~The Baby Who Grew Me~

(This is a small expert out of my book im in the midst of writing. Felt the urge to share)

A conversation while at an early morning gym class one morning, cracked something even wider open in me.

Hearing another woman, so much younger than me now, walking a path that echoes one I’ve already bled - on being a baby, with a baby. It stirred up old embers I hadn’t touched in a while.

You see, I grew up with my son. I was still a child myself 17, confused, heart bruised from bad decisions, hanging with the wrong people, and dealing with an abusive specimen of a partner who drained the life from me and left me with less than scraps.

I was a teenager, and 27 years ago it wasn’t “in” to be a teen mum. MTV hadn’t made it cute yet. The ridicule and judgment were brutal. My poor parents. But they never faulted in my decision and neither did I.

There are things you’ll never understand unless you’ve lived them. Not just walked in someone’s shoes, but blistered in them, bled in them, danced barefoot through the chaos with a baby on your hip. Some of us are just cut from different cloth. We were forged, not just raised.

I didn’t just birth my son, I birthed myself. Every hard hour I slogged at the supermarket, feet aching, still leaking milk, exhausted beyond belief. My baby in daycare while I pushed trolleys and stacked shelves, praying he was okay. Wondering if he missed me. If he knew I was doing it all for us.

That ache in my chest wasn’t just physical it was a deep, primal longing to be enough for him, even when I felt like I was failing.

I lost friends. I couldn’t join in their parties, their late night chats, their freedom. They didn’t get it and that’s okay. This path wasn’t theirs to walk.

It was mine. Ours.

There’s something people don’t tell you about motherhood when you’re young how lonely it can feel. I was a baby with a baby. Some nights I rocked him to sleep with silent tears slipping down my cheeks not because of him, but because I didn’t know what the fu$k I was doing.

Everyone had opinions. No one had hands.

I wanted to be everything for him, but I hadn’t even figured out who I was.

But by the gods, I tried. Every nappy changed with trembling fingers. Every awkward conversation when he started asking questions I didn’t have answers to.

Just me and him. The two peas in our pod for those first eight years together.

That little squishy boy with the wide blue eyes - he grew me. And I grew him. Together.

There’s a bond you carry when you grow with your child. You learn the world together.

You stumble together. You rise together.

Now, when people ask if I have kids and I say, “Yeah, I’ve got a 26-year-old son,” I get the same reaction every time.

“Holy shit, you don’t look old enough!” “Was it hard?” “Is your husband his real dad?”

Cue the awkward eyebrow raise and laughter. There’s a hundred questions I could answer, but most wouldn’t understand unless they were there.

Unless they felt the fire, the grief, the joy, the raw fucking beauty of raising a child when you still needed raising yourself.

You want to know my biggest achievement?

It’s not the house we bought. Not the businesses that we run. Not the accolades or titles or the things people clap for.

It’s him. It’s us. It’s every breath I gave to that tiny human, every dream I rewrote for him, every time I showed up scared but didn’t flinch. It’s the fact that we made it. Not just survived.

Grew.

I’m a cycle breaker. I wear that like a sacred badge over my heart and yeah, my chest is big enough to hold it.

I did what many told me I couldn’t and now I’m here, for the ones who are walking that same tender path. The young mumma, The scared, brave, fierce hearted wiman holding babies and carrying shame that was never theirs to hold.

I’m here to be the voice that says:

You are not broken. You are not too young. You are rising. And that baby? Is your teacher.

Your mirror. Your reason and you my darling soul

You are their goddamn miracle