Obviously you get a baby (or two, or three…or however many). That’s the obvious one. You also gain the ability to survive on minimal sleep, less sleep than you thought you could ever function on (I can now safely say that I believe that hangovers are 90% lack of sleep). You also gain this ability to be able to filter out the bullshit, because honestly you do not have the time or the energy (see minimal sleep) for people and their rubbish. Here are a few other things that I believe change when you become a parent…

I apologised to one of my friends the other day for being somewhat absent this year, this girl is one of my best friends and truly accepts me entirely as I am (bad time management and all) and she turned to me and said “Your true friends will understand”. Boom. There you have it. Becoming a parent also filters out your friendship circle, your true friends will understand that you may show up to lunch a little late, sporting baby vom, maybe wearing this new perfume you have called ‘breast milk’, without a stick of make up on (or minimal make up) and a messy bun that you have now adopted as your every occasion hair do. I’m not even kidding. And if they don’t…#byefelicia

Other things that change, you don’t get sick days. At all. Ever. This week I was sick and motherhood doesn’t stop for shit. I just wanted to lay in bed but I had a baby to tend to. Lunch breaks also go out the window.

Packing light. HAHAHAHAHA. We are going to Samoa in May with Teina’s family. I hadn’t thought past the beach until Teina’s sister-in-law asked me if I was taking the car seat. Shit. And the pram. Fuck. And food for Amaya. Wahhhhhhh. The smallest people require the most shit.

I have a new found respect for my Mum. And any other Mother I know.

You aren’t extremely keen on the idea of getting shit faced unless your baby is having a sleepover. Somewhere else. Where you cannot hear them when they wake up in the morning. Because if you can hear them, you feel guilty. This guilt then forces you to stay awake and get up to help care for this baby. You have one hard, long ass day ahead of you and you better pray to every God, Angel and the entire universe that your baby sleeps tonight.

You cannot stand to hear of a child being hurt or dying. Seriously. I obviously never enjoyed hearing these stories (clearly, otherwise I would be the biggest heartless wench on the planet). You understand how unbearably difficult it would be to exist without your baby and your heart breaks into a million pieces as you think of how that child must have felt and when you think of the parents who are left behind. My wonderful cousin passed away from cancer when he was six years old, my heart always broke for my Aunty. But since having Amaya, I think my Aunty is a superwoman. (I paused here because I had to take a moment to stop the tears). How does one recover? Nowadays, I think of my Aunty and it puts a lot of things into perspective. If she can be so strong & brave, then why can’t I get through today? I asked my beautiful 85 year old G’Ma, “What is the hardest thing you have ever been through?”, G’Ma paused for a few seconds before saying…

“Watching your Grandchild die, watching your daughter go through something so terrible and to not be able to do anything about it”.

How my G’Ma got through that sentence without crying is beyond me, because I struggled just to type it. To me this would be the most unbearable pain in the entire world. When I heard about that two month old baby who was stabbed to death by her Grandfather the other day, I burst into tears. TWO MONTHS OLD. What the actual fuck? I understand that he stopped taking his medication but that is not the baby’s fault. This never should have happened. And those two precious boys whose Father shot them and then drove into the water. How anyone can hurt another being is beyond me, especially a child or an animal.

Our journey had me talking to God daily. Prior to becoming a Mum I had always prayed here & there, but during Amaya’a NICU journey it turned into an everyday occurrence. I have kept this up and pray every night with Amaya. We don’t just pray for us, our friends and family, we pray for every single soul on this earth. I am determined to raise a child of love in a world full or misery and hate.

B Xx