Hey Mama. You're a badass!

That's right! You heard me.  You're a badass, selfless in giving your heart, selfishly swimming in love and rightfully so. Children are a challenging gift in every way.  It is a marathon to bring them into our lives and a marathon once they are with us.  They test your patience, your responsibility, your reasoning.  They bring you joy, humor, compassion, frustration, irritation, love, and youth.  You have waited for this child to be with you, in your embrace.You are anxious to know what life will be like with them, and, before you know it, they are here.  Your child.  Yours.
I didn't see children in my future.  I was afraid of pregnancy.  I was afraid of child birth.  I was afraid of being responsible for someone else.  I didn't think I had it in me to be a mom.  I thought I was too selfish for it.  I remember feeling overwhelming fear around the whole process.  I remember thinking that I would lose who I was if I had children.  And one day, things started to turn around.
When I took my pregnancy massage class, my mind started to open.  I was no longer looking at children through the eyes of a teenager.  I saw the process of pregnancy and childbirth as a beautiful part of being a woman.  I saw it as an amazing part of our physiology.  I wanted to experience pregnancy and childbirth, but I still didn't want to raise a child.
One day, all of it changed.  I wanted to be a mom, and we were blessed with a beautiful healthy baby girl at 35 years old (my self -proclaimed baby birthing cut off age).  Two and a half years later we welcomed another daughter into our lives.  These girls and this process has changed me, and I wouldn't change any of it.  My children do not define me, but they force me to look at the world in a very different way than I every thought possible.  They show me that I have the ability to love with my whole heart and that I can love through all of life's frustrations.  They require me to practice patience Every Day. They require me to be selfish and practice self care.  They have given me an ability to examine my own life in ways that I never thought I could. They test me every day, and I love them more for it.
Some days I look at them and think about what it has taken to bring them to me, to us, and I can only see myself as a bad ass for doing that.
It doesn't matter how your children came to you.  It doesn't matter if you birthed them naturally, via cesarean section, or if someone else birthed them.  It doesn't matter where you met your child for the first time.  We all have different stories surrounding how we met our children and they are all beautiful. No matter how it happened, revel in the fact that Mama, you're a badass.

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