I'm finally getting around to writing my first blog post! This is something I've been wanting to do for a long time & life has just been so busy and hectic over the past few months that I just haven't had the time to get around to it. I'm obsessed with reading blogs, watching vlogs and am incessantly scrolling my instagram feed so it made sense to start my own blog to document my daily musings as a new mother!
I am a 22-year-old mum to my darling almost 8-month-old, Ezra, and I'm about to begin my final and fourth year of my law degree in September. I have sort of been waiting for life to return to some sense of normalcy for the past few months before I made an effort to start blogging, but life is never the way it once was after you have babies - but it does change for the best! I found the first few months extremely difficult, which I know most mums can relate to, nothing could've ever prepared me for how extreme the exhaustion was during that time and I regularly asked myself on a daily basis what the hell had I gotten myself into! I will never try to portray motherhood as glamorous or perfect because I would be lying and I want my posts to be an honest account of my life as a new parent. Let's face it, having a baby is hard! Some days I find myself watching the clock until Ezra's bedtime, and then as soon as he's sound asleep in his cot, I find myself going into his room to watch him sleep because I miss him already. It's the most tiring, challenging job in the world, but the most rewarding, amazing one too, and I never knew I could love so deeply until I laid eyes on my little boy.
I wanted my first post to shed a little light on my story and background before I document mine and Ezra's days together, and any posts about weaning and sleep training! Ezra was born on the 19th November 2015; two days before his due date. I had mild pre-eclampsia so was given a couple of sweeps in the days leading up to my due date to see if things would start themselves off on their own! Lucky for me, at 7:30am on the 18th November 2015 I woke up to mild contractions. By the time I got to the hospital around 11am I was 4cm dilated and in active labour - the next 20 hours were a bit of a blur as I had all the pain relief i could get my hands on after they put me on the drip because I wasn't making any more progress and at 7:14am the following morning, my handsome boy entered the world! He didn't have the best start as he was in distress and had ingested meconium during delivery and wasn't breathing. Ezra was limp and blue and I could see the worried looks on everyones faces, and as he was whisked off to be resuscitated I honestly thought he wasn't going to make it. It was the most terrifying moment of my life, luckily, 10 minutes later a doctor came in to confirm that he had pinked up and was breathing fine! I finally got to hold my beautiful son and he was worth every pain.
Before Ezra was born, I had gone through an extremely sad, difficult and heartbreaking time in my life. Two months before Ezra was born, myself and his dad separated. It was something I never thought would happen during my pregnancy, but things came crashing down pretty quickly. I was hurt & devastated and it was a dark time that I never thought I'd get out of. I just didn't know how I was going to do this on my own, I had never lived by myself before and I had 8 weeks to go until Ezra was due to arrive. When I saw Ezra for the first time, everything that had happened went out of my mind and I found this inner strength I didn't even know I had to pick myself up and keep going for this little boy. In the first few weeks after he was born, I was still understandably heartbroken and although Ezra was the best thing to ever happen to me, that time in my life was really difficult for me & I didn't know if I'd ever recover from it. Thankfully, I did recover from it. I didn't want to live that way anymore, I wanted to be happy, I wanted to move on and I wanted to give Ezra a happy mother who loves life. I realised the only person that could give him that was me. I couldn't change what had happened in the past, and I couldn't change what was happening then, all I could do was accept that it is what it is and start focusing on myself again. Over time, things started to completely change, I was becoming myself again and everyone around me could see it. My closest friends in uni would say to me, "you're the old amber again", and it felt amazing to hear it. Time is a healer, as long as you use the time wisely. Then one day it hit me like a ton of bricks, that I was actually over it, I had no emotions invested in that situation or person anymore and it no longer made me sad. I had moved on. I was pretty content with life being just me and Ezra and I was in no way looking for a relationship, he was still only a couple of months old and I just didn't feel like I had time for that anyway.
Shortly after I had come to this decision, one of my best friends from uni phoned me one evening and said she wanted me to meet one of her fiance's friends as she thought we'd really hit it off. I laughed it off and thought nothing of it. To cut a long story short, we met each other and instantly clicked. I seriously fancied him and didn't stop laughing the whole time we spent together. After many dates & a few months, this amazing man is now my boyfriend. He has the kindest heart and continues to surprise me every day with how selfless he is. He's always making me laugh and thinks I'm the funniest person he's ever met, he is constantly cuddling me and being affectionate and he will say the sweetest things totally out of the blue. He has met Ezra and thinks he's the coolest little dude ever and takes the responsibility of being in his life very seriously. He's become my best friend and I just can't believe my luck that I found him. I can now say that everything happens for a reason and I'm thankful that I had to go through what i did because I wouldn't be the person and mother that I am today and I wouldn't have met and fallen for this incredible man. Ezra's father and I have come along way as far as our co-parenting relationship goes and we're in a really good place now, which makes me really happy, because I don't believe a child can ever be too loved and I'm truly thankful he has both of his parents in his life.
The biggest thing I've learned about motherhood is putting your child's needs and happiness first, always.
Amber xo
