At Home, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Life is crazy. We moved into Harvard student housing last week and it was a zoo. By God’s mercy my mom came into town and helped us pack. I seriously don’t think we would have made it without her help. She pretty much got into town and power housed her way through our apartment. The only downside to having her pack was how excessively she tapes boxes. It’s given us a lot of laughter as we unpack. Now that we’re in the new place, I feel both deeply grateful and am dealing with a lot of anxiety. The place is really great, all things considered, and will be great with a kid. It’s much more accessible to campus, there is a washer and dryer, and tons of areas for children to play in – as well as tons of children themselves. Baby V definitely won’t lack for playmates. With that said, though, I’m struggling with my pride, my limitations, my doubts, and my worth in this move. My pride is rearing up because this place is just so small and so unglamorous. While everyone else is buying houses and moving on in the world, we’re choosing to live in cramped student housing. I find myself worrying not about the apartment itself so much as I worry about what other people will think of it and of us in it. I’m facing my limitations because I am working a ton in order to live here rather than a half an hour away, and I feel overwhelmed wondering if it’s really sustainable with a baby. Can I really work as many hours as I’m committed to working in a week and can Trey really get through his PhD excellently with a baby on the way? This is the most I feel doubt about it. I know a lot the emotions involved have to do with the fact that I just moved, the house is still a disaster, and I’m really, really behind on my thesis. But nonetheless, I’m starting to better imagine the realities of adding a baby to our lives and am trying to reckon what I foresee with everything I’ve committed to. Lord, please let this child be a good sleeper! And of course, with it all, as with any time I feel emotionally overwhelmed or stressed, I am really struggling with my self worth and the decisions I’ve made. Am I making the wrong decision by not trying to do a PhD myself right now? Are we insane for continuing with school through our 30s? If I can’t have as much academic success this year as I think I need to be in a good position for applying to programs later was this whole degree a waste? Is all of this pure drivel and instead I should be thinking only and solely of my kids? I just want the answers to life and more often than not, answers are the most difficult thing to find in the world.
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At Home, Arlington, Massachusetts
Last night I woke up to a riot inside myself. Before I woke up I dreamt that someone came up to me and aggressively tickled my belly. I angrily awoke, worried that their tickling was going to hurt the baby. But after realizing it was dream, I realized something even funnier. The baby was having a party. I’ve never felt her move so much. I could feel her bumping up against the top left and bottom right of my womb simultaneously. I guess she was completely stretched out and kicking on one side and punching on the other. Or maybe she was literally bouncing off the walls. Whatever she was doing, it was so intense it took my quite a while to fall back asleep. Oh I can’t wait to meet this little bundle of energy. At Home, Arlington, Massachusetts It's become so hard to write. Not because there isn't anything to write about, but because there is too much to write about. Every day is filled with so much to process, so much to try to understand. Most days I just don't know where to begin. Christmas was both a very good and a very strange time. For some reason a lot of people seem to think that it's particularly special to be pregnant at Christmas. This is so bizarre to me. Why would it be more special to be pregnant at Christmas than at any other time of the year? I guess the insinuation is that somehow it brings you closer to Mary's experience. That I understand. But shouldn't pregnancy bring any woman at any time closer to Mary's experience and the mystery of the incarnation? Christmas is simply a yearly reminder of what we should know to be true year round. The whole idea that it's more special to be pregnant at Christmas just feels to me like part of our romanticization of maternity. Being home while pregnant was also weird, but in a totally different way. It felt similar to the first time I stayed in my parents' house after getting married. It was a marked reminder of the changes that happen in life – the dreams of an adolescent Hannah about marriage and family are no longer dreams, but reality. After marriage the physical presence of this man in my childhood bedroom marked change in ways I could touch and smell. With pregnancy, my own physical space within my parents' home is changing. I'm not just bringing another body into this space, but my body itself no longer exists the same way. I literally no longer move around the house in the same way I once did and that will intensify once this baby is born. My very movement is now marked by another and the space I inhabit changes as I change. I had my first "stranger touches the belly" experience over Christmas. It was awkward. It was after church and I was catching up with an old friend. Her brother, who I've never met, came over and we all started chatting about the baby. He asked me if people