10 Ways I Know I'm a Mom

from Cathi

1. I can eat a meal with one hand and a baby’s butt 5 inches from my face. With a full diaper. (The baby, not me.) Although I wish it was politically correct to wear Depends all the time, since I never have time to go to the bathroom, or I pee when I sneeze. And yes, you learn to pee while holding a baby.

2. I watch the baby instead of whatever is on the TV, and it’s much more entertaining, even if she’s just napping.

3. I wake up in the middle of the night out of a dead sleep and look at the clock blearily, wondering, ‘Did I remember to change her after I fed her last time? Where are we in the feed/burp/diaper/sleep cycle?’ And then lay awake despite my exhaustion until I have comforted myself that yes, she’s still breathing. Every single night.

4. Guilt comes in so many more varieties and flavors than I previously thought.

5. One thing that has totally blindsided me is the overwhelming protectiveness. I am now afraid of everything. Once a fearless person, I am now terrified of robbers, falling down the stairs, carjackers, the first day of kindergarten, kidnappers, germs, bad drivers, the nanny quitting before she’s started, making mistakes, leukemia, and over/under-feeding. Not necessarily in that order and not a complete list. I even have taken the time to consider how I would maneuver in case I was behind a truck on the highway and suddenly an object came through my windshield. How could I take the blow so it would avoid the baby?

6. I sometimes look at my child and wonder in a very abstract way whose she is.

7. I cry every single day. Sometimes because I’m so damn happy and lucky. Sometimes because I am angry and hurt and sad and bitter about her donor. Sometimes because time is falling through my fingers and I’m too sleep-deprived and overwhelmed to enjoy these fleeting moments despite every single well-intentioned stranger telling me to do just that. And sometimes I’m just a tired cranky pants and, like a baby, need to unwind. See, I’m crying right now. Hormones blow.

8. I take a freakish delight in scaring non-moms with my labor horror story.

9. So far today I have picked boogers out of someone else’s nose, washed poo down my garbage disposal (long story), cleaned a c-section incision, had an involved conversation with a doctor about lochia, inquired about someone else’s child’s poo, and put a pacifier that had fallen on the optometrist’s floor in my mouth to ‘clean’ it.

10. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. But, uh, I’d skip that back labor part if I could. And the grotesquely swollen feet. And I’d make it okay to drink while pregnant, since I’m making wishes here. And I’d take all nine months off work and just sleep. And…