Hellooooo! I would like to formally introduce myself. My name is Amanda, and I would like to welcome you to my little space in the blogosphere. Now before you jump to conclusions based on my name, you will come to find that I am not a mom hater, or that I hate babies and all things “mom”. But since finding out I was pregnant in August 2010, I vowed to myself I would never become one of “those” moms. And what exactly do I mean by one of “those” moms? The type of mom that doesn’t lose her identity just because she now has a child. I’ve met so many people that only talk about all things revolving around what little Jr. is doing. I don’t know about you but adult conversation is not an ancient language in my household! Having my beautiful daughter didn’t change that either! In fact, when my little bundle arrived in April 2011, it was more evident that I would never EVER be one of “those” moms. I didn’t do things the conventional way my entire life, why would having a baby change that?

Before becoming a SAHM, I worked in the internet marketing world for 6 years.  I met and worked with a lot of cool people who quickly became great friends. Most importantly I met my husband. Been together for 8 years and counting and couldn’t be happier. I was lucky enough to have his support when I decided I wanted quit working to raise our daughters. Took some convincing and womanly persuasion, but here we are!

I have read many of mom sites in preparation for my ‘lil munchkin and they all were great-very upbeat, happy, chipper-very all about the kids. That’s when it hit me square in the jaw that I was reading about my future life and it scared the shit out of me. I didn’t want to lose my self of being because I was now going to be a mom. I wanted to add to my identity, not take away the last 32 years of my life to start over as “So & So’s Mom”. Why did these women I was reading about do that? What about their lives before child? Did they forget about that?!?! and if they did WHY!!!!

I quickly realized it wasn’t these women that were different, it was me. Through out my whole pregnancy I wasn’t the normal happy, glowing pregnant woman. Why couldn’t I be that kind of chick? It took a lot of time and hormones for me to realize I wasn’t weird because I felt this way. This is who I am, who I’ve always been and it’s time to embrace that!

So, I raise a glass and cheers to every mom’s (and dad’s too!) journey to sanity and normalcy amongst the chaoticness of raising children. Let us not forget who we were B.K. (before kids) but enhance, grow and be the bad ass women that we are!

– Amanda, The Anti Mom Blog