The Unexpected

I saw a mom the other day who is pregnant with her 2nd child.  Her first baby is 16 months old and she’s excited to be pregnant again. As we went over her previous pregnancy, she related that she was much more relaxed this time.  I was curious about that statement and asked her to elaborate further.  Well, she explained, with her first pregnancy, she had to go on bedrest for 10 weeks and that experience caused a huge and almost immediate shift in how she felt about her life. 
 
“You see,” she explained, “I was definitely a Type A person. I had everything planned and did everything in my life perfectly.  I had no time or patience for anyone who didn’t measure up to my standards.  Then life threw me a curve ball and I woke up.” 
 
 When I asked her what she meant, she went on.  “In a few days, I saw clearly that anything can happen, that the rug can get pulled out from under you.  That you could miscarry or lose a baby and that none of us are really are in control of all the details of life. It was profound and dramatic, I had to shift from trying to be in control to learning that I could cope with the curve balls and the unexpected.  I realized that life was not going to be perfect, but I would be ok and would deal with things one at a time.”
 
 You’re probably wondering, how does this relate to feeding a baby. Well, this mom wasn’t able to breastfeed her baby the way she planned to despite trying everything under the sun.  She said, that she though she was disappointed, her previous experience with the unexpected helped her remember that some things were out of her control. She said she planned to try again with this baby and said, maybe this time things would be different, but she knew she’d be ok no matter what.