This Sunday marks my first official Mother’s Day (though Sushi might debate that). I think it’s good to reflect on things, and, maybe fortunately, but also painfully, this time of year leaves me with a lot to think about.

I had a DNC the Thursday before Mother’s Day 2013. It was, no holds barred, the worst. Two years later, it still stings to even think about how I felt that week, despite how everything turned out. Part of me is still there, tears streaming down my face as I sit on the curb outside a sushi joint with my furbaby, while Matt fetches our takeout order.

In 2015, I will spend the Thursday before Mother’s Day doing pushups on a picnic table while my lovely baby hopefully sleeps through a fitness class. I will likely follow it up with a coffee, and maybe a walk somewhere with some moms. I’ll go out for dinner with Matt while a friend I trust watches my child and go to sleep in my bed and listen to Charlie breathing while I fall asleep.

There is considerable pressure to slot yourself into many, many categories as a mother. Are you crunchy? Are you a slacker mom? An anti-vaccer? A free-ranger? Breast, bottle, cloth, disposable, purees or baby-led?

There’s a lengthy list.

The truth is, when it really, really comes down to it, none of it matters if you have a healthy child. The rest is all extras. Choices, like milk or cream, pizza or hamburgers, sunshine or rain. If it matters beyond this, your priorities as a mother are out of whack. I’d apologize for offending, but I’m not sorry. Not at all. Having a healthy child is something not everyone is afforded, and once you’re not afforded it, the little things, like parenting philosophies, or what you want in your coffee, matter a hell of a lot less.

Motherhood is a series of contradictions. It’s hard, and dirty, and sometimes several times a day, I pause and wonder to myself if I ever could have imagined doing the things I don’t think twice about. For those still on the fence about motherhood, google Nose Frida. Google how many diapers a healthy baby goes through daily. Google sex after a baby. Google sleep regressions, and colds, and wonder weeks and breastfeeding challenges.

If you’re still on the fence, and you’re not running away, through the meadow to a bar, then you’re probably up to the challenge.

For the first six months, anyway.

Something that is impossible to Google is the way your heart feels the first time your child’s eyes focus on you in an unmistakable way. The incredible joy those first rolling giggles bring. The way their little arms shoot up for you when they’re around five months old and how amazing it feels to scoop them up in your arms, over and over and over again. The looks on their tiny faces when they accomplish something new, and the amusing frustration they feel when they want more than their little bodies can do.

After giving birth, I was in the midst of the what the hell have I done stage, somewhere between month two and three when there was little eye contact and no laughter or acknowledgement that I was doing a good job or any job at all, when a childless friend wrote me to gush about how well I appeared to be adjusting to motherhood from my pictures on Facebook. I felt that was entirely untrue at the time, and, because we’ve known each other for over a decade, I felt quite comfortable telling her that that was not the case at all, and that she should question any new mother that says she has it together. Though I was still in that weird sleep deprived stage, I also remember telling her that if she had any hesitations about motherhood that she should really, really be sure before jumping in.

Do I regret being so blunt? Absolutely not.

Social media has this way of prettying up the raw impact of expelling a person from your body, after said body has spent nine months rewiring to create it. Mothers don’t Instagram their stretchmarks and c-section scars very often. They don’t take pictures of the copious amounts of fibre they’re consuming. They don’t lovingly write about the sporadic hormonal breaks, the night sweats, the still swollen joints. The depressions and adjustments are shoved to the keeping it real blog posts that get applauded for their honesty by mothers, but are also uncomfortable for the general public to read about, because we’re all supposed to fit into a number of mothering categories, but should first and foremost be thrilled that we’re mothers, fulfilling our great biological needs.

Did I have postpartum depression? No. I was incredibly lucky in that regard, and my heart goes out to any woman that has those symptoms on top of all the other weird motherery things that happen postpartum.

I certainly had days where I questioned my life choices in those early days, when my kid was working his way through the fourth trimester and checked myself daily for any of the symptoms that should result in some sort of medication. Days where I would have killed to go back to 2013 and thoroughly enjoyed walking around for a day and not talking to anyone in my old body.

I’d enjoy it for a day, and then I’m sure my chest would ache with longing for five minutes with my boy, and his easy grin and his tiny arms around my neck.

I’m nowhere near finding a mom label that I feel meshes with my parenting style. Six months in, I am, however:

– A mom that struggles with her post-baby body.

– A mom that sometimes feels overwhelmed.

– A mom that doesn’t entirely understand the deep love she has for someone she’s known for less time than some of the bottles of alcohol in her home bar.

– A mom that’s not sure if she wants a second child, and is quite happy to shelve the decision for several years, maternal clock be damned.

– A mom that still has a hard time connecting her pregnancy, which she did not enjoy, to the incredible result.

– A mom that has great compassion for the struggles of other mothers, and very little patience for judgements on how they choose to overcome their individual challenges.

– A woman that sometimes misses feeling more like an individual person, with hobbies and interests that didn’t have to be carefully scheduled.

– A woman that misses being able to walk out the door with just her purse on a daily basis.

– A woman that misses spontaneity sometimes.

– A woman that makes decisions for her child and family that she is happy to defend because they are no one else’s business but theirs.

– A woman, though grateful for Canada’s lengthy maternity leave, embraces the upcoming challenge of being a working mother.

– A woman that trusts her husband with their son completely and utterly.

– A woman that understands her mother more than she did a year ago.

– A woman that’s gained an unexpected, fantastic village through motherhood (I’ll blog about this another time), along with a new perspective on her community.

A huge Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers of all sorts out there. Keep fighting the good fight. And drop me a line if you’re ever in need of an ear.

I’ve been so lucky to have so many lent to me over the past couple of years.