MÈRE Stories: Betsy Atkinson
Growing up, all I ever wanted to be was a mother. “These are the best days of our lives,” my peers cried in high school and again in college, mourning the end of each season. Feeling like a pariah, I was ready to move on.
Each milestone that passed brought me closer and closer to my greatest dream; motherhood.
When I met my husband, I joked I had found my “one” because he was the only 19 year old boy I’d ever met that wanted to be a father as much as I ached to be a mother. We bonded right away over our shared desire for a large family.
We got married after graduating college and nine months later we were expecting our first child. After Evie was born I felt like I was born right along side her. It felt as her lungs filled with air for the first time, mine did too. Finally fully alive, finally walking in what God created me for.
Yet I braced for impact.
I waited for the hardships of motherhood to dampen my joy, rob my spirit, and take my identity; as so many warned me it would.
But to every young woman, mother in waiting, and aspiring mama to be, please let me encourage you: it never did.
Pregnancy and post party (as I like to call postpartum) are difficult for me, like many. I puke all 9 months of pregnancy, deal with debilitating low blood pressure / fainting, and most of all the dreaded postpartum anxiety. Ignoring the hard and acting as if the it doesn’t exist robs motherhood of so much of her beauty. Motherhood is so beautiful because we selflessly lay down our physical bodies, our hormones, our HAIR, our sleep, our time, and so much more to bring forth this blessing of a child. But what we gain is so much better than anything we could give.
We have since welcomed 4 additional blessings and I truly find the more kids we have, the more aware I am of the blessing a child is, and the more children I want. I wish I could come along side every new mom, hold her hand, cheer her on and help her to fall in love with motherhood. I want to be one voice in a sea of “just wait” sharing the brighter side of motherhood and all the life she brings, both literally and figuratively.
If you had to summarize your journey in motherhood with all its challenges, how would you describe it now? How have you found a way to reclaim your strength or identity? What have you learned?How can I summarize the single most transformative and refining part of my life when I am still fully immersed in just the beginning stages? Motherhood is a lifelong endeavor. Once we have kids we are, forever, mother. To be totally honest, I don't feel that women need to reclaim anything FROM motherhood. I think IN motherhood we grow in our strength and our identity becomes enriched. THROUGH motherhood, we dig deep and we find a new level of who we are and who we are meant to be.
I am continuously learning that time is a GIFT but the speed at which it passes stings.
What advice or words of encouragement would you give another mom walking through a similar chapter? It is their childhood, it's true. But it is also your adulthood and both can be magical at the same time. Don't settle for "in the trenches" or "surviving not thriving." It is possible to ENJOY your kids.
How has your journey changed you, both in ways you expected and in ways you never could have imagined?
Motherhood has both calmed me AND forced me to face my anxiety I have battled my whole life.
I'll never forget at my postpartum appointment with my second, my doctor laughed and said "for as anxious as you are, motherhood really calms you."
I have anxiety about so many things but in an unexpected turn of events motherhood is where my mind quiets and my spirit calms.
That being said, hormones really do wreak havoc on an anxious person and I have found that with a small dosage of Zoloft I can remain calm both in and outside of my motherhood headspace, even with the hormonal fluctuations of 8 years of back to back pregnancies.
Motherhood has really helped me to make space for the "and" in life.
I can struggle with anxiety AND be a calm mother. Pregnancy can be hard AND I can love having babies. I can thrive in the fourth trimester AND have postpartum anxiety. A lot more of life is lived in the gray than either the black or the white.
— Betsy Atkinson
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