I am a mother.

{november 3rd, 2008. 1:30pm}

The days and weeks after Morgan was born, I shed tears of the deepest sadness I have ever felt in my life. Those days were darkened. What they call post-partum depression makes it sound like something expected, something average. Nothing of what I went through was expected, nor average. Not the pain. Not the forty-one hour labor. Not the choice that we made to endure it without an epidural. Not the six-inch scar I have on my stomach, or the honest fact that I cannot remember how I felt when I first held my perfect child in my arms.

For days after he was born, others tended to his every need. I could not. My mother slept with him in her arms night after night, while I sobbed in Jared’s. I was missing so very much and I knew it. I remember distinctly one night telling Jared how I believed in my heart that Morgan did not know I was his mother, and how it was breaking me. Jared held me and touched my tears with his fingers, just like he had those grueling, laboring hours. He told me that Morgan knew exactly who I was, that he could see it in his tiny little eyes when he looked up at me.

As nine months have passed since the birth of my son, I feel that “full-circle” feeling. He grew within me for that span of time, and now that time has spanned out to nine months of life. And how life has changed for me, and for Jared. How we have learned. And how we (all three) have grown.

The scriptures teach us that Heavenly Father has a plan for each of us individually. And that that plan is revealed to us line upon line, precept upon precept.

I remember so vividly my prayers those first few weeks. I remember how my body slumped over my bed. How I cried. How I felt so very broken. I remember calling upon my Heavenly Father to lighten the darkness, to make my body, my spirit whole once more. I knew that He could, and that He could do it swiftly, if it was His will.

It was gradual. It was line upon line. But it was. And it was because of Him.

This life is a collection of experiences and as we move forward, we gain strength from them, even if it is here and there.

Even now, my scar is fading. I lean on my sweet other half for guidance and comfort. For strength. And I depend upon the gospel and its teachings to lead me onward.

Prayers are heard. And they are answered. I am a mother. My child is perfect. He knows me! He loves me! I feel it daily, rain or shine. I can see the love that he has for me, and I see it in his beautiful eyes. He is God-like. I look into his sweet face and I see all that is good and sacred.

He is beautiful to me. I am his. And he, most certainly, is mine.