Personal Update: One Month with Talitha Rose

It’s been a month since my daughter, Talitha Rose Tai* came into my life and changed everything. It hasn’t been difficult to make space for her in my heart, but while the first month of motherhood has been filled with joys, the learning curve has been long and steep.

A friend recently shared that parenting can be a paradox of emotions. So far, I have found each day to be a buffet of gratitude and grief, laughter and lament, the weird but oh-so-wonderful. Here are a few reasons why:⠀

• Time with Talitha seems to fly by in a hurried blur, and yet each hour is made up of slow and repetitive tasks: feed, burp, nappy change, nap time, and repeat. Well, it’s never actually linear as a newborn’s schedule is littered with delays and surprises…
  
• While I cherish this season of holding her close, I have already grieved the fact that she will soon outgrow my arms.
  
• I can wake at sunrise feeling like a Super Mum only to be exhausted to my utter limit by sunset—just in time for Witching Hour! ⠀
  
• While I love my daughter with all my heart, I also feel the weight of its deception, impatience, tiredness and limits.
  
• How can it be that by the end of the day when I’m covered in milk and saliva and the bins filled with poop explosions, when my back groans and my eye bags scream for sleep, I can hold my daughter and still feel so much love and wonder?⠀

Nothing could have prepared me fully for motherhood. I have been humbled by its joy and burden. Perhaps this was always the Creator’s intention, so that I learn to labour with His strength and love, and to display power perfected in weakness. A mother’s love is a beautiful mystery and yet it is merely a foretaste of a greater Love—one that angels longed to see and yet by grace was revealed to me.

Happy one month Talitha Rose. You are both a handful and the happiness that I never knew I needed.

*There’s a story in the Bible where Jesus uses the words, “Talitha cumi” to raise a little girl to life (Mark 5:41). It’s an amazing picture of new life, a second chance and resurrection hope—things that we have thanked God for in our long journey of birthing Talitha Rose. ⠀