247. Motherhood Series, Part 3

Three women share their deeply personal journeys through motherhood, discussing the influence of their own mothers, unexpected pregnancies, and how faith shaped their experiences. 

• Faith foundations from mothers provide blueprints for parenting approaches
• Philomena's example of "unmovable, unshakable, undoubting faith to God" continues to inspire
• Raw honesty about initial pregnancy reactions at different life stages
• Processing pregnancy news at age 14 versus being married
• Unexpected conception despite medical challenges
• Varying pregnancy experiences with different levels of community support
• God's redemptive grace allowing healthy children despite previous abortions
• Church community providing unexpected support for high-risk pregnancy
• The profound spiritual transitions that occur at childbirth
• Raising children "in the admonition of the Lord" after becoming a Christian

Chapters

• 0:00 Faith Lessons From Our Mothers
• 2:56 First Thoughts About Pregnancy
• 8:03 Comparing Pregnancy Experiences
• 12:57 Support Systems During Pregnancy
• 17:41 The Moment of Birth Reflections

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:22

I've learned so much in that regard as far as a forged faith. But then there are components that I don't repeat, and I think sometimes it's even where I don't want to repeat it, but then I find myself because it's almost kind of innate. So but I am thankful, and I'm grateful for the faith component, because if there is nothing else that she can give me or that she's been that example of, is faith unmovable, unshakable, undoubting faith to God.

Speaker 2: 1:00

So for me, if I could have imitated anyone, looking back in time, it would have been my mother, philomena. We lost. We lost her when I was seven, but just those seven years that I had my siblings and I had. It was a very loving, compassionate and caring person. She never met a stranger. She would give you the shirt off her back. She was very innovative. Sometimes I sit back and I say, god, why didn't I get her innovation For real? This lady knew how to make a dollar out of 15 cents. Are you serious? But just seeing her heart for people, it does something for me, especially becoming a Christian, it heightens it because it's like you never want to see people suffer, and that's who my mother was. She never wanted to see anyone suffer. If she could do it, she would do it. If she couldn't, she'll figure out a way on how to help you. So if I could imitate her as a mother I could imitate anyone it would be my mother, philomena, and even how she. The neighborhood kids. They love coming to our house. She took care of them, she had fun with them. She everything, she was that mom she was. She was literally the neighborhood mom, because she was also the candy lady. So so, um, yeah, she was the candy lady. So they love coming to our house. Y'all got some candy. Yeah, you got to buy it, though, but anyone that I could even I could tell anybody it would be Philomena.

Speaker 2: 2:50

The second question I have for us is what was your first thought when you found out you were pregnant? I'm going to go first because I'm going to make this easy. My first thought when I found out I was pregnant at the age of 14 was oh no, it got to go. That was my first thought. Why? My daughter's dad was 10 years older than me. I was 14. I know nothing about being nobody's mama. Who in the world I don't love this man? I don't even know what love is. I'm still a kid. I'm in middle school. There's no way this is happening. That was my first thought. And then I was like okay, what are we going to do to take care of it? How are we going to take care of it? Because it needs to go. And then God said no, ma'am, I have other plans for her. I didn't know I was having her, but God had other plans. And then God's plan she's here, she's 31. And she's thriving in Dallas, texas. Next sister go ahead.

Speaker 3: 3:53

Right, all right, I'll take that one. Ooh, okay. After that prayer of after the abortion, being 17 and you know your senior year, the summer before the senior year, I asked God because I went through a depression. Like Lord, if I get the opportunity, I would definitely never, ever, would do that again. That's number one.

Speaker 3: 4:18

But when he blessed us with a child after our marriage, I cried, went to my mom's bedside and I cried and I told her. I said, mom, I got something to tell you and I don't know how you're going to take this. I'm pregnant. And she was like Tal, you're married, you're married. Wow.

Speaker 3: 4:48

Because I was looking for the disappointment. I was looking at trying to making sure I was good with her. Did I disappoint her? The expectation, and she didn't have any on me and that was the whole thing. And I didn't realize it. Because when we found out we were pregnant, it was great, it was good to know because we've been married.

Speaker 3: 5:12

But my first thought was nobody but my mama. It wasn't my husband, it wasn't my husband, it wasn't even about me, it was about my mother, because I didn't want her to see me in any other life, but her baby. And she said baby, I'm going to be right here because that's my first grandchild and to this day, about that grandson, because she only has two. He is 30, and the other grandson is 20, so it's a 10-year difference. She will not even move to the state of Texas and still as long as that grandson is still there in Kansas or Missouri, she's not moving.

