these are my thoughts - mainly my largest underlying thought about maternity leave starting today is that i realize how much of my identity is defined by the fact that I am, and have always seen myself as, a "professional." I've been a working professional for at least the past 10 years, almost 15 if you count the jobs I had during high school or over the summer.
currently, i work 40+ hours a week between 2 jobs (one full time in student activities, one part time as an adjunct faculty teaching two courses) and I have a calling in church too, so that takes up Sundays and Tuesdays.
My free night is Friday. My free day is Saturday.
don't get me wrong. i have been excited about this baby for as long as i knew i was pregnant (july 20, 2007... seems so long ago now!).
I didn't have to really think about "balancing work and family." Because "family" was just me and Michael, two independent persons who can choose how often to be with each other and when to "need" each other, and can plan around 2 different schedules to make it work.
babies aren't like that. they ARE the schedule.
i am starting to recognize that the discomfort, indecision and "fear of the unknown" in my mind is revoloving around a lot more than worrying about if I can do natural childbirth.
i'm realizing that a large portion of it is wondering if I can be a mom and not a professional, for at least 8 weeks (that's how much sick & vacation time i have to use up before returning to work). then wondering if i can be a mom and a professional? do i have to be a mom or a professional?
how do you navigate this space & time... can you really adequately prepare for it, do you sincerely just have to adapt to it?
if you can't tell, i try and be in control of as much as I can when it's possible. And maybe it will all just "make sense" once the baby is here. but i'm sitting in my office, looking at my desk full of files that i've been attempting to downsize for the past few weeks, wondering if I can really leave all of this behind and not feel 100% responsible for it? i know i should really be home, enjoying not being at work, preparing for my big day as a heavenly delivery service of a sweet baby boy.
i guess it's all hitting me because i love my job and the productivity that I can *see* coming from it. i'm worried that the immediate productivity of having a baby won't be as visible, and maybe, well, definitely, part of me is doubting my capabilities as a mommy. i'm sure that it's normal... it's just another really weird form of performance anxiety.
professionally, i know that i'm cresting the hill and ready to hit the "top of my game" so to speak because of the way things are truly coming together for me. It reminds me of a conversation I had with my Uncle Tom shortly after graduating college where he told me that your first "professional years" of 22-28 are the years to pay dues and figure out where you'll be. By the time you near 29-31, you find your "niche" and everything comes together.
That happened to me this year... and i'm worried that leaving now will prohibit me from continuing later. Working is all I've ever known, even after college when I lived at home, I worked and helped out at the house as Mommy #2, but even then, the kids were old enough to not be as dependent. Nothing as intense as a newborn has ever entered the "LaShawn's Identity as she knows it" movie until now.
So I know this means it's time to do more reflecting as mommy leave starts. it will be a new adventure... domestic engineering, motherhood, playdates and bonding with other mommies (another thing that throws me completely off too because most of my friends through life have been guys), it's just this entire shift, again, of identity. who I am and who i'm becoming. it's almost like getting married again and having to adjust to all of the changes.
wow. men have it easy.
you get to keep your name.
you get to keep your body shape (for the most part).
you don't have to learn tricks of the trade for the honeymoon night or birthing day.
you don't have to use ice packs, pads or tampons.
no makeup... push up bras... culinary creativity...
no assumption that everything will 'come naturally' for you.
the "i'm a man that's how we're wired/men are from mars" get out of jail (and just about everything else) free card.
and at the same time... there aren't any words to explain to a man what it feels like to know that the random butterflies you felt in your lower abdomen at 18 weeks and 3 days, were the first movements of a baby you've been charged to care for long before it arrives in your arms... the patience and awe that comes with feeling your belly pop towards you when a little leg moves as a baby swims, the precious experience of the 20 week ultrasound to actually see the spine and brain, and 4 chambers of the heart of your little one, knowing that even though you forgot to take your prenatal pills for 2 weeks, the baby is still growing and healthy inside of you... the pride of walking around with your belly sticking out - almost wanting to wear a bikini for the sake of the world knowing you're carrying life, but then remembering that you no longer have a waistline and it's probably not the best idea... the patience of getting distracted by lower belly movements while reading a book at night, so that you can wait to see where the little body part will pop up like a loch ness monster under your skin...
my name will change to "mommy."
my body will deliver a gift from heaven.
i'll eventually figure out breastfeeding, swaddling, lullabies, and diaper changing (yay for pee pee tee pees)
i'll have a new respect for pads and tampons because they mean that i have the privilege of carrying life.
my little one will love me with lip gloss and mascara only - but probably more so with random finger paints that we'll do together.
whatever doesn't come naturally, i can and will learn from those who have gone before me.
i'll go to hell and back and do any amount of jail time, for the sake and safety of my little man.
and maybe i'll become a professional mommy and nothing else in the world will matter.
2 comments:
this is going to sound like the most random and gross thing ever but I thought of something you should pack and/or have at home for when you return after labor and delivery. oral stool softeners. at the hospital they should give them to you because they make you poop before you leave (you have to have a normal bowel movement to show all your parts are in working order before they will discharge you). I got pills at my hospital but I made chris go get me some the day we came home, not something we normally have here at our house (we are pretty regular). anyway I took the stool softener (Ok while breast feeding) for about 2 months because I was afraid of how much it would hurt when I would poop. If mike is reading this he is probably laughing his head off but seriously - you'll never appreciate being to pee without pain until you go through it. love ya!
I have like 3 bottles of stool softeners given to me to take home by the hospitals at my last three births. I haven't opened any of them. Metamucil, yes. I'll go for that right after birth.
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