Life Updates

Today, coming down from the high of attending a beautiful wedding, I find myself full of emotion. Tomorrow begins the final week of my maternity leave, and will be my baby’s first day at daycare. This evokes mixed feelings, just as it did the last time I was in this position five years ago.

There is sadness about the inexorable passage of time, and the precious, tender moments unique to the very earliest days that you’ll never experience again. Guilt about handing off your own flesh and blood to other caretakers for eight hours a day, five days a week. Fear that your innocent, helpless baby will get sick over and over again.

Yet there is also anticipation. I like my job, and having business challenges and technical projects to tackle. It helps me be the most well rounded, confident version of myself. Even though it leaves me less time with my children, it gives me more patience with them and motivates me to make the most of the time we do have together.

There is relief, I have to admit, because these early days wear on me like nothing else. Sure, when the baby falls asleep easily for naps and stays asleep for long stretches throughout the night, it is smooth sailing. Days like that, though, are few and far between. When the baby screams and cries because she’s tired or gassy or constipated, and you’re running on six non-consecutive hours of sleep, it’s much less fun.

Don’t get me wrong—she doesn’t scream that much. She’s a pretty easy baby, for the most part. Plenty of parents don’t even get six hours of sleep a day. And as she grows, taking care of her gets easier still. I actually feel as though we are just getting over a hurdle and finding our rhythm. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad to keep her home with me a while longer. Ah, there’s that guilt again…

At least this is the last “first day of daycare” that we will face as parents. Part of what makes me so emotional is knowing that every milestone we reach with this baby, good or bad or mixed, will be the last. There will be no more after her.

Most of you know that I was hospitalized for four weeks in March. Consequently, I missed out on the second month of our baby’s life, I can no longer breastfeed her, and I will likely die in childbirth if I attempt it once more. I was already thinking two was enough, but I know many people get that baby fever again after a couple years and wonder whether they should try for a third. That won’t be us. There’s a bittersweetness to having the decision made for us.

I have a lot more to say about that near-death experience. Since I’ve been home, I’ve been writing a collection of essays about it. I want to see if I can get it published. If I can save one person from going through the same thing, or simply move someone with my story, I will have achieved something great.

I haven’t forgotten about my novel draft, which I also still want to publish. Seven people have read it and provided very helpful feedback. It is clear in my mind how to proceed from here, but for now, the essays about my hospitalization are more pressing.

These days, I save most of my thoughts and ideas for future books. That’s why I haven’t been blogging much. However, it does feel nice to come here and share some updates like this every now and then, like catching up with an old friend. I’ll try to do it more often.

Restoration

Today, our baby started daycare. On the door to the infants’ room, there was a large, colorful welcome sign with his name. This was sure to be an emotional day for me, but I didn’t expect to tear up at such a simple gesture. After I kissed him goodbye, he watched curiously as we walked out of the room and closed the door behind us, not seeming remotely as sad as I was.

I know the staff will do their best to take good care of him. I know he will behave, because he is an easygoing and happy kid. I was only nervous about whether he would eat (he refused bottles from us for weeks) and sleep (at home, he often needs to be rocked, and sometimes only wants to nap on us)—but thankfully, he did both. Not much, but he will learn and adapt.

This was the first day in almost twelve weeks that I was away from the baby for more than three hours. Throughout my leave, I have sought out simple activities to feel more like a “normal person” and less like a mommy robot: reading, writing, hitting the gym, walking around town, having friends over to visit, and going out to malls and restaurants. Physically, I’m almost back to my pre-pregnancy self; I’ve lost 40 of 46 pounds, gotten my mile time under eleven minutes (I was never very fast, anyway), and steadily lifted more weight. Yet I was always glancing at the baby every few minutes if he was in sight, or listening for a cry or panicked phone call if he wasn’t. I have spent so much time researching baby behavior and reading baby articles and chatting with other moms of newborns that I fear I no longer have anything to say about other matters. Today gave me the first glimmer of hope that I could have non-baby thoughts and be my own person again.

On Monday, I will be heading back to my office in the city. The restoration to my “regular life” will be complete, with minor adjustments. I will need to put work on pause three times a day to produce sustenance for our child. I will be working from home twice a week to manage miscellaneous chores and errands, have some alone time, and maybe pick up the baby early if I get all my work done quickly. Every weeknight, we will need to prepare bottles and pack a bag for daycare. But I will be working full-time again, and I am really looking forward to it. My company is incredible, and I am pretty darn good at my job.

Being a parent, I’ve learned, means being an interpreter, food safety expert, physical therapist, manicurist, personal shopper, and even (possibly—but hopefully it never becomes necessary for us) entomologist. It comes with plenty of mental and emotional challenges. I miss the types of challenges I would face at my job, though. I found them more interesting, and—much as I hate to admit it—I feel better equipped to handle them. Being a stay-at-home parent has worn me down more than I expected. Every day is fourteen solid hours of cycling through feeding, entertaining, diaper changing, and coercing into a nap. Going out adds variety and reduces loneliness, but I still feel so burnt out by the evening.

I think I would love the homemaker life once our child is old enough to talk and be less needy, because I do enjoy spending time with him, meal planning, cooking, cleaning, and so on. Part of me feels weak for not embracing that life today, for throwing him in daycare so I can run away to another state for eight and a half hours a day. At the same time, I know working will make me happier and saner—at least for now. Who knows if I will still feel this way five or ten years down the line? As little as one year ago, I never would have imagined I would be having these thoughts or living this life. We learn and adapt.

Maternity Leave

nine weeks since I last went to New York
and it only really hit me just now—
I miss walking up and down city streets, the energy
of all those busy people, the freedom
to go anywhere the night takes you, the sense
that anything could happen.

here, it was silent as nap time for several blocks.
you were the liveliest thing in sight, your little head and big eyes
swiveling urgently to drink in the face of every building and human,
this suburb more exciting to you than any city you had yet to see,
a new and different energy.

five weeks until I go back to work
(though it’ll never again feel like going to New York)—
and we won’t be able to do these daily strolls anymore.
like this golden hour, your memory of them will fade
and I can’t decide if the end of this leave
is the falling night or rising dawn.