Speaker 3: 5:50

Until then, and I said, bless her heart and I love her for it, it because that's her ride or die. And when I say ride or die, if she calls him or he calls her, they are right there at each other's doorstep and I just love that relationship. So that's how it comes back full circle for me, and so that's why it was so important. So I'm grateful to look at her expectation, even though she didn't have any. I was grateful because I'm looking at the relationship now that they build together After my dad's gone, my brother passed away and my mom still has her other son. I can't sleep through me.

Speaker 1: 6:39

That was beautiful sis, for me and I was married when I found out that I was pregnant with my son. But I was shocked, not of course because of the conception, but because I have a medical condition and then my ex also had something going on, and so I didn't think that we were going to be able to conceive right away. And so for me it was like, hey God, because what he is, so bigger than our thoughts and and our, you know, finite mindsets, and so it was a shock for me because I thought it was going to be tedious. I thought that, you know, we were going to have to go through things, you know, as far as fertility. So for me it was a little shock, but then it was. It was happiness because, of course, as a wife and as a mother, as a woman, because I've mothered so many children, but just to know that God blessed my womb and I didn't have to encounter what I thought was going to be my plight, thought was going to be my plight.

Speaker 2: 8:02

I was going to ask this question but, kimmy, you answered it earlier and that was what was your pregnancy like? So we already know what your pregnancy was like with baby Daryl. But, keisha, what was your pregnancy like?

Speaker 3: 8:14

My pregnancy actually, um, it was a gracious pregnancy and when I say that because I had so many people cater to me that out of the woodworks, when they see you know, when they say about that glow, you have people change that. Look when you have that glow and it's like doors open for you people. Being generous, you know being nourishing, it's like doors open for you People. Being generous, you know being nourishing is being loving my brother in law at the time. I mean, he normally don't cook, he cooked.

Speaker 3: 8:44

I was like, wait a minute, lord, just all these benefits, that's what I was looking at, all the benefits, and I didn't gain any weight until like the last two months of my pregnancy. Wait, until like the last two months of my pregnancy. So it was beautiful and I'm just grateful to God that he did open up and kept my open to be able to. After what I did to it, I'm going to say that it is home for me. After what I did to myself, after I allowed doctors to mutilate me, he was still able to heal and to be able to have a beautiful and healthy pregnancy. I'll go where the God is.

Speaker 2: 9:34

So I had two pregnancies. Pregnancy number one I looked like a baby doll y'all. I was cute. Okay, look, I was cute. I even had dudes talking about the I'll be your baby daddy. I had people giving me money, feeding me, all this stuff, right. And then a couple of let me see, I got pregnant with my. I was what? 27? I was 27 when I got pregnant with my son. I looked like a bun ball, turkey.

Speaker 2: 10:08

I gained so much weight, but that was my easiest pregnancy. Even though I gained the weight, I had no morning sickness. With my first pregnancy, with Amanda, I was sick. With my son, I wasn't. With Amanda I didn't gain much weight.

Speaker 2: 10:24

With Devon I did. I love seafood. Amanda didn't care. Devon hated the smell of seafood. I was like what in the world? So the premises were like when people say it's different, it is different. Like so different. He was very particular about what I ate. If she didn't like it, no, ma'am, he didn't care. All he wanted, once I was done eating, was I need to have a bottle of chocolate milk partially frozen that was still icicle in it. That was to wash the food down. That's exactly what it was like with my pregnancies.

Speaker 2: 11:13

I wouldn't change them for the world. I said all of that just to say I wouldn't change them for the world. I said all of that just to say I wouldn't change them for the world the beauty of filling life in your womb and like Keisha, I had two abortions and a self-induced miscarriage and God still blessed my womb to give birth to one more child, and I wouldn't change it for the world To be able to give life to a six foot two young man, after all of that, who's intelligent, who has wisdom that supersedes his own understanding, who loves God, wouldn't change that for the world. My daughter, as much as I, was 14 and scared and didn't want her, and we sometimes right now, because she thinks she grown and she my mama and she could talk to me any kind of way wouldn't change that for the world, because I see her, see the beauty, I see the gifts, I see the talents that God has put in both of my children.

Speaker 2: 12:26

But when I think about them, I'm thankful and grateful that God blessed me with these two amazing kids, even through the fact, because he could have easily said no, since I blessed you and you decided you ain't want them, I ain't giving you no more, but that wasn't. That wasn't the case. I'm grateful for that. Did you have a lot or minimal support during your pregnancy journey? Well, keisha, you said you had a lot of support. You had a lot of support. What about you, kim?

