Kathy and Kellan

"I always knew I wanted to have at least 2 kids.  Now that I am pregnant with number 2, I literally cannot believe that time is here.  Before I had Kellan, I had a very misconstrued thought in my head that motherhood would come easy to me.  I helped my sister a ton with both my nephew and niece and have always loved kids so thought, hey, I am already a few steps ahead of the game.  Boy, was I wrong! First of all, Kellan came 3 weeks early, so my husband and I were not fully prepared both mentally and physically when he arrived.  My husband was literally putting together the playpen the night my water broke.    We hadn’t even installed the car seat or got it checked by the fire department.  The first night we were home from the hospital with Kellan, my husband and I looked at each other and were like… oh man, what do we do now?  Thankfully, Kellan was a pretty easy baby to take care of."

"Obviously, being a first time mom, anything that went wrong or seemed wrong, I called our doctor or advice nurse.  I hated being “that Mom” but I honestly did not want to fail at this whole parenting thing.  One thing that I didn’t mentally prepare for (and I am not sure how I could have prepared for anyways) was how much my life would change after having a baby.  Part of that misconstrued thought I had of motherhood was that my life would be the same; I would now just have a child to share it with.  Pre-kids, my husband and I said that we wouldn’t be those parents who plan their life around their kids.  We would have our kids adapt to our lifestyle.  Ha, what you think your life is going to be as a parent versus how your life actually is as a parent are two totally different paths.  I am not saying that life changed in a bad way, we just had to adjust to the new normal.  Not the normal my husband and I were used to pre-baby, but normal as in our life now as a family.

If it wasn’t for my supportive husband, family, friends and a workplace that cares about my well-being as a mother, I don’t know how I would have survived the first 18 months of Kellan’s life.  There were times in those first 18 months where I felt my life would be this continuous groundhog day of sleepless nights, pumping, feeding the baby, going to work, changing diapers, cleaning the house.  There was no time for myself anymore and definitely no time to do the things that I used to do.  I was running on fumes and was starting to accept that this would be my life from now.  But looking back on it, I feel like I kind of did that to myself.  As a new mom, I wanted to be there for all of Kellan’s milestones.  Even when family offered to watch Kellan over the weekend so my husband and I could have a date night or just a night of rest, I wouldn’t do it because I felt guilty.  I felt guilty for not spending time with Kellan on the days that I had off from work and struggled to find that work/life balance.  It was very unhealthy for me and my marriage."   

"Now that Kellan is 2 years old, life has gotten so much easier.  He has grown to be this funny, smart, loving, larger than life toddler and I could not have asked for a better son.  I have finally come to realize that motherhood is an ever changing job and I just have to role with the punches.  I have to remind myself to not stress over the little things because as I have come to find out, it is only temporary and the reward of seeing our little guy grow up far outweighs all of the temporary struggles we went through to get to this point. Being the mother to Kellan truly fills my heart and soul and I can’t imagine my life without him."

"There have been times during this second pregnancy where I’ve thought, how am I going to be able to love baby number 2 as much as I love Kellan?  I worry about how my life is going to be with 2 kids now that we finally have this great routine going with Kellan and I have found that life/work balance I thought I would never have 10 months ago.  I have a lot of excitement for finally fulfilling my dream of having 2 kids, but I do also have a lot of fear.  I just have to keep reminding myself that I can’t stress about what life is going to be when baby number 2 arrives.  I have to enjoy my life now as a family of 3 and just roll with the punches once our second son arrives in July."