I have always wanted to be a writer. As a little girl I used to draw magazine covers on notebook paper and write little articles and staple them together equipped with quizzes and all. Seventeen Magazine was it for me, and I the star writer and chief editor. This blog is my modern way of creating my notebook stapled magazines. A way to live out my dreams that have been left mostly unfilled.
I write this with a screaming baby in my hands, as proof to the world, or mostly myself that motherhood is not a limiting role, and that we can successfully be great mothers without giving up who we are. I have always wanted to be a writer, so here is my attempt at fulfilling my dreams, of both being a mother and writer.
I recently became a new mother in September 2020 to what I think is the world’s cutest baby (no bias, of course). She came out almighty, weighing a whopping 8 pounds 8 ounces. My husband, Steve and I pondered every name known to humanity (i.e. combed every inch of the internet for “unique girl names”) coming to an agreement on only two, which we meshed together to manufacture what we hoped was a name that suited our beloved baby, whom we would call Kaylee Ava Ammon.
2019 started off like the past three years for me, with five music festivals lined up, and a drink in hand at some far away foreign destination. My family and I dancing like crazy baboons under the starry night sky at a bottomless all inclusive adults only resort in Costa Rica, while fireworks exploded overhead. I should have known all the bad comings of the year, as I was about to land back in America to a breast ultrasound to check on the 9 tumors (all benign it turns out), in my breasts. Steve and I had planned on making a baby in Costa Rica, but wanted to wait to make sure I was clear of cancer. As 2019 progressed forward, I found out in May that I pregnant, not only with one baby but two! By June, I would miscarry both fetuses, in July I had them extracted from my body via D&C. We went through a period of depression and grief before we decided to try again in November. Clinging to hopes of happiness, we embarked on a trip to Santa Cruz through San Luis Obispo, Big Sur, and Carmel Valley, during which time, I had some questionable moments. I had started spotting. I thought this was another empty hope, another loss, and the beginning of the end, once again.
2020 was hard on everyone, but a year that was truly blessed for me because it was the year Kaylee was born. For me, 2020 might have been one of the best yet.
In 2023, my family received another blessing, or really I should say two more actually, as I gave birth to twin girls on January 24, 2023. We named our twin girls Alyssa and Mariah. My twin pregnancy was sought with difficulties as my cervix shorten drastically at 21 weeks. We were just three weeks shy of when fetuses could supposedly survive outside the womb, and I was at risk of losing both babies. I didn’t want to lose another set of twins. I didn’t want to have lost four babies. I didn’t want to have start over. I was already attached to these babies. I was already dreaming of life with them, and I didn’t want to let that go. A routine doctor’s appointment turned into frantic day that ended up with me in an operating room. I had to have an emergency cerclage put in. These stitches were the life line to holding these babies in place so they could grow and hopefully survive. There’s nothing I wanted more. I was already dilating, so I had stay at the hospital for two days. As I laid there with crying babies around me, on the brink of losing mine. I prayed that one day we would make it to that point and thought how f*ed it would be if I never did.
The idea of motherhood is much like the idea of being in love, in my opinion. There is this sense of fantasy around it; that it will be this thing, that it will be this way. Sometimes it is all of that and more, and sometimes it is truly different than anything you expected.
I am here to share my life as a mom to three girls and an elder bulldog (also a girl). I am a mom, wife, a wine enthusiast, traveler, and music lover. Mostly, I am here to write for myself and for my daughters who I hope to show that you can and should always follow your dreams. Maybe this will be our special place where they can look back at our memories, maybe they will share this with their kids and their kid’s kids. Maybe this is all just for us…but hopefully, for you it’s entertaining, maybe even a little inspirational, maybe you will find something helpful here, maybe you won’t feel like your efforts as a mom and your struggles are just yours alone, but that there are other people out there just like you holding on and doing the best they can do.