Being A Mom Is Painful!

Rita Templeton, a writer for Popsugar, knows first hand just how painful this mom gig can be. She recently wrote about the very real pain all moms experience.

I'll admit, it's not something I think about a lot. I wouldn't normally use “pain” as an adjective to describe being a mom, but after reading Templeton's article, I have to agree that she makes some valid points.

Check out her explanation:

Sure, I knew about the aches and discomfort of pregnancy and the agony of childbirth; I read the books and stocked up on ibuprofen and heating pads and hemorrhoid cream. But I was utterly unprepared for the rest. Like the first time I looked you over as a newborn and my heart literally felt as though it was too big for my chest and in real danger of exploding. And then there was the first time I checked on you as you laid in your crib, and you were so still and I panicked because what if you weren't breathing? The fear, however unnecessary, was thick and choking and constricted around me.
You're older now, and though the pain is different, it's no less intense. Like any chronic pain, there are days when it's better and days when it's worse, alternating between tolerable and nearly unbearable.

She's talking about anything and everything. The pain of waiting to go to the bathroom until you think your bladder will burst because you're tending to the children's needs first. The emotional pain you go through when they are sick or sad and there's nothing you can do to make it all better. The worries that keep you up at night and the hurt of letting them spread their wings when you want to hang on tight.

The pain of motherhood is lasting and substantial. It's deep, and it's physical and emotional and psychological. It is an experience you feel within your bones, a profound and indelible change set into motion the moment your child's heart flickers to life inside your body. Maybe this is why there's no chapter about it in the pregnancy books. Maybe the intensity would be too frightening. Maybe we can read about labor and delivery with only mild trepidation, but to know the true impact of motherhood before it happens would be too much.
The funny thing about it, though, is that there's no other pain that we would so willingly and persistently bear. Because it's tempered by moments of joy so great — and love so pure — that we would tolerate all we do, and more. Walking on Legos or walking through fire, we freely commit to spending the rest of our lives with the discomforts of motherhood . . . just to experience its incomparable beauty.

See what I mean? So, yeah, motherhood is painful. It's totally worth it though and I'd do it all again in a heartbeat. Wouldn't you? Read more about Templeton's struggles with the pain of mothering at Popsugar and share your own stories in the comments.