Early Experiences in Motherhood

So this week I have had two of what I would call 'memorable' mommy experiences. Meaning, that these two days will be forever cemented in my memory. One was good and one was well...motherhood.

One of my good friends recently had a baby and is praising the rock and play for sleeping. I heard how wonderful her baby has been sleeping in it and was intrigued. I would like the possibility of having better sleep at night too. So, I decided to research the product for price and reviews. This thing has TONS of good reviews. In fact she referred me to amazonmom.com and while I was on there they had almost 98% positive reviews. They do however have the best review and the worst review so I decided to read both. Everything in the positive review was everything that Lindsay was describing. Then I read the negative review and I went into 'mommy mode.' The review stated that the sleeper was a life saver for the first 3-4 months until parents started to notice flat spots on their baby's heads. This required their children to wear a helmet. The mothers writing these reviews sounded downright guilty. I proceeded to read other negative reviews and they all said the same thing. Flat spots and helmets. The rational side of my head said that everything you review is going to have negative reviews and I have seen this with everything that is reviewed on the internet. The new mommy side of me immediately was wondering what could I do to avoid this if I bought this item and even worse, what if all of the items I review have similar negative reviews that make me not want to buy the product? This was when it hit me smack in the face: "WELCOME TO MOTHERHOOD - PREPARE TO WORRY FOR THE NEXT 18 YEARS AND BEYOND." I ended up emailing my girl friend and telling her about it and asking her what she had done. That night because I was fretting so much I slept awful and had bad baby dreams. Wow am I in for a world of worry! Lindsay emailed me back the next day and said they were just making sure the sleeper had lots of padding. I then talked to another girl at work and she said flat spots and the helmet to help them is more of a vanity thing. I was brought back to my original thought of this is going to be a normal occurrence. I have come to terms on how I will deal with this but I do find it humorous that my emotions are so shaken by a baby product.

Now...onto the good motherhood experience. Today I am about 90% sure that I felt the baby move! I actually thought I felt it the other day but it was just for a short moment so I dismissed the possibility of it being the baby since it was so short. Today though, the feeling lasted much longer and so I am fairly certain that the baby is what I am feeling. The feeling was similar to how people describe it as 'gas' or 'a flutter.' Yet, it was still slightly different. I likened it to gas, because the characteristics were similar but yet it felt slightly different.

I was driving to the hospital (I work off campus) for a meeting and started to feel the movement in my stomach. I briefly thought "is that it?" Then when I continued to feel it while in my meeting I became fairly certain of the baby. It lasted for about 5 minutes and then stopped. Later this evening I felt it again. It made my day today. I wasn't expecting to feel anything for another couple of weeks so it came as an even better surprise. I called Cole and told him first. It's hard to tell sometimes what he is thinking, but he sounded surprised and excited at the same time. Now I think he finds it cute that I am so excited about it. I understand it is a little different since he can't feel the sensation. This feeling has made me even more excited about the baby. With each milestone - the ultrasound, seeing the heartbeat, hearing the heartbeat, and feeling the baby it all becomes more real.

I am excited for all that motherhood has to bring, the worries, the tears, the joy, the love, and everything else in between that I can't even fathom yet.