With both of my babies birthdays past and reading over their birth stories and early blog posts after I had Eva, I have been musing on how much I've changed in the last 3 years of becoming a mommy. Before I had Eva, I was about as mainstream as they come.
In the last 3 years, I've become just about as crunchy as you can become without your husband calling you a crazy hippie. Oh wait.
I think young parents specifically can sort of be singled out as not knowing what they are doing. We do get targeted, especially if we go against the flow. You wear your baby? Don't you realize that you're going to make them bowlegged? You don't vaccinate? You are basically killing your baby. You cloth diaper? Nasty. Why would you want their poop against their skin? You co-sleep? They will sleep with you until they are teenagers. You breastfeed past a year? They are going to nurse until they are in college. You don't cry it out? Your baby will never learn to sleep. And the list goes on. (Can you tell I've heard one or two of these?)
It can be difficult as a parent (and maybe a person) not to regret choices that you've made. Even if at the time, you were only doing what you thought was best. But I've also come to realize that those choices made me the person that I am today. Can that sound more cliched? (I don't think so) But really, if I hadn't had a unnecessarean with Eva, I wouldn't have come to doubt and research everything for myself. I wouldn't have come to love and trust the mommy instinct that God gave me.
Today, I was given the chance to doubt myself. To doubt if I knew best for my child. And guess what? For a minute there, I really did. I'm a confident person. A confident mom. About 99% of the time. But when someone you love, who you look up to, tells you that you are doing the wrong thing, it tends to make you think. I really had to pray and ask God to show me. Show me to trust my mommy instinct. The one that He gave me.
So instead of being crunchy, I prefer the term instinctive. Mommy instinct. Trust yours. You've got one. God gave it to you.
