What loving Emmy is like — Rachel Sellers

Hi, hello.

It’s been a minute. Well, a year, actually, since I’ve written and posted a blog post. Most of my writing has found its home on Instagram. So it’s not that I haven’t been writing, it’s just that it hasn’t been on here. But I do hope to change that soon. Because Instagram captions don’t allow me to write a lot of words and sometimes that leads to a lack of nuance or explanation in my writing and that really bugs me.

Part of my absence has also been because I’ve been a little busy growing and birthing a child. My daughter, Emerson “Emmy” Louise Sellers was born on August 11, 2022, and the same day that she was born is the day that my heart exploded wide open and I experienced a kind of love that I never knew existed. She is the squishiest, most precious thing and while maternity leave has been a wild ride, it has been a compilation of some of my most treasured moments.

I posted this about a month ago on Facebook, a short reflection on motherhood so far. And this is what I had to say:

This season, these moments, I just want to keep them wrapped around my fingers forever.
There is a tenderness that has covered this season. I am being stretched, renewed, refined, and filled, filled with joy and love for this child, for our family.
When I birthed this child, I also birthed a new version of myself, a new part. She’s more exhausted than she’s ever been. She stares in the mirror sometimes and she doesn’t recognize herself. But then God reminds her: she is Rachel. She’s fierce and strong but she’s becoming softer, more present, and alive. More attuned to the here and now and less concerned with yesterday or tomorrow.
Motherhood is changing her. She is evolving.
As I type these words, Emmy bug is asleep on my chest, glued to my skin. I thought I might feel suffocated. But I don’t. What I feel is awe, delight, and wonder. I feel peace and ease.
There have been moments that aren’t reflected in these beautiful photos. Because darkness and light coexist. Shower tears, intrusive thoughts, greasy hair, and curse words. Moments when I lose my shit because for the love of god I just want to read a book again or have a clean, tidy house.
Motherhood is a marathon of self-regulation. And I don’t take lightly this task. Because it’s my capacity to regulate myself that is literally shaping Emmy’s sweet nervous system toward safety and calm and love. What an honor. What an impossible yet possible and beautiful and imperfect task.
All of my healing work has prepared me for this. I am so grateful.
Emmy, you are a testimony to the goodness and beauty that exists among a tragic and awful world. Thank you for pointing me back toward my values. Loving you is an honor and a gift and I pray that I’ll always have eyes to see that.
You are light. And when you forget, I’ll always be your mirror.

This past week marks 3 months with our Emmy Lou. The days are short and the nights are long. I wrote a little diddy for Emmy to celebrate. And I thought you might like it. If you’re a mama, I think you might resonate. If you’re not, well, I can’t speak for everyone, but I can speak to what my experience has been like.

What loving you is like

3 months of loving you, Emmy bug. And here’s what loving you and life with you is like—

It’s wanting so desperately to close my tired, heavy, stinging eyes and also wanting to keep them wide awake so I can just keep staring at the magic that is you.

It’s wanting just one small moment to be alone- just 5 tiny minutes- and also sleeping with your blanket next to my nose so I can keep smelling your smell while you sleep. You may only be 3 feet away from me in your bassinet but it feels like miles.

It’s feeling like I’m not going to survive, like I’m a zombie living in some weird vortex or something, and also feeling more alive, more purpose-filled than ever before.

It’s wanting to put you in your bassinet or for your daddy to take you so I can have just one more hour of precious sleep and also not wanting to unglue you from sleeping on my chest. It’s wanting you to stay there forever, wanting to freeze time.

It’s marveling at your tiny toes and the strength of your grip around my fingers, wondering how someone so small can be so strong.

It’s having a hard time remembering what life was like before you and also reminiscing of when I could read a book and journal and go on walks without someone needing my boobs.

It’s missing my work in some ways, sometimes desiring to jump back in the saddle, and also dreading that moment when I have to drop you off at daycare in January even if it’s only twice a week. It’s realizing, like a wise friend said, that there’s grief on both sides of being a mom and a counselor.

It’s looking in the mirror and not always recognizing myself and also feeling more secure in who I am and what I value than ever before.

It’s living with my heart cracked wide open and totally undone and delighting in you every time you smile or chuckle. It’s giggling every time you sneeze and try to sneeze but let out the cutest howl-grunt-sigh combination instead.

It’s my eyes welling up with tears most times that I watch your daddy marvel at you and rock you to sleep or reach for you even when I’m not trying to pass you off to him. He’s obsessed with you and he loves being your dad.

It’s looking at the clock at 10:30 PM knowing that I should probably go to sleep but also wanting to stay up to write or scroll through my phone looking at pictures of you.

It’s feeling so proud, so tickled when people tell me that we look so much alike and also looking into your bright blue eyes and seeing my dad, your Pa Pa, staring back at me.

It’s making up new nursery rhymes to the tunes of old, random songs, wondering why there doesn’t seem to ever be enough burp clothes everywhere, picking Ollie’s golden hairs off your chin, and thinking ahead to the days when you’re going to totally terrorize him. I’m so looking forward to you knowing your fur-brother.

It’s feeling so scared because I can’t completely protect you from harm in this world and reckoning with the call I feel to surrender what I cannot control. Loving you is natural, nurturing you is a gift. What a joy it is to be your mom, to help you grow your brain and hold space for your big feelings, and to delight in you for as long as you’re walking on earth.

Life is so new and it all feels so different now that you’re here with us.

A really beautiful, wild kind of different. Sometimes I’m weary and when I am, I remember the magic you’ve added to our lives and it gives me the strength that I need.

You are beloved, my girl. Worthy now, worthy forever, and made in the image of a God who adores every ounce of you.

Life with you is a treasure. You are a treasure, too.

Love,

Your mama bear