Asking for help

Originally posted on Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Why is it so hard to ask for help? As a new Mama I did my research, made informed decisions and tried my hardest to follow my instincts, I wanted to be perfect. I’ve made mistakes and will make more but now I am ok with asking for help when I need it, one of many lessons I am learning on this journey.
Sometimes I get jealous thinking about how much support my own mother (the beautiful woman in the picture above) had. Her mom lived down the street (it was awesome growing up with Grandma that close!) she had Aunts, sisters - she had a “village”. When we moved to Squamish I knew a couple of my husband’s friends, some of which were not yet parents and all of whom were more of his friends than mine. Needless to say I was pretty isolated with our little six month old baby in a new town. I have never missed my mom so much in all my life. I would have given a limb to have her close, there were many days when I cried because I just wanted her to reassure me it was going to be ok, I just needed a mom hug. It was the same story with my sister, if I could have flown her out here for a couple months or better yet, convince her to move her family out here (still working on that) I would be alright, right?
Building your own “village” takes time, takes courage to reach out and takes guts to ask for help. IT’S OK TO NEED HELP! I know that new moms asking for help only ever want the best for their babies, I think it makes you a better mom to be able to ask for help. We have a ton of pressure on us to be strong independent women. Once we become mothers that pressure increases. Becoming a mother doesn’t automatically make us all knowing creatures who can nurture our babies, it’s a learning experience, just like anything new we take on in our lives. So if there is one piece of advice I would give to new mamas it would be that it’s ok to ask for help. No one has to do it alone, we need each other - we’re all human. Sometimes we lean, sometimes we are the support for someone else to lean on, building a strong sisterhood of mamas starts with asking for help. 
It will get easier.