Motherhood.

I hobble over to the living room window with a shaking, sobbing toddler on my hip. I have no concept of anatomy but I’m pretty sure my tailbone just detached from the rest of my spine, which, in the third trimester, always feels like it is made of playdoh. 

It’s almost bedtime, I tell myself, willing my body to hang in there. But all of us–me, the toddler, my spine–we all know bedtime is far away. My husband, Paddy, has just taken our eldest upstairs to talk through something he’s going through. And on nights like these, grief hangs in the air, stealing sleep from everyone.   

“Wow Asher, look at the flowers on the tree,” I point at our Cherry Blossom, who is awake in all her April glory. “Do you see them blowing in the wind? Do you see that bird on the branch?” It’s a pathetic attempt at distraction, I know. But I need to do something, anything to stop feeling so helpless.

And then I notice it. My potted plant of giant daisies—completely smashed. A perfect football-shaped smoosh right down the middle. 

An accident, I’m sure. But now there are two of us crying. 

***

It was Monday morning. Easter Monday morning, which is a different kind of Monday morning altogether. Christ has risen, Paddy was off work, and one-half of our offspring was staying with my mum for a few nights. 

Naturally, we went for brunch, cried at the penultimate episode of Blue Lights, had a group nap, and hit up the garden centre–a bank holiday cliche if ever I’ve heard one. 

For weeks I’d been loudly expressing my desire to plant all the things and grow all the things. Every time I mentioned it I could see the unspoken memory in Paddy’s eyes: me, last Autumn, on a hormonal rampage, throwing all my homegrown herbs in the bin because “the pots were taking up too much room” and “I didn’t use them in many recipes anyway”. 

I’m sure you guessed my big claustrophobic feelings had nothing to do with the plants. (They never do, do they?) And despite said memory, my good husband knows when to let another hormone-driven expedition take its course. 

Aware of the tight budget, I chose a few humble packets of vegetable seeds and one pot of giant daisies, already in full bloom. I’m a girl who can wait for her veggies but I need my fix of beautiful wildflowery goodness stat. 

“Do you remember doing this the last time you were pregnant?” Paddy interrupted, and I knew what he was going to say next. “You always go crazy growing things when you’re growing a baby.” 

I could have let the sweet metaphor go. But there was more to it, and it would be wrong to beat around the bush in a garden centre (ha, sorry). 

“I don’t know… when I’m pregnant I feel so out of control of my mind and body, it feels good to take control of growing something else. Something tangible. Something less risky.” 

Of course, I know I can do all the healthy things and tick all the having-a-baby-boxes, but ultimately I have very little control over the outcome. 

And to be frank, cucumbers are much easier to raise than humans. 

***

Two weeks ago, my best friend gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. 

I’m sitting on the end of her bed watching her two-year-old daughter hold the newborn on a nursing pillow. My friend and I can’t help but laugh at the scene. She tells me how fiercely protective and nurturing her daughter is, how she doesn’t realise she’s only two years old. How her motherly nature also makes her a liability. And sure enough, with her wild curls strewn across her sober face and both arms guarded around the baby, she looks like she’s been through nights of marathon breastfeeding.

It’s equal parts hilarious and beautiful.

I tell her how, as an eight-year-old, I regularly woke up in the middle of the night to feed my doll. She was called Abigail–Abbie for short. And all I remember is the absolute rage I felt that Abbie wasn’t real, that she didn’t need me when all I wanted was to mother her. 

Still, I continued to get up, night after night. Because this is what mothers do.

***

Back at my living room window, Paddy joins us downstairs again–alone. Later, in the safety of our bed, we’ll discuss the evening’s events–how we handled them, what we could do next time, what the counsellors say, how we’d write the story for our children if we were God. 

But for now, I show him the daisies. Normally we’d joke about how we can’t have nice things, about the perfect football-shaped smoosh. But he says nothing, the look of defeat on his face saying everything. 

It’s true, pregnancy makes me a control addict. Nothing has brought me to my knees in surrender like the God-ordained gifts of a teen pregnancy, a pandemic pregnancy and now, a plain old regular pregnancy. But it’s perfect preparation for this whole business of mothering in a broken world. I have no more control over the baby in my womb than I do the nine-year-old up in his room. 

Some days the beauty of motherhood is harder to see than others. I don’t like waiting. I don’t like trusting. Can I have my pot of blossoming giant daisies now, please? 

But this is what mothers do. It’s who we are, who we’ve always been and always will be.  We nurture and protect and teach and hold. We give our bodies and our minds and our sleep. We pray and hand it all over, day after day, hour after hour. And we believe there is beauty in this work, even if the full bloom is yet to come.

This post is a part of the blog tour for The Beauty of Motherhood: Grace-Filled Devotions for the Early Years. With scripture, stories, prayers, and practices, The Beauty of Motherhood provides mothers with refreshment and the reminder that they are not alone as they mother. Order your copy at Amazon.

Some recent photos taken by our favourite gal and photographer — Bethan Rose Photography