"Hey Mommy. I love you."

Today I cleaned six dirty diapers before lunchtime. But today, Isaac told me, for the first time, "Hey Mommy. I love you." No prompt. Not me telling him first. He just came up to me and said it.

I'll take that exchange. Dirty diapers for "I love you" any old day.

I hesitate sometimes to express my love for my boys on my blog to vividly. I do not want anyone who is grieving motherhood to be saddened by the reminder that their womb is empty. But sometimes I need to express how much I love these two little men. I hope people who read this find encouragement in the fact that the love is identical from Isaac to Elijah. It is exactly the same. They are both my boys.

I am humbled, blessed, overwhelmed, and elated to be their mom. There is often difficulty among women who parent after infertility for them to express the fact that there are still hard days. Parenthood is not easy. I still frequent Hannah's Prayer Discussion Board where I read a comment from a Mom just yesterday. She felt bad saying that she was having a hard time because it would make her sound ungrateful.

There are many things we do in life that we do by choice despite how hard they are. Needing encouragement or feeling overwhelmed does not quantify as saying you do not want something. You can want something and be blessed by something and still feel that it is a hard thing some days. That is okay.

If you have a mother in your life that is parenting after infertility, please remind them of this. Remind them that it is okay to express difficulty to the right people. Complaining is different than asking for prayer or encouragement. And complaining to the right people is also preferred. I avoid talking about the hardships of parenthood with my infertile friends. Those hard days can be reserved for a safe person.

Click here to read this post as it originally ran on my Daily Blog.