To All You Beautiful Moms

by Amanda Robison

We started our family in 2011 after my husband’s first deployment. God blessed us with an incredible little girl with her daddy’s strength and all her mommy’s sass! We had plans of expanding our family after she turned 2, but another deployment separated our family for 18 months. When we were ready to try, we found ourselves holding countless pill bottles and syringes instead of a baby as we underwent several infertility therapies.

Finally, after 3 years we saw the faintest blue line and heard the sweetest heartbeat. Sadly, the tiny little boy that filled us with so much joy was not meant to be ours, and his heart stopped at 10.5 weeks. Our D&C was followed by an emergency surgery to remove what we thought were cancerous cells. Finally, 2 months later, after 3.5 years, 5 surgeries, 2 IUIs and countless prescriptions we saw another faint blue line. We held hands and prayed at every ultrasound until we heard that precious thump, thump. On April 17, 2019 God blessed our tiny family with a beautiful rainbow. She came into the world with a calmness about her and a spirit that puts all those around her at ease.

Our breastfeeding journey has had ups and downs, but I’m so incredibly proud of the journey and our success. I want to share some encouragement from a post wrote in Huntsville Mommy Milk Meet-up this week.

To all you beautiful moms:

The weeks are long and crazy hard to survive. The early mornings to shower, nurse, pack lunches, get everyone ready and out the door on time are nuts. The day is packed with meetings, e-mails, paperwork, phone calls and pumping. The evenings are a rushed scene of homework, cooking, cleaning, bath time, laundry, bedtime routines and prepping for the next day that lasts late into the night. 

This mama’s bones are tired and her heart is aching...was I enough today? Enough of a mommy to an infant so she knows, despite her time at daycare, I’m always here for her and think she was worth all the nights spent praying for her? Enough of a mama to the little girl, who isn’t as little as she used to be, so she knows that despite her new attitude and ever-growing curiosity about the world around her that I’m never NOT in her corner and will always be on the sidelines cheering the loudest? Enough of a wife to the husband who has seen all my highs and all my lows and loves me with all my flaws? Enough of a friend, a co-worker, a colleague, a chauffeur, a shoulder to cry on and a safe place to all those in my little world needing me? Truthfully, probably not and truthfully that’s okay. I’m doing the best I can and that’s okay. 

There’s beauty in both my success and my defeat, my triumphs and my failures. There’s still 2 little girls who light up when I walk into a room and think I’m pretty awesome, even on the days I know my best just wasn’t enough. There’s still peace in early mornings, just before the dawn fills the sky and the house is still, that I remember God blessed me with this craziness and someday my heart will ache again longing for the mess and chaos.

To those families who cradle emptiness and those families who mourn for the tiny bundles they’ve lost, we see you and we mourn with you. For those that are holding their gifts and rocking their tiny rainbows, we rejoice with you. If I’ve learned anything on this journey, it’s that God truly works in mysterious ways and there is reason hidden in the madness. I count my blessings daily that a couple of high school sweethearts were blessed with 2 precious baby girls and given an opportunity to sit front row as they grow and leave their marks on the world around them.