I cannot believe that I have had my sweet baby boy here with me for almost half a year now. Not sure if he’s just a super awesome baby or if it’s that we’ve been fully enjoying living in Beaufort (and being so close to my parents), but the past 6 months have been nothing short of absolute bliss! I think it’s probably a combination of both.

Hollings was also an awesome baby, but the transition of going from no kids to all of the sudden becoming a mom was tough. On top of that, I had A TON of postpartum anxiety with Hollings. I looked at pretty much everything as a potential threat to her safety. I would spend all day and night thinking about dangerous situations (all of which I knew would most likely never happen) and how I would get Hollings and I out of them.

The anxiety got slightly better over time, but came back full force once I got pregnant with William. It’s pretty common for pregnant women to dream crazy and sometimes scary things. When I was pregnant with Hollings, I dreamed a lot about getting into car crashes. With William I dreamed about drowning and falling from heights. I know – creepy and weird, but also very common.

I was so worried that once I had William I would just become a full on crazy person too scared to leave her house. Luckily for me, the opposite happened. I’ve become way more chill. I don’t have any of the irrational thoughts and fears that I had with Hollings. I still get anxious, but I feel like all moms do and it’s how we keep our babies alive (plus I was already an anxious person to begin with).

Another great thing I realized after having William was that the transition from 1 to 2 kids was WAY easier for me than going from not a mom to a mom with Hollings. I truly think that when you have children, something chemical happens in your brain and you are completely rewired. Plus before you have children, there’s really no real way to prepare yourself or know what to expect. You just don’t know exactly how tired you will be, how much work it is keeping babies alive, how many needs they have, how much time and effort it takes to breastfeed (plus how painful it can be), and you don’t know how much it will wear on you when it just doesn’t ever have a break.

After having gone through all of the above with Hollings already, having another baby has been a breeze. Of course it’s way more work, but mentally it’s been so much better, which in my opinion is what matters the most. I do still have my good days and bad days just like everyone else (moms and non-moms alike). I’m just saying that, in my opinion, the hardest part of becoming a mom is the straight up shock of the lifestyle change. Since I already had that shock with Hollings, I was used to everything by the time I had William. AND I knew that there was an end to newborn madness, breastfeeding pain, sleepless nights, etc. because I had already lived and experienced it once before.

William is an absolute dream, and he seems to be growing so much faster than Hollings did. I feel like he should still be 2 months old, but somehow he’s already been here for half a year. He’s eating solids, sleeping until 7am consistently, rolling around, bouncing in his bouncy, and getting dangerously close to crawling (THAT, I am not ready for).

I still think about the baby I miscarried last year almost everyday, but what everyone told me about how I was going to have the baby that God intended me to have is absolutely true. I cannot imagine having any other baby than William.