Reflections on having a third baby and her first year of life 🌼✨

Mostly middle-of-the-night thoughts from my Notes app

Sep 26, 2025

Having a third kid hasn’t completed me, but I was whole before having Daisy and before having any kids. Having a third kid hasn’t fixed me, because I wasn’t broken.

But in a lot of ways, having a third child has healed me.

There were parts of my motherhood story that we’re finished yet. And parts I didn’t know were still wounded. My story is ongoing and evolving. But I have gotten to rewrite and live this third chapter a little differently.

Daisy was the baby I wasn’t sure we’d have. There hadn’t been closure on whether or not we’d have a third kid, but for years I sort of just thought we were probably done. And accepted and had peace about that, even knowing I’d probably always long for one more. And then I very unexpectedly got pregnant.

It’s hard to imagine life without her now, of course! But I think the wrestling of ‘so should we have a third kid?’ part has allowed me to really soak up this baby. Our last baby! And be so grateful to get to do it all over again.

Another chance to have a different postpartum experience — one where I wasn’t a wound up, ‘deer in headlights’ new mom, and one where I wasn’t navigating parenting with a newborn and toddler during a pandemic.

Embracing rest and slowness and SAVORING this season with her. For weeks in the early postpartum days, we took mid-day naps together. I couldn’t do that with Winnie because I also had two-year-old Lucy to care for. And with my oldest, I was always doing, going — desperate to figure out how my new life as a mom would work with my old life, not slowing down at all.

Seeing Lucy and Winnie’s delight and joy in being big sisters to her — the same joy I have in getting to be a big sister. Getting a front row seat to watching their sister friendship unfold has been so special!

Getting Daisy dressed and remembering Lucy and Winnie at this age, in the same outfits: remembering that moment in time and that version(s) of myself as a mother and feeling proud of how I’ve grown.

Delighting in ‘Daisy’s first everything’ as a family. First time trying food! First time sitting up! First time in the ocean! Everything felt brand new and fun to experience together.

And soaking up and appreciating the ‘small’ and ‘ordinary’ moments with her that we didn’t get to have with a baby in 2020 - library story time, restaurants, airplane rides, trips to the beach, running errands, meeting friends and family in person and not through a phone screen, etc.

My grandma meeting Daisy for the first time <3

Acknowledging how hard it is. Acknowledging how fast it goes.

Embracing the ‘the days are long, but the years are short’ cliché. Living within the ‘two things can be true’ space. It’s hard and it’s messy and it’s exhausting and it’s the most meaningful experience of my life.

Feeling confident and at ease in who I am as a mother and a person. Not comparing myself to others, not obsessively tracking or trying to solve an equation of how to make it easier. Just trusting my own intuition, wiser, and more comfortable with who I am.

I thought I’d feel so sad by the marking of a new chapter. But it just feels like gratitude. I sit in the dark, thinking of the dark night she was born 365 days ago. And as I rock her and admire her, all I can think is: thank you, thank you, thank you.