Losing my oldest child has shaped how I mother.
I was thrust into motherhood in a unique way. I've seen more positives on pregnancy tests than I have children in my home. My oldest son, Jacob, only lived for seven hours before we said goodbye to him and he opened his eyes for the first time in the presence of Jesus. My pregnancies have never been completely innocent, as receiving heartbreaking news has been part of them since the very first.
For several years, I was a mother with no visible children. I learned my new identity as a mom while deep in the waves of trauma and grief - and with aching, empty arms. I processed through my postpartum body and all the ways my heart lived outside of me while I also lay on my bathroom floor sobbing about how babies weren't supposed to die.
I proudly shared photos of my son with friends and family while also fumbling through answering innocent questions from strangers that stung my heart and occasionally brought me tears.
By the time we brought our second child into the world - our first child we were able to bring home - I was confident that I was a mom, familiar with so many things related to creating physical space for her in my body during pregnancy and also with the healing that comes with postpartum recovery. But I felt like a "new mom" in many senses of the word - and that alone brought significant grief again into my life.
I was a new mom and not a new mom, all at the same time.
I knew what it was like to love a child fiercely but I never had had the chance to mother a child here on Earth.
I struggled through anxiety and fears with her - always afraid of messing something up, continuing to carry the guilt that I unnecessarily felt from bearing the weight of responsibility for losing Jacob (and yes, it wasn't my fault).
But losing Jacob gave me a perspective unlike any other in regards to being her mom.
I didn't feel unhelpful pressure to "savor every moment" or the pressure to not experience anything hard with her. Instead, I felt the freedom to say: This can be hard AND good at the same time. I can be sad about losing Jacob AND be happy that I have a daughter now. I can struggle deeply with the loneliness of grief and the loneliness of caring for a new born AND still be happy that I am a mom.
Having a healthy child after losing my first taught me that each of my children are different, with different journeys and different personalities. My love for them is deep and fierce and true, even if caring for them and getting to know them looks different. Not everything needs to be the same for it to be just as meaningful (and I wish I could go back and tell my 13-year-old self this...) - comparing isn't helpful, especially when it's not possible.
And maybe most significantly, I realized that having another child didn't erase the pain that my heart felt towards losing Jacob. There would always be someone missing. Our family would always be bigger than it looked. I could begin to embrace the beauty in that once she was born, and not just live through the pain.
Not quite two years later, we brought home our second son, our third child. The big sister would never remember life without a brother at home. Oh, how that made my heart sing. That's how it always should have been. And yet again, I've come to the beautiful conclusion that without her older brother, I wouldn't be the mom I am to her. Being a mom of a child in Heaven has impacted how I mother my children on Earth.
On the days where it just feels too hard to do it all, I'm reminded that I can come to God with any and every hard thing - there is nothing too small. He wants all of me, even in my tiredness and my lack of patience. Just as I ran to him when I didn't think I'd make it through another day without Jacob because the grief and the pain was too hard, I can run to him when I don't think I can make it through another day of being physically needed over and over again by two tiny humans.
When I am at a loss with how to handle the big scary things that come with thinking through how to do new things like discipline my toddler or even the small scary things like what do when they're both crying at the same time and in need of me, I just do the next thing. Even if the next thing is to walk down the hall to the bathroom to take a deep breath before coming back to give hugs and kisses.
When I am overcome with the sadness of losing Jacob and I just miss him dearly... I can show my emotions to my daughter, and demonstrate that it's okay to be sad about something and also to verbalize that sadness to the people that I love. I can have her cry with me (she's empathetic), without fear that I'm damaging her, but with the hope that she is learning to weep with those who weep.
I can smile when someone tells me that "now that you have one of each, you're done, right?" without fear that I'm hurting Jacob's feelings (they can't be hurt) and with the hidden hope that I hope we're not done yet. It can be hard to wrangle a toddler and a newborn, it can be nerve-wracking beyond belief to get pregnant again (we've had two healthy children in a row, so the next one surely is a loss again, right?), AND I can still hope that we have more children to add to our family.
And maybe most importantly, I know this:
"It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful." - The Nester
I have been able to embrace the messiness and the chaos more readily this time around. I feel more confident and calm when it comes to caring for my babies. I know that good things and hard things will happen, and it's all okay. I never had control anyway - trust me, if I did, Jacob would still be here - and I'm ready to embrace that lack of control more readily this time around. My family pictures are missing someone but that doesn't mean that they aren't beautiful pictures or that the missing someone is loved any less. It also doesn't mean I don't see him in that picture when I look at it.
As my children grow, I'm confident that I will continue to see how Jacob has impacted how I mother my other children. I know that mothering him will continue to change with each year that passes without him. I'm confident in who I am and Whose I am as a mother because I lost my oldest son. My prayer is that my younger children know that just as they have enriched my life, so has he.
Jacob gave me the title, mother. Losing him made me a mother. I don't know what I'd be without him, and I don't know who I'd be without the others, either. I don't want to know. Instead, I want to embrace it. Losing my oldest child has shaped how I mother, and it is good.
I'd love to hear your experience. How have the hard, but defining, moments of your life shaped you and who you are?
Comment below & let me know!