I often write about motherhood, because that is the season of my life right now. As a stay-at-home mom (SAHM), my days are mostly consumed with taking care of my son and keeping him occupied. About four months into my motherhood journey, I found a wonderful organization called MOMS Club. As a new mother, I was feeling extra lonely and needed a group of mom friends with kids my son’s age.
One evening, I was looking at posts from a local mom’s group on Facebook, and I saw that someone had mentioned a group called MOMS Club. I immediately went to their website, but I didn’t live in that specific zip code. I then looked up the international organization and saw that there was, in fact, a MOMS Club in my city.
I was overjoyed. “This is for me,” I thought. As I looked at the website, I found myself crying. I could tell that I needed something to help fill the void inside of me. And, maybe MOMS Club would be it. Right then, I filled out the “contact us” form through their website. To my surprise, a mom got back with me that very evening. She sounded so welcoming and helpful, giving me more information about the club and encouraged me to come to one of their events if I was still interested.
My first event was a play date at one of the mom’s houses. There was a big turnout, and I got to know several other moms and their children. Everyone was so welcoming and friendly. I signed up to join the club shortly after the event, and it was one of the best things I could do for myself and my son as a mother.
My once mostly blank calendar was now filled with fun events for moms and their children. I got to know the other moms and their kids and made some strong friendships through the club. I joined a playgroup, which met weekly at members’ homes or local parks. While at playgroup or a MOMS Club event, the moms were always willing to lend out a baby wipe or a snack if you didn’t bring enough or even to watch your child for a minute while you went to the restroom.
It was a village of moms and I had finally found them. When I had first joined the MOMS Club my son was a small baby who could not yet sit up by himself. Most of the time, I held him at the events. Now, he’s all toddler, running all around parks and other mom’s houses while I chase after him.
I’m not sure where I would be as a SAHM without MOMS Club. It has brought so many positive additions to my motherhood journey by giving me and my son friendships and something to do during the day. The club allows us both to get out of the house and socialize with our friends while enjoying kid-friendly activities and some mom-centered ones too such as book club.
I often attend a storytime at the library and a music class with my son weekly, but I prefer to attend MOMS club events because I’ll always know a familiar face and it just feels like home. Other types of MOMS club events we attend are playgroups, monthly meetings, park days, field trips, socials, lunches, community service projects, holiday parties and more.
I love the fact that I can bring my son to all of the daytime events, and we also have a mom’s night out (MNO) event each month. At MNO, I can leave him at home with my husband and enjoy some kid-free adult conversation. There are leadership opportunities through the club and we also have a yearly event the whole family can attend.
We have a Facebook group for our MOMS Club, and often a mom will post something like, “We’re going to the park this afternoon if anyone wants to join.” I have always felt welcome at any MOMS club event I’ve been to and I’ve never regretted attending one. (Even if my son was getting into everything he shouldn’t and I had to spend the whole event chasing after him!)
MOMS Club is a support system for SAHMs and it has helped me tremendously. I’m so thankful I joined this amazing group of moms. It truly has been a lifesaver for me.
MOMS Club is an international nonprofit organization providing daytime support for at-home mothers. For more information, or to find a MOMS club near you, visit https://momsclub.org/.
I got the idea for this blog post while rushing to get ready
during my son’s morning nap. After all, you never know how long a child will
nap for. I started thinking about how I’ve changed as a mom and things I do now
that I never did prior to having my son. Some of these things are funny, some
are serious, but I came up with this list in hopes that other moms could relate
to it. And, also for a good laugh! Some of these facts relate to all moms, just
stay-at-home-moms, all parents, moms with young babies and some maybe just to
me. Here it goes…
You might be a mom if….
You’re a pro at doing things one-handed because
you’re carrying a baby in the other.
You make up songs about your baby, mundane
tasks, really anything at all because your baby loves it when you sing.
You go to the store with no makeup and unwashed
hair, and you’re OK with that.
You need a support group of other moms going
through the same thing as you.
