Welcome to our new column series written by some of your favourite Channel 7 stars.
This week, Rebecca Maddern shares her parenting journey.
I can’t stop thinking about Natalie Barr and the words she penned for this publication a few weeks ago.
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If you didn’t read it, find it and have a read – but here’s a summary.
Nat described so eloquently the dreaded inevitability of when your children move out of home.
She has two boys – Lachlan and Hunter – and the youngest is spreading his wings to continue his studies.
Nat and her husband Andrew are all alone.
Like me, Nat is a very practical and professional person and doesn’t often show her vulnerable side but oh how this column made me cry!
You see, I’m at the other end of the parenting journey.
I have a five-year-old girl and we are experiencing all the ‘firsts’.
We’ve just navigated her first day of school, the first visit from the tooth fairy, her first sentence read out loud.
Every week is a new experience and these events have become a poignant reminder for me of the passage of time.
The bittersweet journey of parenthood.
The first day of school I was a blubbering mess.
It seemed like a minute ago she was a bundle in my arms.
It was then it really hit me; all of Ruby’s ‘firsts’ are my ‘lasts’.
Ruby is an only child, a true miracle baby I like to say.
I was 39 and after years of IVF we came to the decision to give up.
It was the most difficult and devastating decision of our lives, but we just couldn’t keep going, we were told it just wasn’t going to work.
Enter miracle baby: pregnant naturally and I delivered a healthy baby girl just before my 40th birthday.
So, Ruby is pretty special. I know all children are little miracles, but she is extra special to us.
Maybe that’s why with every little milestone, I get a pang of sadness but an explosion of gratefulness at the same time.
I know how close I came to never experiencing any of it.
So, to you Nat and I’ll remind myself of these words in about 12 years’ time, ‘it goes way too fast, but your babies will always have your love and big cuddles – no matter how far they roam’.
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