touch my belly and as he asked, he reached over and touched it himself. I don't think he even thought about what he was doing, but it was quite a shocker. The belly is definitely taking on a life of its own. Baby V moves around all night long. It seriously is like she's having a party in there. Sometimes I wake up and she is thudding against the walls of my uterus. Not kicking, not punching – full body slamming. I love her so much. The aches and pains are definitely on the rise, too. Driving ten hours to Pittsburgh was a beast. Everything ached when we arrived and it took a few days for my muscles to loosen up again. I've started getting this pain in my left butt cheek, and my lower abdomen gets sore. Sometimes it seems like the baby is balled up in one area of my uterus, either down low or the side I'm sleeping on and then it hurts. I move to my back and she seems to move to a more central area and the relief is wonderful. We have three more months to go, so I can only imagine her love of curling up right on my bladder is only a foretaste of the discomfort due to arrive when she's so big there is nowhere else for her to go. I probably need to be doing more stretching, and I definitely need to be walking more. I tried to dance at Debbie's wedding and that was telling. Everything was so tight I could only make it through a song or two before needing to sit down for a break. I just can't wait to meet this little girl. Every time I think about holding her and laughing with her, smiling into her eyes, I feel like I have a high school crush all over again. We started registering for baby items over Christmas and that was the worst. I hated just about everything having to do with deciphering and picking out things we want for the baby. There is just so much crap in the world to buy for a baby. Even now I can feel my blood pressure rise thinking about the baby registry. But when I think about the baby itself, I don't feel anxious. I know there is so much that I could be anxious about, but all I want to do is hug her. It's hard to feel anxious and afraid when you just can't stop thinking about meeting the person you've been feeling inside of you for months. (Whitney Waller, "Pregnant.") At Home, Arlington, Massachusetts
I'm starting to think about how I'm going to publish this journal on our blog and it's starting to fill me with fear. I don't fear people reading it, and I don't fear the reactions of the people close to me – I fear the backlash I might get from the whole confusing host of "mommydom." It seriously terrifies me to think about how much I might be judged. I could be judged for not embracing my body enough. I could be judged for having a hard time easing into motherhood. I could be judged for my own sinful tendency to judge. I could be judged for my insecurities. I know I could be judged on all of these things because I have witnessed women judge each other on each count. I'm also afraid to share my rejoicing. Somehow, these days it feels like the good push to acknowledge women's struggles with infertility and miscarriage have made it hard to rejoice when one doesn't struggle with those things. Sometimes I honestly feel guilty about it. I remember having a huge amount of fear that certain friends would shun us as news of our pregnancy spread because they have struggled and we had no problems. I ache for them and I long for their burdens to be shared and carried communally, but I don't know what to do when I know people who actively shun their friends who do have good news. Having to choose between rejoicing and being shunned for it is a terrible thing. I try to mourn with those who mourn, and it really stings when those who mourn openly declare their inability or unwillingness to rejoice with those who rejoice. Scripture admonishes both to live in discomfort - for those who rejoice to take on the discomfort of mourning and for those who mourn to take on the discomfort of rejoicing, all for the sake of Christ's body. As I think about sharing this journey of mine, what I fear is the inability of people to recognize that this has been precisely that – a journey. I fear being told that my journey is harmful to others. I fear being shunned by people I love because they decide they can't handle my happiness. Those who suffer often claim an inviolable perspective on life, and sometimes the rigidity of that perspective terrifies me. ("Punishment of Eros by Venus.") At Home, Arlington, Massachusetts I've been working on my Jonathan Edwards paper for my Harvard class and I came across the following passage on Sarah Edwards. I started crying reading these words because they were just so convicting. And beautiful. Oh, Lord, please move in my heart to have this same concern for my baby. Please, I am so selfish. Please remind me to pray more for this little baby. People say that having a child will teach you to be less selfish, but that doesn't strike me as inevitable. There are many selfish parents out there in the world. Please move in my heart to think more of others than of myself. Amen. “But this was not all, in which she express’d her care for her children. She thought that parents had great and important duty to do towards their children before they were capable of government and instruction. For them she constantly and earnestly pray’d, and bore them on her heart before God, in all her secret and most solemn addresses to him; and that even before they were born. The evidences of her pregnancy, and consideration that it was with a