The Miracle of Motherhood

The Miracle of Motherhood
By Anna Golightly Jeffs

“No matter how motherhood comes to you, it’s a miracle”

 

 

 

Motherhood is MORE than bearing children, though it is certainly that. It is the essence of who we are as women. It defines our very identity, our divine stature and nature, and the unique traits God gave us.

 

It’s a heartfelt and righteous plea to want to be a mother. When this didn’t happen for me in my time frame, it took leaning on the Savior to get through it. If you are going through an experience like this right now, I want you to know, you are not alone. Many, many women have not been able to become mothers… in the way they had hoped. I know this is so hard. As women we are blessed with tender hearts, we feel the loss deeply, but I also know that Lord has NOT forgotten you… nor has He left you alone.

 

Two years after Clint and I were married, we found out I was pregnant. We were SO excited. At around 10 weeks into the pregnancy, I remember getting ready for a church activity and all of the sudden feeling really sick. I told Clint to call the leader over the event and tell her that I wasn’t going to be able to come to the activity. Then I laid down and fell asleep. I remember waking-up abruptly in so much pain I couldn’t speak. Clint took me to the hospital and that’s when we found out I had an ectopic pregnancy that had ruptured. I was rushed into surgery and the bleeding was stopped but I lost my right Fallopian tube. I was devastated and wondered about the future. Would I be able to have any children?

 

My Heavenly Father gave me a tender mercy in the hospital. One of my nurses told me about her sister who had also experienced a ruptured Fallopian tube. With a big smile she said, “And my sister now has three children.” I clung to those words with hope. I reflected back on her words over and over through the next two years.

 

Through a lot of prayer , we were finally blessed and I was able to get pregnant.

 

During this time of praying for a baby, I remember watching a show called “A Baby Story” which shows expecting parents and their journey through having their first child. I would cry when I watched those stories and I couldn’t wait to have a moment like that of my own.

 

When I went into the hospital to have my oldest boy I had an idea in my head of how I wanted it to go and how I thought I would feel. And as life usually goes, my plans did not happen. During labor we had some trouble and Brennan had to be delivered very quickly. It was scary and exhausting. I kept waiting for my overwhelming, peaceful, spiritual moment to come where I would burst into tears because of the joy I felt… but it never came. Instead I felt nothing.

 

It was confusing and heartbreaking. It wasn’t until later, that I discovered why I didn’t feel that instant emotional bond with my newborn baby.

 

 

Wanting a sibling for Brennan, we tried to get pregnant. Month after month it didn’t happen, so we again, prayed and prayed, pleaded and fasted to be blessed with another baby. I kept thinking, this is a righteous desire… why isn’t it happening? Where was our miracle?

 

This time in my life was a refining time, where I had to trust in the Lord’s timing. Each day was another day to wait. It was hard, my faith was being tested and strengthened at the same time. Four years after we had Brennan we were finally blessed to have another baby. When Derek was born, I again had in my mind how I was going to feel the first time I saw him.

 

After he was born…. it happened again… I felt nothing.

 

 

I didn’t have that moment of great emotional joy that I had hoped for. A few months after I had Derek I was diagnosed with postpartum depression. One of the things that happens when you suffer from postpartum depression is you aren’t able to feel certain things. This condition is sometimes referred to as the “Thief of Motherhood.”

 

I KNEW I loved my babies, but I couldn’t feel it the way I wanted to. This happened when all three of my boys were born. As I look back on photos of my newborn babies, sometimes I don’t even remember being there. It’s like I’m looking at the photos for the first time. My emotions were so far away that I wasn’t able to experience a lot of the positive emotions new moms experience. Instead of joy, I felt a lot of darkness.

 

It was hard. I had prayed and prayed for the miracle to have a baby and now it was the HARDEST thing I had ever done. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful for these precious gifts, but just waking up in the morning and trying to get through the day was a monumental task. I needed A LOT of help. I wasn’t physically or emotionally able to be the kind of mom I wanted to be…. It was so different than I had expected.

 

As I look back to when I was first married and trying to have children. It was a hill I had to climb. Just when I thought I had reached the top because we were blessed with a child…. There was another mountain in front of me. One I didn’t expect. This new mountain was taller and bigger than the one I had just climbed…. I needed the strength and experience in climbing that first mountain to be able to climb the next mountain. And as the Lord teaches us, He will prepare us for greater mountains to climb.

 

As mothers it is sometimes too easy to be critical of all the things we aren’t doing for our children. We forget the Lord blessed us with the children we have because we have the gifts they will need to grow up secure in who they are.

 

As women, we can’t accomplish all that motherhood entails without the help of our sisters around us. The Lord blessed me with many “other” mothers who loved my babies when I couldn’t. Other mothers are the women who sort of fill in the spaces. I had wonderful church leaders, neighbors, aunts, sisters and friends who helped fill in the spaces when I couldn’t mother my babies.

 

As a woman you ARE a Mother. If not to your own children, to someone else’s. I have a wonderful aunt that doesn’t have any children of her own, but worked as a nurse in the NICU for years. She has cared for, nurtured and helped save thousands of precious babies. She is a WONDERFUL mother!

 

 

 

 

The work mothers do commands the greatest admiration and respect. As a mother, don’t forget to give that respect to yourself.

 

I want you to tell you today, no matter what kind of Mother you think you are, you are priceless and loved. Mother’s Day isn’t a day to honor perfect moms, it’s a day to honor all the self-less women who constantly put the needs of others above their own. All of us who are perfectly imperfect.

 

Let’s celebrate our strengths and the miracle called motherhood.

 

 

Anna Golightly Jeffs is an award winning designer and artist.

She received her Bachelors of Science Degree from Utah State University with an emphasis in Graphic Design in 1998. She has been working in the marketing and advertising field for over 15 years. She is active in her church and in 1996 served an 18-month mission for the LDS church. Her passion is sharing the power of creativity with others. She loves the flexibility of working from home so she can spend more time with her three wonderful boys. She has been married to the “most wonderful man in the world” for 15 years.

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