This time last year, I was about as big as you can get. Waddling around with a beach ball attached to the front of me. While I was suspect, I really had no idea just how much that beach ball would change my life.
At 9:46 p.m. on Wednesday, May 25th, 2016…Remingtyn Lanay made her grand entrance into this crazy world.
I’ll never forget the moment they put her in my arms. I’m not a ‘crier,’ but oh boy…did I cry!
There was something absolutely incredible, a feeling that even as a journalist…I can’t find the words to describe, that even despite being numb from the waist down came over my entire body.
It was as if there was an untapped quadrant of my heart that until that moment, remained closed; A door that was bolted and that little 7 pounds 9-ounce baby girl in my arms was the key.
And with those barriers to love now shattered, like the wall of the Hoover Dam, came a rushing, flood of emotion that immediately changed everything.
I am a mother.
What did that mean? Well, over the last (almost year), I have learned that it means a lack of sleep, sometimes a lot of stress, a whole bunch of worrying, reading every article about parenting, cutting up food, preparing juice/baby water cocktails, buying a thing called…baby water, picking up a small human, checking the room temperature an unnatural amount of times, putting down a small human, and repeat.
But, it has also meant finding more joy in the average day than I ever thought possible. It’s meant feeling my eyes well up with tears simply by seeing my daughter smile or hearing her amazing giggle that quiets the world for just a moment.
It has meant realizing my responsibility to mold this tiny person into someone who makes a positive difference. But, the more I get to know her, realizing my job isn’t going to be all that hard in that aspect.
No matter the day, no matter the struggle, my life is fulfilled.
My heart is open, and oh so full.
<3 Michaela
