his desk and said nothing… He looked at me, read the title of the book and questioned why I was giving it to him and said, “Is this a joke?” while laughing. In that moment, all I could muster up the courage to say was…”open it.” He opened it; we both smiled… and the rest was history!

Parenting? What’s that? We both had no idea what we were in for when we considered ourselves as “parents,” since the closest we were at the time to being a mom and dad was to our dog, Brady. There really was no preparing for parenthood. There is no book or class that can show you how to prepare to be a “good parent.” I suppose in some sense, there is a lot of mental preparation that goes into it since it is such a big lifestyle change. But what really prepares you is the time you spend thinking back on how you were raised as a child and how influential your own parents were and continue to be…and if this isn’t the case for you, maybe thinking how you could or would do things differently for your own children. How you came to the point where you are when you are about to enter parenthood is what helps to shape you as a new mom or dad… all of the good, the bad, the hardships, the love, the loss… all of it. It doesn’t all define you, but it shapes your future. These experiences are what will prepare you for your future journey in life.

We approached our due date and began to think back on our experiences in life up to this point in time…all of the many special family traditions we shared, the memories growing up, and all of our quality time spent with family over the years; we immediately began to feel at ease as we realized how fortunate we were. We both were raised by amazing parents who not only taught us patience, but also hard work, strong values, and infinite love…it was because of these things that we knew this parenting chapter would be something we could indeed handle. Our own parents had helped to shape us; they helped us to build our foundation as a family; they helped us to become the best parents we could be.

Parenting… here it lies, and here it begins. Fast forward 9 months later and we welcomed the best part of both of us. A tiny human. A tiny, perfect, beautiful human that we created. She got here and our whole life changed. Here we are now heading home as a family of 3 (plus 1 furbaby) and those same feelings I felt the day I found out I was expecting seemed to almost return in an instant… excited. scared. anxious… all the feels a new parent goes through when bringing home their baby for the first time. The sleepless nights I once had while waiting for her all those months began to look a little different once she had finally arrived. Parenting… it’s hard… it’s scary…it’s real life. It’s the reality of these feelings that you feel as a new mom or dad. You keep this little human safe while he or she grows inside of you for 9 months, you spend hours birthing this child, and there you are sent off on your merry way after a short hospital stay while leaving with new precious cargo in the backseat. What’s next? …Chaos and Cuddles.

First-time parents have no other option but to enter survival mode for the first six weeks of baby’s life. You figure out what works for you and what works for your baby…you simply make it work to get through the days until you find your rhythm as a parent. Finding this said rhythm might include countless phone calls to your own mom or dad, extremely late nights spent googling all of your anxious questions and concerns about every little thing they did or didn’t do throughout the day and last but not least the endless amount of Amazon prime purchases in hopes to “fix” things or to make them better, not knowing everything was just fine the way it was.

“Nursery rhymes and lullabies?” What are the words to those again?…never mind that, the baby is crying and all you can think of to sing are 90’s boy band hits to help alleviate those baby tears. This is the reality that not many people talk about. Nobody ever said parenthood was easy, because it’s not and I can only imagine it getting harder in different ways as your child grows. Parenting is hard work…don’t always sugar coat it… embrace it for what it really is in order to really enjoy your child and the precious time you have together. You will find your rhythm and you will adapt. It’s a life-changing chapter in your life so don’t expect it to be perfect…don’t expect it to come naturally overnight. Listen to your gut as you travel through parenthood and enjoy those days with your little one because they will go by all too fast.

Here we are, 4 months later and we are still so smitten by our sweet girl and couldn’t imagine our life without her in it. It seems crazy to think back on our time before her. I think back and am grateful we had so many years to spend just the two of us…10 years together, 3 years married, lots of traveling around the world, and a fur baby to keep us occupied for quite some time in between.

Parenting didn’t get “easier” per se, it just became more and more natural for us. Throughout the many sleepless nights, the constant feedings, and the endless bottles to clean, there is a belly laughing babe looking back at you enjoying your sweet cuddles. Our precious girl, Olivia teaches us something new every single day… to be flexible, to be patient, and to have fun. So Parenting….what is it? It’s learning what works for you and your child. It’s learning what your child needs from you. It’s living through the chaos and cuddling when it gets hard. It’s living in the moment… and it’s recognizing the here and the now and the everything in between. It’s all love.

xo