Motherhood is an experience most people who have cherished that thought since childhood looks like a lot of responsibility once you grow up. I wanted to be a mom, I swear I’ve always wanted to be one. My aunts, my mom’s friends, and later on every childhood friend’s mom was a reflection of what I wanted to be. What all those marvelous, gracious, funny, thoughtful, playful women had in common were children. I wanted to have a profession but I also wanted to be someone’s mom.

As I started my relationship, the thought of children was a playful subject. Maybe naming them as fictional characters, as wacky family members or creating a name from scratch was something to think about in a good mood. Looking at my partner and seeing a perfect parent engraved in stone that I would spend the rest of my life next to that wonderful person.

Three weeks in, there was a feeling.

As I discovered my pregnancy at 3 weeks, my whole world started to crumble. I hadn’t graduated from college and I had just quit my job. Things weren’t looking out so good from the start. From what I now know as my 2 weeks of pregnancy, I could feel my baby inside of my belly. I never knew that was possible but it turns out my baby was a boy and that’s what boys do, move around mommy’s belly from day one.

Pregnancy was a crazy idea that didn’t seem so crazy anymore. I was in a steady relationship with a solid resume. I could lay back and enjoy my belly grow so that’s what I did, I enjoyed every single moment of my pregnancy, I cooked many meals, I wrote many things, I read a ton of baby information, talked to many mothers I knew, went to the doctor’s appointment, sometimes even more than prescribed. I wanted to know everything about the life growing inside of me!

Those very few weeks when I learned I was pregnant, it was a wake-up call. I was going to be one of those moms I looked up to when I was a kid. Now I have to be the role-model adult I modeled myself after. Finding out I was pregnant was the pressure I needed to start being what I wanted to be, to not just achieve lines on my resume but to be proud of who I am and be able to teach that. I could be the fun, loving adult all my friends had as moms.

Findings…

At the doctor’s appointment we found out my body doesn’t produce progesterone and there was a risk of losing my baby. Luckily, there are pills on the market you can take to fix that issue. That was the reason I didn’t have any nausea or any of the normal pregnancy symptoms. After I started taking progesterone orally, nausea started to show up and with it my cranky mood.

Yes, it was a wakeup call. Now I don’t have to worry just about myself. From the very first day of pregnancy, motherhood flourishes in you as you find out what you’re made of. It turns out I was made of love.