Sweet baby boy

It's been quite a few weeks since my last blog post, but I promise my absence is within good reason

I became a mom. 

It still feels so weird to say it, I'm a mom! The past two months have been the most beautiful, terrifying, painful, anxiety-ridden and intoxicating months of my life. It's a little terrifying, the amount of love you feel for your child. And yes it's true, you fall in love with your spouse all over again once you see them with the baby you both created. There's truly nothing like it. I'd like to say my birth experience didn't go as 'planned' but no one has any business 'planning' their birth in the first place. Instead I preferred to call it my 'birth intentions.' I intended on having an unmedicated birth, having my mom and husband there, doing alot of walking and being mobile and I intended on listening to my hynobirthing recordings. 

But after 5 days overdue and 40 hours of a failed induction, I was met with my worst fear - an unintended c-section. 

I have every intention on doing a blog post on my birth story and going more in-depth into my recovery to help other c-section moms, but truth be told - emotionally, I'm just not ready to re-visit all of that yet. It was rough. And experiencing my first pregnancy during a pandemic was a far cry from what I had imagined. 

 

But good Lord. Being pregnant, giving birth and being a mom changes the heck out of you. I'd always read about the transformative experience of becoming a mom, but it doesn't really feel real and hold meaning until you're watching it unfold right in front of your eyes and within your own body.  

It's hard to fathom that somehow this....

Turned into this......

Tucker Vincent 

6/23/20; 10:53am; 7lbs 15oz

They're not lying when they say your baby is your heart outside your body. (And they're not lying when they say that there's nothing more dangerous than a mother with a child. The protective instinct is real). 

Tucker is my heart and my soul. But even saying that doesn't feel like I'm putting enough emphasis on how much he truly means to me. Not even a fraction. It's hard to imagine that life in general even used to be possible without him.

I could gush over him for years, but there'll be plenty more posts for that. 

I truly cannot wait to share him with all of you. But we all know it's not all baby smiles and the intoxicating sounds of their laughter. It's hard work, tears, isolation, insomnia, days when we feel like giving up, days when we feel like a 'bad mom,' and days when nothing makes sense. I'm looking forward to sharing all of those experiences with you too, because those days exist. And they suck. And I've had my fair share of them already.

I guess this blog will be a hybrid of motherhood, family history and candlemaking? I guess it'll always be evolving.

And so will I. 

I hope you stick around

XO,

Carolyn - Wife, social worker, candle-maker....

and Tucker's mom.