MOTHER'S DAY

Today I woke up for the morning feeding before my 7 week old son. My right boob was huge, hard and leaking milk. Clearly, my body was telling me it was time for Ryder to eat, but for the first time in 7 weeks he had decided to sleep in! I could have let him sleep and just pumped. It was awfully tempting to do so, but I couldn't, not today. See, today was the Mother's Day 5km race and I had been planning since I found out I was pregnant, to run in this race. I wanted to run in THIS race, not because I was planning on winning or even getting a personal best butbecause I would be a Mother and I so wanted to run in the Mother's Day Race as a MOM!

I fed Ryder, though he didn't even wake up, (damn, I wonder how long he would have slept, how long I could have slept...) checked the weather (it was raining) and got dressed. The rain was a bummer and I was half tempted to just skip the race and go back to bed (how I could have used a few more hours of sleep,) but Marty reminded me how important this was to me and convinced me to just "suck it up and run!" I also had a good friend who, at the last minute (before we knew it was gonna rain) had signed up to run with me. She was texting me, pumping me up, convincing me that we could do this, that I could do this, despite the pouring rain and my lack of sleep!

Jamie knocked on my door at 8am. She, Ryder, Marty and I piled into the truck. Marty navigated the city traffic to get us to the starting line in time for the group warm up. Before the horn sounded to start the race, 34 white doves were released into the sky as a tribute to all the moms (me included!! :) ) The whole race turned out to be a lot more emotional for me than I had expected. The doves made my eyes fill with tears. I got choked up when we hit the start line. I felt a lump in my throat as I crossed the finish line of my first race as a MOM!! And when Jamie hugged me, and said, "congratulations, MOM!" I almost lost it!! I have waited so long to hear someone use the word "mom" when talking to me!

Jamie and I at the finish. We got just a little wet! LOL

Marty and Ryder were there to meet us after the race!

It will be a while before Ryder can call me "mom," but Marty did sign his name on a Mother's Day card for me and that made me cry too!! I had no idea I would be so emotional today. I guess I just feel so lucky to be a mom, finally!! I only hope I can be as good of a mom to my son as my mom was, is, to me!!!