All The Times I Didn't Win The Outstanding Mother Of The Year Award

And the one time I did.

Welcome to National Parenting Week!

I promise you, Kristi Keller of Wildhood Wanted is one of the most fascinating people you’re going to meet here on Substack. An award-winning travel writer who’s gotten to stay at properties WITH BUTLERS, she’s the master of reinvention and has had lots of practice thanks to the many curveballs¹ life has thrown at her. She’s also a mentor for writers and any who’s craving a life with more “wildhood.” More beauty, more magic, more sweatpants, and most importantly, less drowning in “adultness.” I have read several of her stories, screamed like a viking upon conclusion, and seriously pondered packing a duffle and my laptop and hitting the road. But then I remember I have to pick my kid up from school in 15 minutes and I could never bring just a duffle on a trip! But it doesn’t matter— what does matter is the way Kristi’s stories make me feel. I believe that’s called inspiration.

She is also the author of TWO additional Substacks: Unstack Substack which is awesome advice to make your Substack shine and Dog Snobs which is A SUBSTACK ABOUT DOGS! Do you need another reason to subscribe???

Thank you for sharing your words with the Middle-Aged Lady Mom family, Kristi! I might have cried a little².

XO,

Shelly

---

My son with NOT his real mother. He looks a little afraid, no?

I understand that for most women who plan on having children, it’s a heavenly miracle to become pregnant and anticipate the next glorious stage in life — parenting.

You and your significant other do your best to get your freak on at the most optimal times each month, in hopes that you’ll hit the nail on the head and conceive. That’s when your magic begins.

But can we just be honest for a minute?

There’s also a minority of us out here who never planned on becoming parents. We didn’t pay attention to anything fertility-related because we were floating through life, naively thinking, “I can’t get pregnant. I use condoms!”

1 out of 5 moms may not recommend parenting. I feel like that’s a fair ratio.

Here’s what it’s like for someone who didn’t go the planned parenthood route.

Picture being eighteen years old and your period is late. Only you don’t realize it’s late because who the hell is using a period calendar at eighteen? The only days on the calendar I paid attention to were weekends. Partaaay!

Once it dawned on me that I really hadn’t had my period in a while I started to sweat a little and tried thinking of ways to get to the bottom of it without having to go public, a.k.a. visiting my family doctor who’d known me since birth.

Instead, I went to the pharmacy and shoplifted a home pregnancy test because I was too embarrassed to make the purchase.

Hiding behind a locked bathroom door at home, I peed on the stick and then waited.

I can’t remember if the stick was the kind with two lines or a + sign for positive, but I distinctly remember leaving that stick in my dresser drawer for three days hoping it would change back.

It never did.

I had to confide in someone, so I asked my mom if we could go for coffee one day. Immediately, she asked, “Why? Are you pregnant?”

Dumbfounded, I asked how she knew. She replied, “You’d never want to go for coffee with your mother for any other reason.”

During my pregnancy, I quickly grew to the size of a log cabin. I remember midnight walks to the corner store for one Twinkie because that’s what I wanted to eat at midnight.

I gained 70 pounds in total and became so round that my doctor thought I might be carrying twins.

While pregnant, I vividly remember crying like a madwoman each time I saw an airplane in TV commercials. What was that even about? Oh right, the magical wonder of hormones.

At seven months preggo, we went on a family vacation to Disneyland and I also cried sitting on benches watching everyone go on rides I wasn’t allowed to ride. However, I did stand in line attempting to get on the Matterhorn roller coaster, just to see if I could pass for fat instead of pregnant. It worked.

My poor unborn child, having to endure that kind of rough-ridery inside me.

First Mother-of-the-year award right there. (NOT)

When my baby started moving inside me it was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. It was very alien-esque seeing him from the outside, punching and kicking my insides, and that’s when he became real to me.

I always knew he was a boy because of his punch. In fact, I was so confident he was a boy that I never even made a list of girl names.

My mother was my partner in prenatal classes and I was by far the youngest in the room. I was also the only one attending with their mother. Everyone else was accompanied by their spouse. Awkward.

Even more awkward was recognizing one of the spouses who was there with his wife. He was a male stripper from a bar I frequented. I wondered if his wife knew that I knew what his penis looked like?

One night, during my ninth month of pregnancy I’d gone out for nachos with my girls and left a note on the kitchen counter for my mom that sarcastically read:

“I went out for nachos with the girls. I’ll call if I go into labor. Hahaha.”

I think I still have that note paper saved in a box of memorabilia somewhere.

That night, I came home before midnight and went to bed, but couldn’t fall asleep. My back hurt too much and I just couldn’t get comfortable.

I went into my mom’s bedroom to complain about my back pain and she was intuitive enough to ask if I had timed the pain. Of course, I hadn’t timed them…it was constant.

She drew a hot bath and made me some tea but my discomfort became unbearable so she figured we should head to the hospital, just in case.

During the drive, it escalated so much that I cursed her out for driving over cracks and pebbles on the road. I could hardly bear it and by the time we arrived at the hospital, I crawled on all fours through the front door.

Through nine arduous hours of non-medicated labor, the nachos I had eaten hours earlier didn’t stand a chance. They saw the light of day long before my baby did.

No one told me puking was part of this deal.

During intense labor my baby went into trauma and they called in a specialist. There I was, stark naked and legs splayed on a hospital bed, when in walked the most good-looking man I’d ever laid eyes on. He was wearing dress pants, a dress shirt, and dress shoes. I thought for sure he must be a lost dad stumbling into the wrong hospital room.

Full of embarrassment, I asked my mom, “Who the hell is THAT and why is he in here?” Why was someone else’s husband looking at my exploding nether regions?

Turns out he was the specialist and he walked in during the most shameless moment of my entire life. Who shows up in dress clothes to deliver a baby? I would’ve expected a hazmat suit or riot gear.

That hot doctor, along with a team of many, saved my baby’s life. In turn, my baby upended my life. I went from living with my mother to becoming a mother, within nine short hours.

I never saw my son at the moment of birth because they whisked him away due to complications. I had no idea what he looked like except for a mop of thick, black hair on his head.

So, naturally, when I visited the nursery later to see him for the first time, I walked up to the baby with the thickest mop of hair and started whispering sweet nothings to it.

That’s when I noticed the name card on the cradle. I was whispering to someone else’s new daughter.

Again….Mother-of-the-year award.

I finally found the correct baby. The cutest on in the room…obviously.

The things I didn’t know.

There’s a whole laundry list of things no one told me about childbirth and motherhood. I wasn’t prepared at all and I wished I’d known these things going in.

Nobody told me that I’d still look pregnant for months after giving birth. I remember staring at myself in the mirror, perplexed that I still appeared to have a basketball in my belly. What a let-down.

Nobody told me I’d be constantly wiping breast milk spray off my bedroom walls, because my boobs spontaneously combusted whenever they felt like it.

No one told me I’d be too scared to take a #2 after childbirth for fear that it might blow the stitches out. TMI?

No one told me I’d lay awake every night waiting for my son to cry, just to make sure he was alive in the other room, all alone.

And certainly, no one told me I’d be more concerned for my newborn’s well-being than the utter destruction of my va-jay-jay.

But the one thing I did know?

Of all the uncertainty and tough decisions a young single mother faces, choosing to be his mother was the only decision for me.

Through all the tumultuous times we would face going forward, I chose to stay on that roller coaster ride with my son for life.

That was my ultimate Mother-of-the-year award.

1. Understatement of the century

2. Also an understatement