You race to get everything done during your
child’s nap
You think you can’t possibly have any more baby
gear or toys and then you buy the next thing your child “needs.”
You always have spit up or baby food on your
clothes, and you stopped caring about it.
You are always doing laundry. Always!
There are usually always dirty dishes by your
sink.
You try many different brands of diapers and
wipes, and you will find the ones that you like the best.
You didn’t know you could love this way.
You can’t wait for them to reach the next
milestone (rolling over, crawling, walking, etc.) and then when they do you are
like oh great! Now you have to chase after them!
Your schedule revolves around your child’s naps.
You would rather hang out with other moms versus
friends without children, because they know what you are going through.
You have your good days and bad, but even the
bad days still manage to have good aspects of them.
You never knew how much you needed your friends until
now. Sadly, some of those friendships will fall apart post-kids.
You can’t wait to leave your house, whether it
is to go to the grocery store, the park or somewhere that’s actually exciting.
You worry about money more than pre-kids and, if
you do splurge, it’s usually on something for your children.
You know all the story times within a 20-minute
radius, the best parks in the area and all the fun things to do with your child
that is age-appropriate.
You are in at least five Moms groups on social
media. In fact, your social media is mostly about parenthood these days.
You rarely get a night away, but if you do get a
sitter, you are going to enjoy every minute of it (while spending a good chunk
of your time talking about your children).
You know all the kid consignment stores in the
area, the best seasonal consignment sales and all the stores with the best
deals for baby and kids’ clothes, toys and gear.
Your house will never be clean. There will be
toys and baby gear everywhere.
You never thought you could have so many
conversations about baby poop.
You will find the best way to get rid of diaper
rash that works for your child.
Your body will probably never be the same, but
that’s OK. You made a human!
Vacations and weekends are not really breaks or
time to get away anymore, but you still can’t wait for them to get here!
You get asked rude questions on your parenting
judgment pretty often.
You’ll learn not to care if you get a bodily
fluid on you. Little boys sure like to pee on you!
Your pregnancy brain turns into mom brain.
You figure out what works for your child, then
something changes and you have to start all over again.
You cry over the littlest things. And sometimes
the big things. Like on your child’s first birthday, because your little baby
isn’t a baby anymore.
Your kid does something weird and you think, “I
hope that doesn’t stick!”
You sometimes wish that your newborn baby didn’t
fall asleep on you. And, when they get older you wish they would still fall
asleep on you because you realized that you took those sweet baby cuddles for
granted. (Cherish them now because they will go away. Babies don’t keep.)
You wouldn’t trade motherhood for the world. It
may be hard, but it is sure worth it!
What else about motherhood would you add to this list? Share with me in the comments section!
For my whole life, I have wanted to be a mom. It was just always something I knew I wanted. I married my husband, Ryan, in September of 2013. We enjoy spending time with each other, and this year will celebrate 14 years together as a couple. Being married is wonderful, and we wanted to add to that happiness by having a child. After we celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary, we decided the time was right to start our family. The very next month, in October of 2017 we started trying.
I was very lucky to get pregnant on the first try and it was hard to imagine that there was life growing inside me. I found out I was pregnant right before Halloween of 2017.
We went to my Obstetrician’s office and got to hear our
baby’s heartbeat and see him on the ultrasound. It was so cool to hear his tiny
little heartbeat for the first time. The OB told me that my due date was early
July 2018.
From our pregnancy announcement photo shoot in December 2017
I didn’t do any genetic testing before I became pregnant. My husband and I decided it was better not to
know. It would just cause unnecessary worry and it wouldn’t change anything
about our decision to have a baby. We did do one prenatal screening called the
Harmony test. It tests for Down Syndrome and a few other genetic anomalies,
through a blood test when a woman is 10-weeks pregnant. It can also tell the
gender of the baby, which is pretty accurate. Over the winter holidays, we got
the results back from the Harmony test I took.
Everything was normal and we were having a BOY! I will
always remember the moment we found out our baby was a boy. We were standing in
the kitchen, listening to a voicemail from the nurse from my OB’s office with
the test results. As soon as we found out, we were jumping up and down hugging
and crying. They were happy tears.
