As some of you have pointed out, I have been rather quiet on the blogging front for some time now. Strangely enough, this is not really due to a lack of free time to write; there are several draft entries (a couple of which are fully formed) on standby that will most likely never see the light of day. As time post-baby has elapsed, I find that I am increasingly self-critical, and for some topics - missing my pre-baby life and my excitement on returning to work, to name a couple - I have been hesitant to voice my thoughts for fear of coming across as heartless and cold.
I've started to realise that this may be an insecurity of mine in this whole motherhood journey. I suppose it stems from my feelings during pregnancy. If I'm perfectly honest, my feelings were definitely more toward the apathetic/anxious side of the emotional spectrum, rather than the more common (or at least, more widely voiced) feelings of jubilation. Needless to say, I surprised myself with the pure unbridled joy that M, in her deliciously chubby flesh-and-blood existence, has evoked - but the guilt and doubt from my limited maternal feelings prior to her birth have obviously stuck around and become magnified over time. Why else would it be so important to me for everyone to know that I do love my baby and I am happy being a mother? It's the beast that is holding my lips tight at the times when I want to talk about how I do love my baby but by god she can be trying, and I am happy being a mother but by god I do miss my carefree childless days.
Undoubtedly all mothers feel these conflicting emotions to some degree (though I'm sure many would never admit it, perhaps due to a similar fear). After all, motherhood is about having a baby, not a lobotomy. I disagree that motherhood changes you - I think you are still the same person, much as you are the same person after you have sex for the first time. But you have another dimension of experience, another colour of yarn weaved into the tapestry of your life. And that's certainly not to diminish the power and majesty of that experience, but at the same time it's not to detract from the person you are. Not you as a mother, but you as a person, in the fullest extent.
