relationship – taylor leigh mcgovern

It’s okay.

I know you’re terrified. It’s okay to be scared. Your life is about to change more than you can imagine.

I know you’re in the midst of trying to decipher the difference between all of those diapers, and the bottles, and the pacifiers, and I won’t even mention the pumps. But, guess what?

They don’t matter.

I know that you think you don’t know a single thing about raising children. But who really does? Relax. You, like all other mommies, are going to figure it out as you go along. You’ll be fine.

Don’t worry so much about your birth plan. Things in childbirth rarely go as planned. Just plan to do whatever it takes to bring that sweet boy (yes, it’s a boy!) into the world safely.

Recovering from your cesarean is going to suck. Physically and emotionally. Take it easy while you recover physically, and accept help when it’s offered. Emotionally will take longer. Just know that you are not a failure. You made the safest choice for your little boy, and that matters so much more than the method he used to enter this world.

Your boobs are going to hurt. Like, imagine the pain comparisons you’ve read in one of the ten baby books you own, and then multiply it tenfold. Breastfeeding is hard. Again, accept the help when it’s offered and ask for help when you need it instead of trying to figure it out yourself.

Don’t expect to sleep for a while. Even if he does, you’ll be too busy staring at him, in amazement at this life you created, and you’ll constantly be checking to make sure he’s breathing. Showers will also be few and far between. Don’t fret, you’ll be too exhausted to go out into public anyway.

When you bring him home, don’t be alarmed when you become so overwhelmed with love that you just cry. This doesn’t go away. Before you know it, you’ll be preparing yourself to send him off to kindergarten. So enjoy the seasons as they come.

Know that you will be different. Your mind, YOUR BODY, your everything. You will transform from selfish to selfless, constantly putting this other life before yours, before you even realize what happens. Your body will never be the same. Your stretch marks will fade eventually, your boobs will go back down to their “normal” size, but you will notice that your feet and fingers are a little fatter than they were before. And your behind will stay a little more round than you remember. Embrace your new body. It did the job God intended for it to do.

Your relationships will be different. Some friends will stick by you. Some will fade into the background. You’ll probably feel alone from time-to-time. Get out and make some friends who are at the same stage in life as you. You can’t expect those not in your shoes to understand what your life is like now.

Your house will never be clean. Well, it might for the first five minutes after you finish tidying and then sit down. Then your boy will wake up from his nap, your Husband will come home from work, dinner will need to be made, and someone will spill something, somewhere. Don’t let it drive you crazy. Life happens.

You will quickly realize that you don’t know why in the world you ever stressed over bottles and diapers. This mom-thing will come so naturally to you that you’ll wonder why you ever worried. You’ll quickly realize that before you had your sweet baby, there was always some piece of the puzzle that was missing and you just had no idea. Now, your heart and home will feel complete.

I’m not a very open person.

Which is funny, because those who know me best know that sometimes I can be a little too open. I have to wholeheartedly trust you before I’ll disclose an OUNCE of information about my personal life. I have a lot of history. But who doesn’t? So many of things that I have gone through have just molded me into the heavily guarded person that I am today. I didn’t let people in easily before I had a second heart to worry about, and I for damn sure don’t now.

I’m working on that. And I’m working on being more open about the things that make me, me.

I’ll start by telling a story about the man who saved my life.

People often ask me about my tattoo. It’s just a simple, small, purple and blue shooting star placed on the top of my foot. I always get the “aww that’s a cute tattoo,” or “why would you get such a random tattoo?” questions.

When I was fourteen, I was a brat. I was mean to people, I was rude, I was hurting. I was just in a dark place after getting out of a “relationship” that I was too young to have been in in the first place. The ONLY person I ever confided any of this in, was this man that had been a relatively constant person in my life from age 11-12, and he was also my youth pastor.

His name was Art Lilley.

Art was the most grace-filled person I have ever met. His relationship with God was inspiring, not just to me, but to everyone he came in contact with.

When I was around sixteen, he was driving me home from our youth meeting one night. We were talking about a mission trip that I was planning to go on the following summer to a place called Camp Barnabas (that’s an entirely different, yet amazing story). Camp Barnabas was a camp solely for special needs campers and I wasn’t feeling confident enough in myself or my faith to feel prepared to go on the trip. I remember asking him, “How is it that you are so secure in your faith?”

He said, “I’m not.”

This threw me to a place of pure speechlessness, which doesn’t happen often. This man, who was the reason I had handed MY life over to Christ, was sitting here telling me that HE’S not secure in HIS faith?

He saw my confusion and continued, “Taylor-Leigh, I know that I’m going to heaven. And I know that when I get to those doors, Jesus is going to look at me and say ‘In a minute, I’m going to turn off every, single light in the world. And for every person that you have led to me, one star will light back up.’ And I want EVERY star to light up, not just a couple here and there.”

That conversation stuck with me forever. A few weeks later, Art deployed to Afghanistan. I signed up for my trip, and everything was set to go.

A month before I was to leave, I was on a bus full of children when I got the call that Art had been killed in action in Afghanistan.

That night, I was sitting on the porch swing reminiscing about the impact that this man had on my life. I remembered the night in the car, and the story that he told me. I remember looking up, and just collapsing into tears.

Every single star in the sky was shining more brightly than I had ever seen in my life.

One of those stars, was me.

And now I have the permanent reminder of this man who saved me in the form of a simple, small, purple and blue shooting star placed on the top of my foot.

So that’s the story of my cute, random little tattoo. It’s so simple, but reminds me of where I’ve been, how far I’ve come, to be humble, and to be grateful.