Many people refer to baby boys as “little man.” I don’t
particularly care for this expression, so when talking to my son in my belly I
decided to call him “Little Boy.” This would go on to be his nickname because
his name was a surprise to everyone. At my baby shower, my mom made a banner
that said “Little Boy” and it is now hanging in his nursery. My husband and I
thought of his name months before he was even conceived on the way back from a
road trip. We decided to keep his name to ourselves. The only hint we gave
anyone was that he was named after a family member who had passed.
Me at about 30-weeks pregnant. Early May, 2018
I experienced some complications with my pregnancy including
nausea the entire time, bad swelling, prenatal hypertension and later
preeclampsia. According to the Mayo
Clinic, “Preeclampsia is a pregnancy complication characterized by high blood
pressure and signs of damage to another organ system, most often the liver and
kidneys. Preeclampsia usually begins after 20 weeks of pregnancy in women whose
blood pressure had been normal.”
During one of my OB appointments, my doctor sent me to the
hospital because of my high blood pressure at 34-weeks pregnant. That was the
first time I had seen this doctor, since my OB practice has many doctors and
whoever is on call that day is the doctor that delivers your baby. I stayed
overnight at Northside Hospital-Atlanta. At that time, it was estimated I would
deliver at 36 or 37-weeks pregnant due to all the complications I was
experiencing.
At 35-weeks pregnant, during my OB appointment, the doctor
sent me back to the hospital due to a very high blood pressure and a headache
that wouldn’t go away. This is a common sign of preeclampsia and was very
worrisome to my doctor. While I was resting before going to the appointment, my
husband had a feeling we were having the baby. He gathered up and packed our
bags for the hospital.
We arrived at Northside and were taken to a room in C-section
waiting since the baby was still breech. I asked my husband what the date was.
He said, “June Fourth.” I decided that was a good day to have a baby.
We still didn’t know what was going on and when I would deliver our son. We
filled out paperwork and I saw the on-call doctor, who happened to the same one
who sent me to the hospital earlier. He said that it would be best to do the C-section
that night. By that time it was about 5 o’clock in the evening. The operating
room was booked for 8:30 p.m. based on my last meal. We literally found out three
hours before our son was born that we were for sure having him that day. It was
suspected that I had preeclampsia and the doctor wanted to deliver him then
because that condition has a tendency to escalate very quickly. It can be very
harmful to the mother and the baby.
I was prepped for surgery and taken to the OR, where I had
my C-section. Only one support person is
allowed in the OR, so my husband went with me.
The procedure went well, with no complications. Since I was
only 35-weeks, there was a team from the NICU in the operating room just in
case. They turned out not to be needed. The nurses wiped down our son and he
was placed on my chest. I will always remember this special moment. In fact, it
is making me teary-eyed as I write this. I said to my son, “Hi Nathan, I’m your
Mommy.” It felt so good to see my son. The first thing I noticed was how little
and cute he was. He was staring right at me and was very calm, all bundled up
in his swaddle blanket. All this time, my husband was snapping pictures with
his phone of our son and the anesthesiologist took the classic C-Section family
photo with the sheet in the background and us in our surgical gear.
First Family Photo
My husband left the room and followed the nurses with Nathan
to weigh him in the nursery. I was then sent to recovery. My husband remembers
one of the nurses saying, “I don’t think he’s going to make weight, he’s really
light.” The NICU nurses said, “What are you talking about? He looks big.” She
then said, “You’re used to all the really little babies.” Turns out he didn’t
make weight and had to go to the transition nursery to be evaluated. Nathan
John Basler was born at 9:22 p.m. on June 4,2018, weighing 4 lbs. 6
oz. and 17 inches long. He was five weeks early and considered premature. Aside
from some temperature issues and a little jaundice, Nathan was perfectly
healthy and was then brought into our hospital room shortly after I came back
from recovery.
