Motherhood ended the era of which I played the lead role. Perfectly wonderful and yet, I was completely and totally caught off guard. I remember looking at the double lines on the stick and feeling excited, but a bit like I was teetering atop the high dive. The more pregnant I was, the more nervous I became. Though I have tried to block it out, I remember crying to my husband telling him that I just wasn’t sure if this had been a good idea. He kindly refrained from pointing out that it was me who was the one with the baby dreams. What he should have done is to have told me that it was the end of my era, but he didn’t know either.

Could I be the only one that was blindsided by motherhood? I had those pangs intermittently throughout pregnancy, the ones that felt like foreboding hints but I just attributed them to nerves. When my lovely son made his arrival one month early, five days before Christmas, all seemed right with the world until it was time to home. I remember leaving the hospital and thinking to myself, we are just allowed to walk out of here with him? I rebounded and motherhood suited me like nothing had before in my thirty years, at least for about five minutes.

Perhaps I was not as much blind sighted but so enamored with the little creature that had arrived and completed me, that ignorance was my guilt. No, I realized quickly this mothering thing was my first my rodeo and I was in serious trouble. Yes, we arrived home with a five pounder to an empty oil tank and my nightmares came true. Funny how that made me feel so nervous and yet today, I think fondly of the night we spent warm by the fireplace. Reflection and perspective and hindsight have a lovely way of changing us.

It’s been nearly eleven years now and I am still awed by this thing called motherhood. A role that offers twists and turns and reads like a best seller, life in the cosmos as we dodge the meteors and often are not successful. Blindsided by the real of life and reminded often that this thing called motherhood is spectacular. Motherhood is not for the faint or weary and will bring you to your knees and spark many tears, ones born of grief and more often, joy.