When You Feel Like Giving Up

The first time I wanted to give up on motherhood was when I was just 6 weeks pregnant with my oldest. I was staring down the bottom of the toilet bowl, weak, hungry, and desperately needing a shower. A simple task that I couldn’t do without my husband’s help. If this was motherhood, I wasn’t sure I wanted anything to do with it.

I wanted to give up a second time when she was just a few days old, and we were still struggling to nurse. Rather, I was struggling. She was doing just fine. Nobody warned me that breastfeeding hurt like a “mother!” the first week or so. I was tired, achy, sore, bleeding, and my newborn insisted on being my little leech, crying foul if I dared to unlatch her even for a few seconds. In my sleep deprived state, I wondered what it would take to convince a doctor to just put her back inside of me. We were getting along so much better that way…

Then we entered the toddler phase, her all little, miss independent, pushing every single boundary and limitation she could, and no longer napping. All while I was sick, barefoot, and pregnant with her brother, in a foreign country. I felt like a failure for being exhausted, for not wanting to chase her outside a second longer, and for wishing bedtime to come at 7am. On the rare occasions she would sleep, I would stare at her beautiful cherub face, while feeling the rolls and turns in my belly, and I would weep. I wondered how I could do this again, and counted down the years until I could send her cute self to Kindergarten. It hurt that I wanted to throw the towel in and call in quits. But to be brutally honest, that is how I felt when the day’s toils left me feeling weak, drained, empty, and completely incapable.

Fast forward to years later, and I was to be found walking up and down our hallway with my youngest for what seemed like miles. Her inconsolable newborn scream echoed into the darkness, and my own tears splashed on the cold tile floors, meanwhile her siblings were joyfully wreaking havoc and chaos in the other room. I held tightly onto my baby, our pain wrapped together as one, and continued on. Wondering how many more steps before the pain in her tiny belly would subside so my achy arms could find reprieve. So that she could find rest. This went on for weeks before we discovered she was battling silent acid reflux, and was allergic to dairy.

I wanted to give up.

But I didn’t.

When I feel like a failure, and am tempted to count all my mistakes (like all of us moms do), I let that tiny fragment of truth breathe existence and healing into my cracked, and aching mother heart.

I wanted to give up. But I didn’t.

The beautiful part about soldiering on in motherhood, is that eventually you find perspective. You discover that the painful, difficult, and exhausting parts of parenting are overshadowed by the wonderful, and simple moments that ebb and flow. Moments that define motherhood.

When I think of motherhood, I don’t instantly remember my difficult pregnancies, sleepless nights, or angry toddlers. Rather my memory is flooded with rocking tiny sleeping babies in the glow of moonlit nights, toothless grins, first steps, and chubby hugs. I remember laughing children on swings, bedtime stories snuggled under covers, and pink frilly dresses twirling in the dew-soaked grass. I remember first days of school, when their backpacks are bigger than their frames, celebrating the simple occasions such as first books read and shoelaces tied. I remember cute chocolate covered faces, early morning snuggles, and “Mama, I love you’s.”

We are way past the bottles, diapers, and tantrums phase. But I’m learning that each stage of motherhood comes with it’s own set of difficulties and challenges. Moments where you want to tear your hair out, wave a white flag, and run off to the nearest hotel to sleep.

Just last week I wanted to give up when an angry child who felt misunderstood rushed to her room, flung herself on her bed and cried a million tears. I stood outside her room, bracing myself for the storm that I was about to encounter, and momentarily allowed the feeling of defeat to wash over me.

Sweet mothers, in those moments where you are feeling discouragement rise up in you, remember that you are not alone. Motherhood is difficult. It’s normal to feel like quitting somedays. You are a wonderful mother despite those feelings because YOU DON’T. 

Me and you? We are fighters. We fight for our children. We sacrifice for them, we serve them, we love them through the impossible.

We don’t give up. We don’t walk away. We stay.