Almost the instant you become a mother, you realize just how unprepared you were. It doesn’t matter how many people give you wonderful advice; how many female relatives put an arm around you and share an experience; how honest your mom is about how it was for her—being handed a tiny, fragile newborn of your own, that you suddenly love with the fire of a thousand suns, and being told that he’s yours now to take care of–instructions not included–is just a lot.

Once you become a mother, though, you have suddenly opened the door to all kind of honest conversation about aspects of the experience that no one mentioned before you were “in the thick of it” personally. Those moments, when someone admits they need sleep so badly they’re losing their mind, or they didn’t know that the overstimulation of so much noise and poking and prodding would just make their brain short out sometimes, or that they too don’t know what it is to have a clean house anymore, are comforting. Someone else validates a little piece of your experience and you feel a little less alone.

But even still, those conversations are generally retellings of low points from the safety of a sunny park bench where you’re feeling optimistic and put together enough to be seeing other people and your kids are entertaining themselves enough for you to finish a story. And even in your most honest conversations, you probably tell the story of bawling for an hour about spilled sloppy joe as a bit of a punchline, brushing it off as a way to connect. You can’t help but edit the retelling to make it more socially acceptable. But you rarely if ever, get to be in the room with someone through their lowest mothering points. You never really have absolute proof that the hard parts as are hard for others as they were for you.

That is, until a text message lit up my phone while I was cruising along on the Nile with my husband, catalyzing the unique opportunity for me to be right next to someone for every moment of their unexpected entry into motherhood.

It was from the friend that was taking care of our not-yet-one-year-old dog while we were away. “So…don’t freak out”, was the promising start, “but I think Tilly might be pregnant.”

Now I need to state outright that I in no way think that a dog’s experience as a mother is a perfect comparison to a human’s. But I’ve also been surprised by how much I’ve reflected on and learned about my own mothering experience by getting to watch someone else go through it all so closely, even though she is incidentally a canine.

When we returned home from that trip, we took our 7-month-old Border Collie to the vet for an ultrasound. The vet’s conclusion was that there was no evidence of pregnancy. We were relieved. I’d always kind of been curious about the experience of puppies, but would never have chosen that experience with a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old in my house.

But it was because of playing dinosaurs down on the rug with that same 4-year-old and 2-year-old one evening a few weeks later, that I was at a low enough angle to glance over as my dog sauntered past and know for certain that the vet had been mistaken.

At first, I thought perhaps she was swollen for some other reason, I called to set an appointment to get an ultrasound to confirm, but before the evening was out, I could already feel the puppies inside her kicking. A dog’s gestation period is only 63 days, so by the time you have visual clues, you’ll probably have a house full of puppies within two weeks.

The X-ray told us to expect 6 or so pups 10 to 20 days from then. All a little inexact for my taste. So, puppy watch was on. A week later, we were taking her temperature twice a day looking for the time that the temperature fell below 99 degrees, indicating the pups would probably be making their arrival 12-24 hours later.

Her range of when she could be due fell right into the time we were going to the east coast for my brother’s wedding and I was concerned about her giving birth with a dog sitter. I felt very reassured by the Spirit though, that the pups would be born the 24th, 4 days before the trip; that I would get the experience the birth and get everyone situated before we left.

I made quite a detailed video diary of the experience of the birth, which you can watch here:

But the first lesson I learned from watching my dog become a mother was a lesson that crept up even in the very moments (or I should say somewhere within the 10 hours of labor) when pain and fluid and quiet whimpering made her a mother for the very first time.

  1. Mothering Instinct Is Real

As I mentioned, our mama dog is young. She became pregnant on her very first heat, an outcome I would never have chosen for her. She has so little experience of the world, I had no idea how she’d be as a mother. I don’t think she necessarily knew as she felt the increasing pressure near her tail that that feeling was a baby about to come out. But even so, when the first one came and with each one after, I was amazed to see that somehow, a mothering instinct kicked in. She cut each cord herself, broke open the amniotic sacs, licked each pup to clear their airways and stimulate their breathing, and came over to nurse the ones that had already been born before the others even made it out yet.

No one was there to tell her what to do. She just knew. I hovered close by because I was very worried one of the pups would need help, but ultimately, she really did it all. In the days that followed before we left on our trip, I was amazed by how little care the tiny pups needed from us. Tilly came in to nurse them at her own intervals and kept them clean as she helped them go to the bathroom. She took up the mantel of mother overnight with no teacher. It was kind of astonishing to watch.