Speaker 1: 13:06

Keisha was spoiled, but rightfully so. For me, no, unfortunately I didn't get the pampering and all of that. Now, I will say, when my pregnancy turned high risk, like I said, god just just brought everybody through. Honestly, I had never been hospitalized, never stayed in the hospital, and so when they first detected my cervix was beginning to dilate prematurely, they kept me for two days and I boo-hoo cried. I cried my heart and soul out because I was so scared and didn't know what to expect. But God had placed one of the sisters from the church and she was there and it's like there was a calm coming over me and she saw me and she came in the room and she just spoke to me and reassured me and the fact that God placed her there at the point that they were admitting me just brought so much comfort. And so from like that point, god just made sure that everybody that I needed was there, be it my family, even the church family, like they didn't even really know me like that, to be honest, because I literally had gotten married in November and found out I was expecting Daryl by February. So I think that's like two months.

Speaker 1: 14:29

But when God does a thing, I often say that when God does a thing because even if it didn't funnel down through the channel that I expected it God ensured that when I needed it the most, that support came through the church. I didn't have to want for nothing. They cooked and they took turns and they brought meals to the house. As soon as Preacher found out that I was in the hospital, he come walking through the door, he beat everybody to the hospital and I thank God for that. I thank God for that because I've never experienced and neither did I expect anything like that, because, like I said, they didn't know me like that, but they knew God like that. And I thank God for Christians who have that relationship with God and don't need the familiarity but will still be God in the presence of God in the lives and in situations of those who need it.

Speaker 2: 15:29

So for me, with Amanda, I was very spoiled, like spoiled spoiled Because my sister. I was very spoiled, like spoiled, spoiled Because my sister. I would wake her up three in the morning, talk about something I'm craving, and she'll get up and go and cook it, and that was that, like she spoiled my daughter, amanda's godmother same thing. All I would just say, oh, I feel like having this and next thing, you know, they in the kitchen and doing this and I got it. That's all I got to say is that I want this Right. So I was grateful and thankful. She was very loved. She was truly loved when I was pregnant with her. She still is loved. Devon, my cousin my cousin because when she found out I was having a boy, she was like what you want, what you feel like eating, she always cooked whatever I wanted. His dad wasn't as attentive and my son, both of my children, are out of wedlock. I would never recommend and I will say this with every ounce of fiber of my being, I would never recommend a young woman get pregnant outside of wedlock, and even sometimes, yes, you get married and there's divorce, but it's always best to be married to have your child, because the person sometimes, depending on the man that's all I could say will be more attentive to you than himself. My son's father wasn't as attentive. As a matter of fact, he tried to have the conversation with me, talk about something. Oh, you know we can't afford this. And I was like well, we don't need you. I did it by myself with the first one, I can do it by myself with the second one, I'm good. But I just had to say that my sister and I, we were estranged from each other. But when I had him, that was a different story. And that's the next question. And that's the next question what was it? Once you gave birth? What went on in your mind? I'm going to go first. Once I gave birth to Amanda, I was in the room with the nurses. No one was there for me, not Amanda's dad. There was no one. My brother actually came after she was already out. I went into. I was in labor. That night I didn't even realize that. I thought I was having gas pains because it didn't hurt. And then I woke up in the morning, thought something and I was like oh, I think I'm in labor, told my roommate hey, I think I need to go to the hospital. I'm in labor. She was like what? They took me to a midwife and she was like no, y'all need to take us to the hospital, the baby's coming. Got there at 11.59, and she was out by like 12 something. She was like I'm making my presence known today and my brother came in and he was like wow, you couldn't wait for nobody, it wasn't me, it was her. She wanted out. So she's here, her, she wanted out. Well, she's here With Devon.

Speaker 2: 19:01

When I had him, it was a whole different experience because I was a Christian and all I remember saying God, this is your child, I give him to you. His dad was in the room, of course, course, with him, because he experienced that and I didn't hear him cry. His dad was like, oh, he's just looking around trying to figure out what's going on. Like he, he was very, always very inquisitive and attentive in that way. And when they laid him on my chest and it was like wow, I did this again and I just knew I had to be a better mom to him than I was to Amanda, because now I'm a child of God. Now I have to raise him in the admonition of the Lord. I have to teach him about the Lord, do that same with his sister, because we both were members of the body, but with him just rearing him up in the Lord. So that was what went through my mind.