A priorities changing experience

Becoming a mother could be the weirdest experience a woman goes through. It is the most complicated procedure and yet so normal. From my experience I can only say, after having your first baby, life as you know it changes completely, nothing looks the same again. Priorities rearrange with loads of modifications and unexpected new intruders show up to take the first level of your priorities list too. Men's experience with a woman's pregnancy and the existence of the first baby isn't easier than hers at all. With all the excitement and the wondering there come those moments where both men and women feel like doing their maximum to understand the new situation but still have no clue. and life goes on sometimes, without our slight knowledge of how the stage of pregnancy, delivery and the raise of the child went, it just did, like it is the most natural thing to happen. Like it doesn't need any explanation or understanding. But whatever you plant you harvest and there comes the stressful part.

Just like most girls, I grew up in a family, I had my life, my parents' rules and my boundaries, which were my only problem. I lived some of my days creating ways and ways to break these rules "this idea seems way too scary to me now after I got my own kids!." In those old days, I never put my self in their shoes, even if I have tried I wouldn't know what that means, not the way I know now!. They always used to tell me that when you have your own kids you will understand! They were right. 

So, as a single person, my interests were school, work, being always beautiful and taking care of myself to be mainly "again" beautiful. Love stories were my day and night dreams! Being in love was the ultimate feeling and breakups with all the songs that comes along with it, the tears and the payback promises were my nightmares! "while writing this, I am wondering where did that girl go!" . Even after getting married I still lived this life, but with a slight difference, rules were different, dreams and nightmares were always around the same person "my husband" but yet that was just about to change with the first pregnancy test I had. The whole life as I know it changed so fast, uncontrollably and whatever I lived, I felt or I suffered in the past is just a memory now. My priorities changed, now I am a mother.

 But, who knew that this could be such delightful and so hard at the same time. Being a child is nothing like being the parent of one! Parenthood, carries all the nonsense of the world, the pressure and the happiness of life. My journey with being an expat mother, is a little bit difficult than most mothers, and what I learned throughout this experience is the reality that with the uniqueness of every child, the uniqueness of his mother reveals.

I didn't know anything about that four years ago, and at that time if I would've been told this reality it wouldn't really meant anything. " teenagers!" I wouldn't believe that I am a different mother and I have these strong parenting feelings buried inside only to glow when it is the perfect time. My husband who was living the same life as mine before marriage, didn't ever had the thought of having a baby or being responsible solely about a human's life in all means. Sometimes he whispers to me " when I used to think about kids, my daydreams were full of smiles, running by the beach and playing soccer. Nobody told me that I'll be having lunch on an alphabetical mat inside a tent in a kids room!."

As far as I lived, which to some of you is a long time and to others I still look like a young girl, I learned that life always test us with new challenges. Challenges that we are unconsciously ready to take. And being a parent is a delightful one. But what challenges are there in parenthood? What is special about being an expat? And how does it link? A lot of questions to be answered and thoughts to be written down. A SAHM in Dubai