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I wish I could write comprehensively about pregnancy, loss, infertility, secondary infertility, and death of a child. Not that I wish I had endured all of these, but that’s a basic range of the female reproductive experience. It’s our sisters, our friends, our acquaintances. It’s the ladies we see on the subway that we don’t know struggle, and the ones sharing their journey with the world. I wrote about the thin space of being pregnant a few weeks back. Instead, I can only write authentically about my experience, one that’s ordinary and run-of-the-mill, and, in many women’s eyes, ridiculously lucky. I experience fairly textbook cycles. Charting and planning and abstaining when avoiding to conceive has “worked” for us insofar as our kids haven’t been surprises. When we’ve been hopeful for another pregnancy, the baby’s been there. It’s my reality, and my journey, and I feel guilty often about it. The guilt goes two ways: for my ease of conception and carrying to term, and for my sharing anything about the struggle of hyperemesis–all day sickness//all night. It’s like shut up that you’re pregnant again combined with shut up that it’s hard to be pregnant because, see part 1, you’re pregnant again. There’s no way out of feeling bleh about both spaces, so please forgive me if both annoy the heck out of you. That being said, I can share my/our trepidation about another pregnancy, given those parameters. Fear of pregnancy is something I hear from women a lot. Women I don’t know well, women…
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Since we expect my pregnancies to render me nearly non-functioning, it’s a family affair when the all-day sickness kicks in. For the last few weeks, my husband, parents, and sisters have been driving my kids around, feeding them, cleaning up after them, playing with them, bringing me ice water, bringing me random food that rarely tastes as good as it sounds. My friends, organized by my sweet friend Anna!! have been bringing dinners by and saving all of us from nachos (again). And yet, we are surviving. Here are my tricks. 1) Lower low expectations. I put my etsy shop on vacation once I found out I was pregnant. If I can slide up into my chair to sew, great, I have some family project to work on. If I can’t (and that’s been more the case), I’m not under pressure to somehow make it happen. Getting together with friends for playdates or me-dates or us-dates isn’t an option. I miss the company and my kids do too, but as I get light-headed and it isn’t always safe to drive, we’re finding little ways to keep our house an entertaining place for them. The house is messy and dirty. A lethal combo. But AA did laundry this weekend, and I wiped the counters after breakfast today, so it’s not as bad as it could be. Maybe you’re in the place of pregnancy. Maybe you can cut back on taking on extra projects at work, if possible. Maybe those volunteer positions at your…
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Who are these youngsters?? Okay, we’re coming up on seven years of marriage at the end of this month. I simply cannot believe it’s been so long but so quick. My friends Laura and Nancy and I were talking about our anniversaries that are all coming up soon and the vows we took when bam! we realized our next scripture study should center around marriage vows. We brought on a superstar to write on the fourth vow: Jenna Guizar, creator & founder of Blessed is She. She’s simply remarkable and one of my fav people in the world. Monday May 16th you can download your e-study guide right here for Waiting in the Word: Our Vows. We cover the four vows used in most Christian marriage ceremonies: 1) Love and Cherish, 2) Promise to be True, 3) For Better or Worse, and 4) Until Death Do Us Part. I wrote on being true. And it took a turn I didn’t expect. On our wedding day, I thought being true meant not having an affair. I’ve come to learn it that for me it means being invested in a rich intimate life–three kids later, even through extremely hard pregnancies, his long work hours, blah blah blah. There’s always a reason to not be emotionally and physically available to each other, and honestly open to treating the other with attentive love. We hope you’ll join us. It works a lot like our other Waiting in the Word scripture studies: you get a study with…
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Things that smell weird: crayons * packaging tape * pens * money, especially coins * fridge * water Things you think before you eat: how will this feel coming back up? * did I throw up the last time I tried it? * does it have way too much taste like those salty saltines I just had and lost? * if I try it, and lose it, can I try it ever again–aka do I want to ruin this food for me for life? * how far away is my throw-up bucket or the toilet? Things you think before you fall asleep: should I take some vitamin 6 + unisom or will that wake me throwing up? * maybe the morning will not come and I get to sleep for two days * will tomorrow smell like today? * I probably have to cancel with that thing for tomorrow–why did I schedule anything? — As I lay on the ground, watching my kids play and make fun big messes, I think how long will I feel like this? and how can I make it through the morning? But usually by lunchtime I’m okay for a few hours and I rally and change poopy diapers, and drive people to lessons and school and make dinner. Once dinner rolls around, I’m down for the night, marveling at how upright I was just hours before. My husband shoulders a lot. My family helps tremendously. And the older kids are old enough this round to get it, to an extent. They’re nurturing and loving and don’t complain when I…
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purse: c/o Lily Jade * lips: Hint of Tint by Brooklyn Herborium * sweater: similar cashmere here * dress: REI * boots: Bogs Lately, with a new baby on the way, I’m feeling like I’m either improving in my role as a mom or I’m really really letting everything go so that it feels like it’s getting easier. Hard to tell which. You’d have to ask the kids. They’re gonna say I do a lot of #laydownmothering so probably letting it all go. But as I do watch the story of my motherhood unfold before me in the form of their aggressive hugs & sibling squabbles, I see more and more that this isn’t my story. It’s our story. I can be the best mom I think I am, thank you pinterest and instagram for the affirmation, but if I’m not connecting with them in a way they need, I’m not actually being a great mom. This give and take goes back and forth with three human beings separate from myself. Parts of the day they love me, parts of the day they loathe me, and much of the day they’re consumed with their own adventures and ignoring me and my calls to come in for lunch. Even how this new baby, only 7 weeks inside me, has taken our family to another level surprises me. The kids are unified in few things (aside from love of hot dogs and aversion to asparagus–I means, how is that possible? dripping with butter…
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I loved writing my little advice column for me and myself when I was in my 20’s and single and I absolutely LOVED all your responses!! Go read the comments!! Then tonight I got to thinking about what it’s like up here in the mid-thirties, married, with kids. My oldest featuring a tee from his favorite CD: Cake for Dinner. Despite being fraught presently with the blur that double pink eye can bestow to moms dropping eye drops in the moving target of kids’ pupils, I am cogent enough to look around and see my insecurities in this state of life that looks all well-assembled from the outside. I have a loving and hardworking husband. Bonus points that he’s handsome. I have three cute kids. Cute when they’re not ripping each other’s lego creations apart. I have this fancy old house, oh, and I used to practice law so somehow that means I’m smart (except my house is very dusty as is my brain). The insecurities in our married, kidded 30’s are very real, even if not apparent to the naked eye. On a daily basis, my brain twirls through these first-world problems: 1) Did I explain that properly to my kid or am I completely bluffing my way through parenting? First born kids get all the practice hits, right? (baseball analogy, really? wow, mothering a baseball fanatic has changed me.) If I don’t show compassion and exhibit love constantly, will my children feel unloved and under cared for? Are my…
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