A letter to the single moms navigating the next thing

I'll be the first to admit, I find myself deflecting and steering away from the "single mom posts." Recently, I asked myself why.

Three hard truths:

1. I never in a million years thought it would be me. The single mom. The child out of wedlock. The "broken" family. While I've accepted it and the shock has faded, while it's my reality - I guess it still doesn't feel like "me."

2. When you live with your parents as a single parent, in some ways you feel you're not allowed to say "I'm a single parent." What I've realized over the year is: I am. Being a single parent comes with a lot of unspoken emotional, mental, and physical weight that only a single parent truly understands. I've accepted I don't have to explain it to anyone. I know I have earned - yes, earned - this title that I've now come to be proud of because of the strength, resilience, and mental + physical determination it truly carries. In ways only a single parent can understand, know, and feel. No explanation needed to those who don't get it and won't ever get it.

3. The juggle of knowing what is sharing too much but enough to give it purpose. To help others feel seen, heard, not alone. The hovering thought of wanting to help others but wanting to protect my son from what one day he will read. How much he needs to know versus how much he will find out versus what he never needs to know.

So here it is. A post for my single moms. Maybe this will resonate with single dads, but I can't speak on their behalf. Maybe I'll do more of these, maybe I won't. But this one? I felt called to share.

My son has not spent a night away from me except one time when he was seven months old, when I had to attend a work conference two hours away overnight.

Without over-explaining, there have been many factors as to why he's only known me through the night. Many that, if you're a single mom, especially a single nursing mom you'll get.

He's never slept through the night despite efforts. He's never known another constant as I am the default parent and caregiver. Nursing is what has always settled him.

For reasons not needed in this post, his dad has not had an overnight with him yet. This Christmas, he will get that.

We have reached a legal agreement, and upon much praying and journaling, my heart tells me it's time.

No one but a single mother will understand the weight this carries emotionally and physically.

Not only will you go to bed without your baby in your home, in your arms, you will wake up without them in your home, without them in your arms. It’s been just you and your baby since birth. No one else. Just the two of you eary mornings, late nights. All hours when everyone else sleeps. It’s been you two up on and off for 18 months.

My son is 18 months old. He still can't tell me how his day was with his dad. He can't tell me how he slept. He can't pick up a phone to call me if he misses me or needs me. He's a child. Not even two years old yet.

While this has to happen at some point and is part of him growing up, it's not something many navigate who don't co-parent.

To the people reading this that don’t coparent, you've probably left your young child with their grandparents overnight, or your spouse both of which you know, trust and have a relationship with, you can openly and honestly communicate with. You've probably been able to let your child stay with them early on so you could have a weekend away with your husband or a date night, girls night out etc.

My son has done that once, and he woke often. That was when he would still take a bottle. Now he won't take a bottle. Won't take a pacifier.

His other grandparents come about every three months to visit. He sees his dad two to three days out of the week from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. He knows his dad. He loves him. His dad loves him. His grandparents deeply love him.

But my mind will wander all evening and night while he's away:

Is he asleep yet?

Is he crying for me? "Mama." "Night night" - which means he wants to nurse.

Is he looking for me?

Is he confused?

Is he scared?

Have they woken to his screams, cries?

Are they nurturing him or ignoring him?

Is this emotionally going to impact him long term?

Is my happy, smart, joyous little boy going to now live in fear of drop-offs at his dad's after this?

See, the difference in dropping your child, who still can't talk, off with the other co-parent, is this:

The relationship.

Let's be real. The majority of us ended up co-parenting for reasons I don't have to list. Otherwise, we'd still be one happy family together.

Dropping your child off to a home you haven't been in - for me, it's an apartment I can't even access without his dad coming to let me in via multiple doors that require key access, with no way of contacting them unless you call the other parent and they choose to answer. Knowing they have only ever woken to you at night. Been soothed by you at night. Settled for you at night.

The thoughts that race through your head, hoping they can handle being away. A different environment. (He's been in plenty of different places to sleep, but always with me.)

You have to remind yourself: they are resilient. They are children, but they are strong. They are adaptable.

It doesn't make it easier on your mama heart.

The quietness. The stillness. The routine you and your baby are used to - just gone. Sitting in the unknown.

I can't just continually FaceTime, text, call to check in. You have to trust their other parent.

Which, as a co-parent, can be hard to do. After all, you most likely ended up in a co-parenting situation because trust was lost, or maybe never built in the first place.

So you have to let yourself trust a situation that feels so far from motherly instinct. So far from what you've been wired to trust. But your only option is to trust. And trust it with the most precious thing in your life—your child.

It's okay if it feels heavy. It should. Because it is.

Now, for you nursing mamas - what do we do?

We can't just not empty our breasts because we all know how that feels. We would wake up with rock-solid boobs that feel like they're going to burst with one wrong move.

We still don't get a full night's sleep. We wake up. We pump.

How much? We don't know. At 18 months you know nursing is no schedule, rhyme or reason. Night nursing at this age is just on demand. It changes nightly. No consistency.

Do we wake up once, twice, three times to pump? When you're a nursing, co-sleeping mama, you know the brain fog. The half-asleep motherly instincts that you sleep with don't actually count and track how many times that child is waking to nurse back to sleep for comfort. You just know, you got broken sleep.

For a split second, it crossed my mind to explain to those reading this the data around the average nursing age around the world. How natural this is and instinctive. To defend myself against all the anti-co-sleeping nurses and moms out there.

But this post isn't for everyone. Not everything is for everyone.

This is for those who get it. Who need someone bold enough, brave enough, and genuinely caring enough to let them know:

They aren't alone.

So if this first night away - especially this first Christmas night away - is feeling heavy, it's okay.

But guess what?

You're going to be okay.

You'll figure it out just as you have figured out every single part of motherhood, of single motherhood. You just do.

You'll get through the mixed emotions of that drop-off, that evening, that night, and the morning. You've gotten through them before. You will again.

You'll navigate the weaning, the emptying of your boobs, the new rhythm and routine—as you did when your baby was born. When they changed weekly, and it was you. You and your child figuring it out together. No husband to lean on. No shoulder to cry on. No hands to hold yours.

You've held it together in the darkness, just as you've glowed in the light.

Only the Virgin Mary knew what God told her. Only she knew the weight of the world, the feeling of the unexplainable, the shock.

Your friends may not get it, your family may not get it, and i’m almost certain your employer won’t get what’s weighing on you.

No one else around you may get it. But God does. He sees you. He knows the sacrifice. He understands the ache in your chest as you hand over your baby for the night - especially on Christmas night, of all nights.

He knows the strength it takes to trust when trust has been broken. To let go when every fiber of your being wants to hold on.

And He is so proud of you.

You are not doing this alone. You never have been. Even in the quietest, loneliest nights when your arms feel unbearably empty - He is there. Holding you the way you hold your baby.

This season may look nothing like you imagined. But you are doing holy work, Mama. You are showing your child what resilience looks like. What grace looks like. What love looks like - even when it's hard. Even when it hurts.

Your baby will be okay on their night away. And so will you.

You are stronger than you know. Braver than you feel. And more loved than you can possibly imagine.

Merry Christmas, Mama. You are not alone.

With all my love and strength,
Kenzie

To the single moms reading this, how are you navigating your first overnight or your first Christmas apart? I see you.