A story about holding shame AND holding my twins.
I found myself sitting in the NICU, staring at my tiny babies in their tiny incubators, and all I could think was:
I failed.
I failed at keeping them safe.
I failed at carrying them long enough.
I failed at giving them the birth they deserved.
I replayed every appointment, every symptom, every decision. I wondered what I could have done differently. I searched for a reason that would somehow make sense of why I was sitting in a hospital instead of taking my babies home.
Looking back now, I know those thoughts weren’t facts. They were fear. They were grief. They were the impossible expectations I had placed on myself as a brand-new mom.
I had developed preeclampsia. My daughters arrived at 33 weeks. They needed the NICU because they needed medical care, not because I wasn’t enough.
But when you’re in the middle of it, logic rarely wins.
Mom guilt has a way of convincing us that we are responsible for things we were never meant to control.
As a perinatal therapist now, I hear different versions of this story all the time.
“I should have known sooner.”
“My body failed.”
“If I had just…”
“I wasn’t enough.”
The details change, but the shame sounds remarkably similar.
If you’re reading this while sitting beside an incubator, recovering from a birth that didn’t go as planned, or carrying guilt that feels too heavy to put down, I want you to hear something I wish someone had told me:
You did not fail.
Your worth as a mother was never determined by your birth story, your feeding journey, or whether your baby needed extra support.
Sometimes motherhood begins in ways we never imagined. Sometimes it begins with beeping sounds and monitors instead of lullabies, pumping schedules instead of sleepy newborn snuggles, and tears instead of celebration.
That doesn’t make your motherhood any less beautiful. It makes it harder. And those are not the same thing.
Today, when I think back to those days in the NICU, I don’t remember a mother who failed. I remember a mother who showed up every single day. A mother who learned medical terms she never wanted to know. A mother who celebrated every ounce gained, every feed progression, every tiny victory. A mother who loved her babies fiercely, even when fear tried to convince her she wasn’t enough.
Maybe that’s what strength really looks like.
Not getting the story you hoped for.
But continuing to love anyway.
Originally published on The Mindful Mama Therapy.
