Motherhood is an emotional rollercoaster filled with ups and downs, and in our most emotionally-charged moments, we would love nothing more than to freeze time and capture the special moments forever.
One mum has accurately captured this feeling in a powerful Facebook post, detailing the emotions you experience after welcoming your last child into the world.
Lindsay Ferrier is a blogger at Suburban Turmoil, and is mum to a six-year-old and a nine-year-old as well as two college-aged stepdaughters.
In a heart-wrenching and all-too relatable post shared by Love What Matters, Lindsay described the ‘jumble of emotions’ a mother goes through after welcoming and watching her last child grow up. It goes from ‘relief to have finally given birth’, and ‘pride and joy in the healthy baby in your arms’, to ‘sorrow at the realisation that you’ll never again experience the primeval miracle of growing a baby inside your body’.
While your little one is experiencing many of their own ‘firsts’, this is a time when you realise that these will be some of your most precious and treasured ‘lasts’.
“When he outgrows his sleepers, you’ll no longer save them for the next baby. When he abandons his toys, you’ll give most of them away. You’ll be glad to have some extra space in the closet, but you’ll also have a moment at the grocery store when you realise you have no reason to be standing in front of the new teething toys in Aisle 14 – your last one is done with these. And therefore, so are you,” she wrote.
And so the journey and process continues, and each bottle or ‘bunny-stamped plate’ you don’t save will make you heart break ‘just a tiny bit’. You may even find yourself whispering “Don’t grow up” to your child, and asking them to “Stay six forever”.
Of course, one of the most emotional moments will come when you realise that the child who was once glued to your side, often found peeping out from behind your leg, has reached a new stage of independence.
“What the last one will get from you is plenty of cuddles and hugs and kisses – as many as you can give him before he wriggles out of your arms. At some point, the last one will be the only child in the house who still likes to sit in your lap, and sneak into your bed at night, and play hug-o-war, and have snuggle parties – and you’ll know from experience that soon, this will all end,” she added.
Are you crying yet? Because we are suddenly in dire need of a tissue and a comforting cup of tea!
Yep, you’ll be left a blubbering mess as you follow Lindsay’s thoughts on ‘the unwinding of the ribbon of childhood’:
“You’ll feel powerless to stop it, and as your youngest child abandons picture books for ones with chapters and leaves home for his first sleepover and demands that the training wheels be removed from his bicycle, you will be struck hard, repeatedly, by the fact that this most amazing time in your life is slipping away from you, bit by bit, by bit.”
Needless to say, Lindsay’s post has hit many parents hard – but the comment section has offered the ultimate comfort to anyone feeling a little sad: the amazing adventure will start all over again with grandchildren!
And while it is sad to know that your ‘baby’ is all grown-up, we should also reflect on how lucky we are to have these incredible experiences and memories with our precious children.
