Motherhood expands my life by teaching me that sometimes the most beautiful version of the plan is the one you never planned at all. 
Before Jeremiah was born, I was sure I was going to exclusively breastfeed. I had this picture in my head of what feeding my baby would look like.
Then he was born, and motherhood very quickly taught me that loving your baby sometimes means letting go of the picture you created before you ever met them.
Jeremiah struggled with his latch and started losing weight. He dropped from the 30th percentile to the 19th, and following his doctor’s advice, our feeding routine became: breastfeed, immediately give a formula bottle to make sure he was getting enough, and then pump.
Feed. Bottle. Pump. Repeat. (iykyk) 
It was exhausting. And if I’m being truthful, it was hard accepting that something I had expected to come naturally just…didn’t.
But somewhere in all of those bottles, pump sessions, washed parts, measured ounces, and MOTN feeds, something changed in me too.
I stopped measuring motherhood by how closely reality matched the plan I had made before becoming a mom.
I started measuring it by how willing I was to learn my baby, adapt for him, and keep showing up no matter what.
Slowly, pumping became a bigger part of our journey. I’ve worked incredibly hard to build my supply, ounce by ounce, and now we are finally almost exclusively pumping!
There was a time when needing formula felt like evidence that I was incapable and that my original plan wasn’t working. Now I can look at our journey and see something completely different.
Formula helped nourish my baby when he needed it. Pumping gave us another path forward. And motherhood taught me that there can be more than one right way to reach the same destination.
And that lesson has stretched far beyond feeding him.
Becoming Jeremiah’s mom has made me more adaptable, more determined, and more willing to give myself grace. It has also made me dream bigger about our future… the home I want to create for him, the traditions we’ll build, the things I’ll teach him, the memories we’ll make, and the little homestead I still dream of having someday.
Motherhood didn’t replace the person I was before. I still love baking, creating, skating, making candles, and being outside. I’m still a friend, a daughter, a sister, and a lover of Jesus.
And now, I’m also Jeremiah’s mom.
It just gave all of those dreams another little person to share them with.
I didn’t know that while I was learning how to become the mom Jeremiah needed, he would be changing me into someone I never knew I could become and stretching my love beyond measure.
I so hope your transition to breastfeeding is successful and everything you’re hoping for! I love that you’ve also reached a place of being okay with EP if that’s where your journey takes you. We really do make all these plans before our babies get here, and then they come along and teach us an entirely different way of doing things. You’re doing amazing too, mama! 
welcome to the community and thank you for sharing your story. I loved reading it. 
Thank you for reminding me of that and for being so encouraging. It truly means more than you know, sis!
! Welcome to the community Mama