During our five-day stay in the hospital for Nathan’s birth,
he was not eating as much as he should. The doctors at Kennesaw Pediatrics, our
pediatrician practice, saw Nathan every single day he was in the nursery. Our pediatrician
recommended that Nathan see a feeding therapist and hoped that he wouldn’t have
to go to the NICU for poor feeding.
We saw the feeding therapist in our hospital room and she
gave us some good pointers on helping him eat better. Premature babies aren’t
always the best at feeding since that is one of the last skills babies develop
in the womb. I had Nathan on a Monday, and Friday evening he was admitted to
the NICU for poor feeding. We were thankful we had those full four days with
our son in our hospital room and that he was a healthy baby boy, just needed to
learn how to eat properly.
Nathan, One day old
Having a child in the NICU is very hard, especially when you
have to go home but your baby does not. It was a very trying time for our
family. I cried at some point every single day. I just wanted our baby home. We
visited him every day. My husband would
wake up at 4 a.m. to go before work and I would go in the afternoon and stay
until long after my husband got off work and came back to the NICU to be with
Nathan. Everyone at the Northside Hospital NICU was wonderful. The doctors,
nurses and staff were all great to work with and very caring towards our son.
Northside is a tier three NICU, so it is one of the best there is. If our son
couldn’t come home with us, we were glad he was being taken care of at
Northside versus another hospital.
Nathan in the NICU
We were released from the NICU after 13 long days. We found
out that we were going home about three hours before we did. We knew it was a
possibility but didn’t think it would happen right then. Sound familiar?
We finally got to take our little boy home! The first night
was exhausting. The next day, we called my parents to come over and help a
little because we were so sleep deprived. Feeding him every three hours will
wear you out! My husband stayed home from work for a week after he came home to
be there and help care for our son.
Leaving the hospital with our boy!
Time went on and we got used to having him home. We took
newborn photos the first week he was home, at three weeks old. On Thursday,
June 28 our son had his brit milah or bris.
A bris is a Jewish tradition dating back thousands of years where a baby
boy is circumcised and receives his Hebrew name. Before I talk about Nathan’s
Hebrew name, I’ll talk about his English name. He is named after Nathan
Zlotnik, my dad’s father, who is a Holocaust survivor, and passed away at the
age of 90 when I was 10 years old. His middle name, John, is named after my
husband’s Great Uncle Johnny. He was like a second grandfather to my husband,
especially after his own grandfather passed. They would spend his childhood
summers at Uncle Johnny’s lake house in Tennessee on the water. I got to know
Uncle Johnny over the years and had the pleasure of visiting the lake house
too. About three years ago, Uncle Johnny passed away at the age of 90. We
decided to name our son after these family members who meant so much to us, but
also had other family members we wanted to honor that also were dear to our
hearts.
From Nathan’s newborn photo session.
This is where Nathan’s Hebrew name comes from. He was named
Nissim Allon. Nissim is after my grandfather Nelson Zavack, who is my mom’s
father. He passed away when I was about two years old, and I don’t really
remember him. He meant a lot to our family. Nissim means miracle and our boy is
such a little miracle.
He is also named Allon, after my husband’s grandfather on his
mother’s side, Allen Morrell. He passed away before my husband was born. My
in-laws named my husband after Allen Morrell and we decided to carry on that
tradition. Allon means oak tree and they are strong with deep roots. We really
think that describes our son perfectly. He is so strong for just a tiny little
guy and has so many family members who love him.
The bris was a wonderful ceremony. It was very hard to watch
my son be circumcised, but I got through it. The bris was very meaningful. I
like to think that I am bringing Jewish tradition back to my family because I
wanted to have the ceremony and plan to raise my son with Jewish teachings.
Nathan’s Bris
At his 2-month appointment, Nathan measured 9 pounds 11 ounces and his weight more than doubled since birth. He is eating well and thriving. I’m so grateful my son and I are healthy after the journey we had. I sure love being his mom.
Author’s Note: I wrote this story about my son back in August, 2018. Nathan is now 9-months-old and weighs 18 pounds! We’re planning his first birthday party for June and I can’t believe my baby is getting so big!
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