My Unexpectedly Hard Journey of Motherhood as a Single Mom

I am a mom of a 1-year-old baby boy. As much as I am so excited to share my experience with you all for the first time, I feel equally overwhelmed to tell you that the journey of my motherhood has not been so wonderful. During my pregnancy, I got a devastating news about my mom. The doctors diagnosed my mother with a very rare FTD disease. I was shattered and had lost all the support from my family. As my due date approaching closer, I was feeling increasingly depressed. I had lost my best friend, my mother. But somehow I gathered courage within me. My husband played a key role in it, too. He became my primary caretaker and motivator and I prepared myself for normal delivery mentally.

Finally, the wait came to an end! It was the most memorable day of my life. Yes, I became a mother. I had a normal delivery despite all odds. That day, in spite of all hard work in labour, I could not sleep even for a minute. I was feeling blessed but lonely as my parents were not with me to share this joy. At that moment I did not realize that I am going to become one of those over conscious and overprotective parents who throw their heart out even for the mildest cry of their baby. The real war had begun now. My baby chose to be the monster of all times. He had the worst colic condition. He used to cry day and night and slept hardly (and rarely) for few hours a day. If I am true to my heart, I slept not more than an hour or so in the whole day for the first 3 months of his infancy. Every minute used to pass like ages for me with no one to offer a helping hand or even a piece of advice as for how to handle such a crucial period of my life.

My days passed by experimenting all the time with my baby and myself. I used to google all the time, even for the basics like how to swaddle a baby or how to make him sleep or how to make him stop crying or how to massage a baby and all that stuff. I was tired and heartbroken but of course, giving up was not an option. I decided to learn everything right from scratch. I read several blogs, learned from YouTubers and started logging everything. My son was now 3 months old. I was growing him like a single mom. I started feeling confident. But this was not all. About a week and a half in his third month he caught a cold for the first time. I got furious and was scared. No one was there to tell me what is right and wrong. I tried some home remedies and took him to see a paediatrician. This cold got over him and was nowhere to leave anytime soon. After a month, my cool was over and I requested my paediatrician to do the tests. And another shock came my way, my baby was diagnosed with pneumonia. I panicked and in the middle of the night, I left from my mom’s place (Mumbai) to my inlaws (Pune). There we met a very fine and renowned paediatrician. He took over the situation and assured us that everything will be fine. My son lost a lot of weight during his sickness and became very thin.

Today he is 13 months old, still with weight below the average of his age group. But by God’s grace, he is a very active child. I lost my mother a month back. But she will always be alive in my heart and memories. When I look back to the early days in my motherhood I still get tears in my eyes. But I feel very proud of myself to handle every situation with patience and courage. I really thank God to give me all the power. Now I realize why people call mothers as superhumans. I would like to share all the bit of my experience and learnings with you all in my upcoming posts. So please keep me motivated by your comments, queries and likes.

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