I never expected to get this emotional after months of enjoying my new role as a mother. Yes after everything that I went through from day one of my pregnancy up until now I immensely enjoyed the journey. I never dreamt of all this so up to this day it amazes me how natural this all felt.
The past seven months were never a breeze though. For first time moms like me who live far from their immediate family, most of the decisions would be based on trial and error. I did try my very best to compensate this lack of immediate help by educating myself through reading and taking notes but as most mommies would later on realize, at the end of the day, you will still rely entirely on your mommy instincts. The books can only help as much.
Anyways, as I was saying it was never easy for us - being first time parents. At first we thought that we've already hurdled the most difficult stage of all this. Receiving the news of me having phyllodes tumor when I was still struggling to breastfeed Maia at two months was quite a blow. But my instincts guided me to take the decision that would be most beneficial for our family. I was bent on breastfeeding Maia for a much longer time but then I knew that only radical mastectomy will buy us the most essential thing that she needs - TIME with her Mom. Learning later on that the tumor was malignant was even more difficult to take but by God's grace getting clear scans soon after was such a relief. We thought we survived the first 3 months, all else should be easy breezy by now.
But alas...how wrong can we get? It seems that the difficult part is just starting to unfold.
Later this afternoon, I called home to check on how Maia was doing. Imagine my horror upon receiving news that she got locked inside our house ALONE for almost 30 minutes earlier today! What's even worst was she was left on the floor and not inside her crib. I almost dropped the phone if not for the repeated assurance from her yaya that Maia is okay and is now back in her usual giggly self. I still wanted to go home that instant though. Good thing, it was raining really hard I still had time to collect myself together and calm myself up.
Thirty minutes later, while I was on my way home, I could not help but replay the scene (as described by the yaya) in my head and I could not help but think of the what ifs. I suddenly felt like I failed my Motherhood test today. I felt like I am not doing my best to keep Maia away from harm's way.
Today, I felt like I was a really, really bad Mommy. Sigh. Am I Maia?