And while I am in no way advocating that human mothers should just figure it out without help (because heaven knows I need constant help), but watching her made me wonder what deep mothering instincts I have that I might not be trusting or listening to. In human terms, we call that “Momtuition” the intuition you have about a situation with your children that only you can know as the person that knows them best in the world. It’s all a learning process and I gratefully look for outside help to navigate, but watching my dog, who was just a baby herself, know just what to do, made me wonder how much more I would know how to handle if I could clear away the distractions and just listen to my instincts (clarified and amplified by the Spirit).

  1. You’re Not Just a Weakling, Motherhood Really is That Hard

The other realization that had already started, 5 pups into the birth was the level to which bringing offspring into the world and taking care of them depletes you to the core. Now, this, I have experienced many times as a mother, but I didn’t realize until I saw Tilly’s fur literally drooping and her eyes rolling around with sheer exhaustion that she had come by that feeling honestly and it was not a reflection of her inadequacy. Of course, after 8 or 9 hours of active labor, she earned the right to just collapse in a puddle on the floor (where the five pups found their way to nursing on her and she was too tired to stop them). I began to wonder if there only were five. But suddenly, she snapped awake from total sleep and jumped up, scattering the nursers everywhere and a second later there was a pup hanging out head first like a circus performer and swinging back and forth as she paced around trying to get him out. (This dramatic entrance is at 16:09 in the video above if you want to witness it for yourself).

I’m not exactly sure why I could have so much more compassion for her struggles with motherhood than I have for my own. But as I watched her tire out from labor, I thought, “of course you would, mama” and as she began to resist nursing a week or so later and I saw that her underside was covered in hickeys from the pups earnestly seeking milk in places no milk could come, I thought, “oh gosh, mama, I can see why you would want to steer clear of more pain” and I could see why she was getting exasperated with spending so much time laying indoors and I could see why having a body responsible for nourishing so many bodies, she would be ravenously hungry and I didn’t once think, “stop overeating, don’t you have any discipline at all?”

I am seeing the challenges of her experience as inherently challenging and never thinking that struggling with them is a shortcoming in her. So, why is my first conclusion when I have a hard time handling something, to think that it’s a reflection of my lack, not a reflection of this being a genuine challenge?

  1. Your Children Need You When They Need You, Not Some Other Time

This is a lesson Tilly and I are learned together. My grandfather used to say that people need help when they need it, not some other time, and children are the same. Tilly gets exasperated and—especially as the pups are getting teeth and getting more aggressive at nursing—doesn’t want to nurse a lot of the time, but the pups need to eat when they need to and they make it known. Once, I was resting my arm across her to keep her sticking to it until they had their fill and my older son woke up and wanted to be held. I couldn’t take my hands off of Tilly because the pups needed more nourishment, but my son needed comfort. Without a word, he came over and threw his arms around my neck and curled into my chest even though I couldn’t put my arms around him. Moments later, my two-year-old woke up crying and came out and saw us and he too immediately invited himself into my lap and curled up.

I was covered in babies, Tilly was covered in babies. We were 10 creatures piled into the same four square feet because children need you when they need you, not some other time. It’s a challenge to be the arms that someone needs around them to feel secure in the world, but it’s also a privilege. My younger son wasn’t feeling well at that wedding we left the pups to attend, and so I watched my siblings dance and laugh together while I sat off in the corner holding him nuzzled into me. But I didn’t feel left out. They danced to celebrate the love of two people committing their life to each other and I held my baby close, celebrating the same kind of joy of lifelong human love. Being there for someone dear to you even when it’s inconvenient is what creates the sense of safety that only forever relationships can bring you. I can help make my sons feel that someone will always be there for them, and I’m grateful for that power (even if at times it is a heavy responsibility).

Conclusion

Watching my puppy have her own puppies taught me how much motherhood genuinely demands and how hard that can be (and I could stand to practice a little more self-compassion), but it also taught me that somewhere I have some instinct that I should probably listen to more. Ultimately, my children will keep needing me when they need me much longer than hers will, and I hope to embrace the joy of that more than the exasperation.

I have been documenting this puppy journey in a series on YouTube called “The Reality of an “Oops” Litter. That series can be found HERE. Our channel can be found HERE. Subscribe if you’d like to follow along as I add more videos about the experience.

The pups are now almost 5 weeks old and we are looking for good homes for five of them. If you or anyone you know that is local to Utah is looking for a dog, please reach out to me at pr***********@ho*****.com. They are a Border Collie/Goldendoodle mix, so they will be extremely intelligent and are being socialized to be wonderful with children. Please reach out if you know of a great home for one of them.