Baby Wait

I told myself that I wouldn't get anxious about it.  I said I wasn't going to worry about it.  I said I wouldn't get sad about it.

You just have to relax.  It can take a normal, healthy couple up to a year to conceive.  You have nothing to worry about.  It'll happen when it's supposed to.  It's going to happen before you know it, really soon, just you wait.

There is a dichotomy: My rational, thinking mind, which rationally knows certain things vs. The rest of my feeling, emotional self which doesn't really care what I know.

There are layers: The confident, unbothered me who has nothing to worry about and is focused on my stuff and sailing along, the me who belies the previous me and gets anxious because it hasn't happened yet, the me who gets annoyed at that previous me for getting anxious, the me who feels sad because maybe the fact that it hasn't happened yet means that in the cosmic scheme of things, we're not truly ready for it to happen and because maybe I'm just naive and have no idea what I'm wanting to get myself into, the me who gets angry at the sad me because I told myself I wasn't going to get sad about it and I'm making such a big deal out of nothing, and lastly, the me who gets annoyed with the angry me who got mad at the sad me because I'm human and need to stop beating up on myself...

All these layers and metalayers are so exhausting and just reading back over the previous paragraph is an additional waste of time to the waste of time that it was to even write it in the first place.  It's like, in the end, the whole expense of mental energy is so laughably unnecessary because the fact that existed before the expense of mental energy is the fact which still remains: I have no control over when it happens.

Like, why do you even want to have a baby?  Because you're afraid you're getting old?  Because all of your friends have them (at this rate, my friends' babies would be my hypothetical baby's babysitters rather than playmates)?  Because it seems like the next logical step?  Because you have a primal instinct to reproduce?  Because you feel it will validate you as an adult and a woman?  Because on some level you're the same parent-pleasing girl you always were and you want to make them happy by producing a golden grandchild?  Because you wonder what a mashup of you and your husband would look like?  Because you think your kid will be some kind of magical, multiracial, multilingual, brilliant being possessed of an otherworldly beauty?  Smh.  Weirdo.

It's almost like I'm afraid to even want to have a baby.  Isn't that ridiculous?  Like, what is embarrassing about wanting to have a child?

I just had an epiphany.  Baby is the new husband.  Wow.

Like, the way I used to obsess over not wanting to be obsessed with getting married?  It's just transmogrified into obsessing over not wanting to be obsessed with having a baby.

It never ends, does it?

I wish I could get into a time machine, travel back to the year 2000 right before I graduated from high school and give my 18-year-old self a bit of fair warning: It never ends.

Cheer Up Breakfast

P doesn't go back to work until about a week and a half from now, but I don't go back until February.  My institution has a month-long intensive winter session, but I'm not teaching it this time around.  However, I am teaching a bunch of new stuff in the Spring and I have to take this "extra time off" to prepare.

All of that to say, for now, P and I still have mornings where we can sleep in.  He usually ends up putting an arm around me after which I'll smile and snuggle closer, but yesterday morning, I kind of wasn't feeling it.  Despite it being only Day 6 of the New Year, I was already feeling bogged down by upcoming interviews I felt woefully unprepared for, this Humanities seminar I have to prep that I feel insecure about, and would I be back next year?  And where are we going to live next year even if we stay here?  Because we're moving regardless, and how would a baby fit into all of this, and—

"Wanna go somewhere for breakfast?"

I immediately perked up.  Even if I'm not feeling it, I will never say no to breakfasting.  We raced to get ready and out the door so that we could make it to this awesome cafe in a nearby town before they stopped serving breakfast.

Over biscuits and gravy (him) and a frittata (me), I started trying to tell him that I thought he suggested breakfast because he could sense that—he finished my sentence for me, "I could tell you were feeling bad...I thought we could do something different this morning, I thought you would like it."

I just teared up.  He just wanted to cheer me up, so he suggested going to breakfast.  It was such a simple thing, but at the same time, such a deeply caring thing.  What made me cry was not that proposing going out for breakfast was some sort of grand, sweeping gesture, but that he was sensitive to how I was feeling and wanted to do something, however small, to make me feel better.

