Motherhood

By Melisa Alba

Motherhood,

It is a journey like no other. It breaks your heart open, like a mirror smashed into pieces, showing you different parts of yourself you didn't know existed the light, the dark, the shadows.

Before motherhood, I went on a healing journey, one so profound and filled with intention—to fill my own heart with love, to mend it, to purify the pain, and to heal trauma and emotions that were my own but also ancestral. I did this without knowing that the journey of motherhood would soon begin. It was my intuition at play. I believe the beginning of motherhood starts when you're pregnant. I had multiple losses through miscarriage.

Each time I became pregnant, I learned new depths of my love, and with each loss, I discovered new depths of anger, sadness, frustration, pain, grief, and loss that made me feel like my body was punishing me, and I didn't know why. When I finally became pregnant with my little Luna, the smashed pieces of that mirror began to make sense.

I had started working with the dark and light within me to become the best version of myself, and during my pregnancy, I carried a miracle. So anytime I felt pain, discomfort, or fear being a high risk pregnancy I knew I could not complain. I could only approach my body and baby with love and patience. Little did I know that this was the key to motherhood, and all I was experiencing during pregnancy was preparing me to be the best mother I could be.

The nights were so long in the beginning; they felt lonely. At times, I felt out of touch and out of sync. I was told to wake my baby to feed her on a schedule. I thought motherhood was meant to be about intuition and instinct, yet that was taken away from me within the first two weeks.

Sleep when she sleeps, I was told and your baby must not sleep past 2 hours." I was setting alarms every two hours, not capable of sleeping my nervous system felt constantly on the edge, I’d lay down and I could feel my mind and body racing a million hormones running through me, I’d get up after an hour and a half to wake her. At that point, motherhood was pushing me to the brink of madness, anxiety, confusion, uncertainty, and inadequacy. Days blurred together, and I couldn't fully connect and bond with my baby the way I had dreamed.

The constant demands and different opinions felt like a permanent cloud hanging over me, one I couldn’t escape. My heart had never known so much love and yet so much sadness. The lack of sleep and exhaustion exposed every part of me. I remember the nurses, during every check-in, asking me to fill out forms on my mental health to understand where I was at.

I had no energy, yet every two hours I was holding up my baby, trying to eat, drink water, to stay awake as much as possible I’d stare at the TV from one room to the next, seeking fresh air outside. The sun called to me, and I'd sit in it for 15 minutes, feeling its healing energy.

I was told to sleep when the baby slept, but I couldn’t. I was scared I wouldn’t wake up to feed her on time. I had no words, yet I was filling out forms that labeled me as depressed and anxious. She said this is post partum depression.

The nurse suggested medication to help me sleep and ease my anxiety, like an antidepressant. She left, and I was left staring at my baby, at my partner, wondering, "What have I done?" I had wanted this for so long, begged the universe to let me be a mother. And now here I was, feeling more lost and out of touch with myself and everyone around me than ever before.

They call it the "baby blues."I remember so vividly going to shower, leaking milk, thinking about how I was told to pump it, store it, let my partner help me feed the baby because I couldn’t do this alone. I tried to hurry so I might sleep a little before the next feed. I had never felt so exhausted, like a permanent bender without the party, and I was no stranger to benders. As I dried my new, wobbly body, I thought to myself, "No. No fucking way am I letting anyone tell me what to do anymore."

I went to the fridge, took down the feeding schedule, and said to my partner, "They are driving me fucking crazy. I’m on the brink. I don’t know who I am or what I've become. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. What did mothers do before alarm clocks?" They say it takes a village to raise a child, and now I know why.

I tore up the schedule and threw it in the bin. I said to my partner, "The system is driving me insane." It’s keeping me awake, telling me not to sleep, telling me to wake every two hours to feed her, and to track every feed, every latch, how long on each side. They wanted me to break. They wanted me on medication, and I realized then they didn’t want me to be a healthy mother.

In that moment, I let my intuition take over like never before, reaching back to my ancestral instincts. Babies signal hunger by crying. It’s that simple. The moment I trusted my intuition and blocked out the noise of others, I found peace. I connected with my baby and my heart opened even more. I slept for the first time in two weeks. I felt human again, connected. Motherhood is about love, patience, and intuition.

The moment I started to piece that broken mirror back together, reclaiming my power and intuition, I felt I was becoming the mother I was meant to be. Love, joy, pure happiness, tenderness, and nurturing love came to me so naturally. I just had to block out the noise, trust my instincts, and follow my heart. I felt so full of gratitude. We had made it to this point, forever to go.

I looked at my baby and said, "Thank you for choosing me. I promise to love you, protect you, and always be here for you. But I know to be the best mother I can be, I also need to take time for myself."

So I sat in the sun. I had a nourishing bowl of goodness and fresh orange juice. I meditated, played music, basked in the backyard. I looked down at my body that still felt like someone else’s and said, "Thank you for making a healthy baby." In that moment, motherhood made sense. I knew I had to love myself, to be patient and understanding with myself, knowing that in time, I would feel like me again.

Take it all in, Mama. Good job, Mama. Your baby is fed and sound asleep. You have your miracle. Trust that from here on, all you have to do is slow down, listen to your intuition, and surrender to your instincts. Let them be your guide. To feel connected to yourself and your baby is all you need to do. Surrender to that. It is not glamorous, and it is not anyone else's journey but your divinely yours in its own beautiful and magical way.

Motherhood.