When you become a parent

I've been thinking a lot lately about parenting.  When exactly do you earn that title of "parent"?  I think it kind of happens in stages. 

You of course become a parent the moment you find out you are expecting a child (or children in our case).  Before we knew we were having triplets I remember standing in front of the mirror.  I was just 5 or 6 weeks pregnant and thought to myself, "I will never look like this again".  I knew that I was about to sacrifice my body, my life in order to have a child.  It was the strangest feeling.  Little did I know how much I would sacrifice.  The strangest part is that you know it's worth every pain, every stretch mark, every difficult day. 

Then you go through difficult times and you become a parent all over again.  When Reese stopped breathing I suddenly felt myself being shoved into a new role.  I remember getting in the ambulance with him and being asked how much he weighed.  I started to sob.  I wasn't sure how much he weighed.  I guessed he was about 6 pounds (I was right).  It was such an overwhelming feeling of responsibility.  You would think that would have hit me when the boys were born, when we brought Reese home the first time or at a million other moments.  For some reason that day was when the incredibly responsibility hit me.  We were the parents standing in the corner of the ER room watching a team work on my child.  We were the parents signing waivers for our child to be operated on.  I have never felt more overwhlemed, depressed and unsure of myself.  It was exhausting.

I feel like I'm at another new stage of parenting.  Now more than ever I am at the advocacy stage.  I am learning how to fight for my children and for their safety.  I'm willing to look pushy and overbearing if it means getting answers and feeling that my kids are safe.  In the past week I wrote to a state representative about food allergies and restaurants and plan on writing to 2 more.  I stopped a neighbor on the block behind us to ask if she or anyone on her block feeds peanuts to the squirrels.  We keep finding peanut shells in our yard.  That makes our own backyard unsafe for Noah.  It is incredibly frustrating that our own home isn't completely safe.  I, of course, talked to her as a neighbor and a mother.  She completely understood and we ended up having a nice long conversation and she will now help do what she can to keep Noah safe.  (They haven't fed peanuts to the squirrels in years, so I still don't know where they are coming from!)  It's scary to reach out and talk about something I still know so little about.  But, if I don't who will?  If I let someone else do the work it may not get done. It's time for me to step up and advocate for not just my child, but others who walk this scary and uncertain road.  We have learned again and again that you can think, "Not me", but you never know when you will find yourself in a situation you could have never imagined.  It's time to step up and be the parent I want to be.