How's that working out for you?

Day 5 of the New Year.

I went to a yoga class for the first time on Tuesday.  Apparently the Dean's secretary is a consistent frequenter.  I sidled my mat up next to hers and we became yoga buddies.  The next day I was wrecked.  Muscles ached that I didn't know even existed. But that didn't hold a candle to yesterday. 

Yesterday was a cardio class.  It was led by a spry 62-year-old who, no doubt, took glee in remarking to the rest of us youngsters that we should be able to keep up with her when some of us started losing steam near the end.  I wanted to pick up my barbells and throw them at the mirror.  How dare I not be able to keep up with a grandma who is almost twice my age?  She looked fab, though.  Fit little gray-haired lady with a pixie cut, gloriously sweating with a radiant smile.  Ugh.  Meanwhile my thirty-something self is over here praying that no one mistakes my chunky midsection for a growing bundle of joy.  Not yet, folks.  Felt steamrolled after that one, though.  Like, I came home ready to give up the ghost.  Couldn't laugh or cough or get up off the couch without feeling like I was dying inside.  I shall forge ahead.  

On Saturday there's a "RIPPED" class.  It's probably going to kill me.  But I said at least three times a week.  I must be a woman of my word.

2017, right? Come on in!

Tomorrow P and I head back to our home base after spending time with his side of the family these past couple of weeks. Tomorrow is back to routine, work, preparation.  Doing what we do.  At first I was sort of bummed about the prospect of heading back, but now that I've had some time to reflect upon this past year and my goals and desires for this new year, I'm feeling more like, "Okay, let's do this."

This year was a humongous year of transition.  I graduated, we moved, I started a new job, P passed comps, is now dissertating, and started a new position himself.  A lot of change, a lot of adjustments to make.  I thank God that we have been able to successfully manage our many transitions this year.  It has drawn my husband and me closer together, and it makes me grateful for him and the strength of our relationship.  My husband is a handsome, kind, passionate, dedicated, consistent man.  I know that we will have to weather more transition in this new year and perhaps more difficult transitions than we've had previously.  But I'm confident in us, and in the hand of God binding us together.

There are plenty of desires that I wish for this new year, the main one is the desire to become a mother.  No, we didn't have a little Christmas surprise this month.  It's totally okay, though.  I'm resigned to being held in suspense each month indefinitely.  But I resolve not to get disappointed with negative pregnancy tests this year.  I'm truly confident it will happen when it's meant to.  Just as I can now see the perfection of God's timing with meeting and marrying my husband, with accepting my current position, with so many other things, I know that the perfection of His timing applies to our future children as well.

Here are a few concrete things I resolve for this year:

1. I want to work out at least 3 times a week, and I will take advantage of at least one of the free fitness classes offered at my place of employment.  I want to be intentional about taking care of my body, especially since we're planning to have a baby, and exercise offers physical and psychological benefits.

2. I want to be more intentional about my prayer life, and the main way I can achieve that is by being a better manager of my time.  I waste so much time.  I often let my evenings fritter away when I could be using that time to plan for the following day.  And my lack of preparation often makes for rushed mornings without time for prayer, devotion and reflection.  I want to consistently spend my evenings preparing for the following day and wake up in enough time to have at least 30 minutes of prayer and devotion each morning.

3. I want to read a financial planning book and a parenting/"preparing for baby" book with my husband.  Financial literacy is an area I feel very weak in, and it's something we could both stand to learn about and preparing ourselves to have a child is absolutely necessary.  Reading books about these topics is a concrete way to inform ourselves.

4. I want to say something or do something at least once a week to build up my husband's confidence and demonstrate my trust in him.  I often catch myself going back to my "I'll handle it" mentality from my single days.  What I realize is that it communicates to him that I don't trust him to do whatever needs to be done.  I want to be intentional about communicating my trust and confidence in him.

5. I keep putting this every year, but I seriously want to learn how to knit.  I noticed a group of older ladies at a knitting circle at a local coffee shop a little while ago.  Maybe the next time I see them, I can inquire.

I'm truly looking forward to what 2017 will bring.