*You are not alone. Our blog series, Motherhood Untold, tells the stories of real moms navigating the real challenges and triumphs of motherhood.
Motherhood Untold: Pride in Motherhood, Part 2
FIT4MOM
At FIT4MOM, we stand with the LGBTQIA+ community and are devoted to empowering all to embrace and love who they are. We are dedicated to amplifying the stories of LGBTQIA+ families while providing an inclusive space for all. As a company whose values include Love, we believe that all families come in different shapes, ages, colors, and sizes. And most importantly, we believe that LOVE IS LOVE!
One year ago, we had the pleasure of chatting with Cecilia (Cookie) and Ashley and hearing about their experience as gay women navigating becoming parents. Now, they're 6 months into this whole parenting thing and they sat down to give us an update.
Tell us a little about what you’ve learned in the last 6-months of parenting.
We can go without sleep for a really long time lol. But really nothing is going to be the same, as soon as you have a routine, everything changes. There’s a constant change every minute. You think you’ve learned your child and they can take a nap and everything changes. We’ve learned that we've fallen a lot more in love with each other seeing each other as a parent!
Ashley: I’ve learned that I’m a great parent. I was nervous. Still now, when I look at myself, I think “What am I doing with a kid? I just never feel ready I never feel old enough, and I never know what I’m doing. Everything I do it an experiment just to see if it would work
Cookie: There’s so many things out there from experts and it may not apply to your kid, and it doesn’t mean that it’s wrong it just doesn't apply to your kid and your and that’s okay. You can’t get too hung up on it.
The beginning was super scary because he seemed too fragile; it seemed like everything had to be in a certain order, but now he’s just running the show and we’re just going with it!
What has been easier than you expected? What has surprised you?
Ashley: Everything… everything has been way harder than I thought and everything has been easier at the same time. It’s weird. I don’t know if he’s just an easier kid or if I just thought things were going to be really really hard. I think it’s easier because I love him so much, so it’s easy to do. There are some things I hate doing, like putting him doing for a nap. I hate that he just doesn’t go to sleep and he likes to play around… but when I’m in there and he's laughing. it becomes fun. It's wild.
Cookie: What has surprised me so far is us being on the exact same page and communicating way better than I expected. I expected it to be a lot harder for us, but we’ve been able to not have any animosity toward each other when it comes to parenting. We talk about everything, even future things, especially with how we were both raised. There are things that seem normal, that you shouldn’t do because of cultural trauma, but we’ve come to an understanding that we can get the message across without being so intense.
What also surprised us is how protective we are of him! We’re protective over family in general, but we would blow up the world for him—it’s an insane feeling.
What has been the hardest part of parenting?
Cookie (She’s the one who carried): For me, the newborn phase was hard. It was really, really hard. Especially the postpartum part of recovering your body—your hormones and everything—that was really hard. The postpartum depression and anxiety… thinking it was normal and “just baby blues” and coming to terms that that it wasn’t normal. But after getting through that, you kind of forget about how hard it was. Oh, and the sleep deprivation!
Ashley: I think the hardest thing is the overthinking. The other day I was thinking about how I’m not going to be able to take care of him when he’s older and I got sad! I don’t know it it’s doom thinking, but I constantly overthink everything that could go wrong and I have to chill myself out.
Is there anything you’re nervous about now that he’s here?
We're more nervous about his journey being Mexican and Black than him having two moms because it’s something that’s seen. There are things that are going to be hard for him, but it was going to be harder anyway because of his race.
We hope that he’s someone that was will speak up if he happens to live as a cis-gender straight male, because of his lifestyle and what he’s grown up around. We hope that he doesn’t feel like he has to overcompensate (because he has two moms) and let toxic masculinity take over. Ultimately, he’s going to have to decide if he’s going to be the one to speak up or not.
There’s a lot that we’re going to have to discuss just in general about being a boy. We’re not men, but he’s going to be around men in the world and hopefully, he has the right influences.
We just want him to be kind, humble, and respectful. We just want him to be a good person.
You previously answered “WHAT'S SOMETHING YOU WISH PEOPLE KNEW WHEN IT COMES TO THE JOURNEY OF PARENTHOOD FOR THE LGBTQIA+ COMMUNITY?”. how has your answer changed in the last year, if at all?
We can only speak for ourselves. Our journey was different; we’re a lot more fortunate. We’re in California, where it’s a lot more open about us being married, being an interracial couple, and having a baby. Ashley was able to easily adopt and be on the birth certificate. Adoption in California, when you’re already married, is very easy because of the laws that are in place. We didn’t have to go to court.
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