How Brad Paisley Changed My Life and Made Me a Better Mom

I kept asking myself how to be a happy mom. What can I do to make motherhood happy? I felt terrible about not being just filled with joy every second of every day. Here is my story on how I became a happy mom.

Pregnancy & birth

My son’s entrance into the world was mostly smooth sailing; the pregnancy didn’t have any huge complications, labor and delivery were as I expected and then… sh… stuff hit the fan. I was completely unprepared emotionally to deal with it, I am talking 100% unprepared. I had this vision in my mind about how being a mother would be. The happiness, the closeness, everything. It was going to be bliss and I was so excited. Well, let me tell you something despite what social media shows you about motherhood it is hard. I mean really hard. Literally, there is nothing harder ever in the world than becoming a parent.

.

Anger & resentment

I suffered from postpartum depression which you can hear more on that in a different post. Then my son had severe jaundice and had to go to the NICU. We ended up taking him home after a couple of days to then have to do 24 hour light therapy at home. Later he was almost diagnosed with failure to thrive, he has tongue-tie, reflux, and colic. It was an emotional and stressful several months. I have Multiple Sclerosis and fatigue is one of my worst symptoms. I typically start my day with a half a tank of gas. Having a newborn that never slept caused a lot of issues with my health, my marriage and my ability to cope as a new mom.

Just to give a little background as to the severity of the situation. My son didn’t sleep more than 45 minutes at a time until he was two and a half months old. He didn’t sleep more than 2 hours at a time until he was 4 months old. He started sleeping through the night at 10 months (and by sleeping through the night I mean up for the day at 4:50 am). I was only getting 45-minute chunks of sleep here and there for months on end. I saw my postpartum worsening every day and I saw myself becoming resentful, angry, unhappy and on edge. It is not a great place to be as a new mother.

The bad & the ugly

William woke up every hour (typically due to his reflux or colic but sometimes for other reasons but always for reasons none of us could control) for a really long time (check out my post on How I got him to sleep through the night!). It eventually became “normal”. My husband would take as many shifts as he could but in reality, I was breastfeeding and/or pumping so I had to take a lot of the shifts. I had a routine to stay awake where I would listen to music or watch TV on my tablet. One night I was to the breaking point. I was on a precipice that I never want anyone to experience. Nothing made me happy, I was wishing my family’s life away and we were all pretty miserable. Then in the middle of the night one night a song comes on that literally changed my life forever.

Life changed forever

The song is “Last Time for Everything” sung by Brad Paisley. This song came at the exact moment in my life that I needed to hear it. Listening to the song I broke down in tears. This is a song about, as the title states, how there is a last time for everything. The lyrics talk about a ton of different experiences and how there is a last time for all of them. From “biscuits and gravy at your momma’s house” to “getting woke up at 5 am to see if Santa came” to “spring break on a fold out couch”. It just lists memories throughout a lifetime and how you don’t know when you will experience them for the last time. In that moment my entire life changed from resentment to gratitude, from anger to compassion, from ugliness to love.

Love & compassion

Now when my son wakes me up in the middle of the night and I have to go cuddle and rock him until he can fall back asleep all I think about is how grateful I am that I get to do this and how he won’t always want to be rocked or to cuddle with me. How I need to cherish every single experience with him because someday they will be gone. Someday (God willing) he will be off living his own happy adult life with his own family and staying up all night with his own son.

I will be forever grateful to Brad Paisley for this song. It changed me into a mother I am proud to see looking back at me in the mirror. It helped me be a happy mom and enjoy motherhood. To all my mothers (or anyone) out there struggling, you got this! If anyone needs someone to talk to please reach out to me. (you can leave a comment on this post or send me a private message through the “contact me” page). Just remember there is a last time for everything. Check out my post The Importance of Not Being Mom for my thoughts on my self-care and ditching the mom guilt!)