rational, immortal creature, which came into existence in an undone, and infinitely dreadful state, was sufficient to lead her to bow before God daily for his blessing on it; even redemption, and eternal life by Jesus Christ. So that thro’ all the pain, labour and sorrow, which attended her being the mother of children, she was in travail for them, that they might be born of GOD by having Christ formed in them.” - Samuel Hopkins God, part of the problem is my selfishness. But part of the problem is that I just don't pray. Apart from sporadic mornings, I don't set aside time to be quiet before you and pray. How can I have such a heart to pray for my child if I don't have a heart to pray in the first place? Maybe it's not two problems, but really just one – selfishness. Maybe my inability to pray consistently and to spend time with you is just that – selfishness. I don't want to give up my time, my control, my mind. I don't want to work at it. Is that just selfishness? Lord, please, teach me to pray. At Home, Arlington, Massachusetts
This morning V was moving around quite a lot when I woke up. I could feel her kicking through my belly so that my whole abdomen moved. Trey has felt her move before, but only once, and every time he tries to feel her moving she seems to quiet down. So I told him to put his hand on my stomach and he got a few really good kicks. They were so hard we wondered if they were head butts. Oh, I love this little girl so much. Sometimes it feels like I'm falling in love with her - I have all of the butterflies and heightened pulses and everything. At Home, Arlington, Massachusetts We're having a girl. There's part of me as I heard the news that leapt with joy. There's so much that I want to share with a daughter, give to a daughter. But there's also part of me that has silently mourned. There's so much brokenness and misery that the world is going to give this little girl. For a long time in this pregnancy I really wanted a little boy first. There is so much pressure on the first child – they deal with the battery of their parents' indecisions and inexperience in often emotionally brutal ways. And little girls deal with it more severely. I have known so many mothers who simply cannot understand the stress that their little firstborn daughters live under. There's no one to tell these little girls they are ok, they are enough, they are protected, they don't have to compete to be accepted. Their badness and their disobedience is understood simply as just that, rather than the complicated vortex of self-will, misunderstood responsibility, and desire for acceptance that it is. First born daughters are so often tightly wound baskets of sorrow. They just often look like little tyrants aiming for command because they don't know what to do with who they are. For much of my life I longed for an older brother – someone who I thought would help me make friends, shelter me from the confusion of childhood, and help me with my parents. I longed for a male counterpart to just give me a wing to hide under through much of life's confusions. I grieve to think of our little girl having that same sense of dislocation. Being first is always a defenseless position, and I have known the hardness such vulnerability creates in little girls both personally and in the lives of women around me. I want to share all that I have found to be good and true and beautiful about being a woman with my little girl, but it terrifies me to think that in reality there will be so much twistedness and brokenness to try to teach her about and equip her for. There is so much in the world that will want to hurt her, to use her, to belittle her – and that is not what God created her for. In this world gender and its systems are deeply flawed and a cause of immeasurable pain for women. But that is not the whole story. God is here. And he gives us blessings in his graciousness. This little girl may not have an older brother, but she does have a truly wonderful man for her father. One who will be gentle, and kind, who I know will try to listen and hear her heart because he has demonstrated the same with me. He may not be able to function as her guide through the drama of peer life the way a brother would, but he will always be a warm and wise shelter for her when it is time to recharge for the world outside. At Home, Arlington, Massachusetts
I have been feeling so much affection for my baby in recent days. It seems like all of the warm, glowy feelings people kept asking me about are finally here. I'm sure a lot of it is feeling the baby move so much. I feel it move enough now that I do not feel anxious about whether it is still alive. When I first started to feel it move, it was infrequent enough that I had a hard time not having anxiety when days passed without feeling it. Now I feel it just about every day. It's like a little goldfish swimming around in there. Sometimes it makes my heart want to burst. I've never been a big baby person generally speaking, but when I think about my own baby, and about kissing its little cheeks, my heart swarms with a million happy thoughts. Anxiety is a funny thing. Throughout so much of this pregnancy, and really throughout so much of my life, I recognize in myself the thought that I should feel anxious. Sometimes it feels like all of modern life is conspiring to make sure you are informed about the thousand reasons why you should be anxious. Have I eaten the right things? Did I eat something that might hurt the baby? If this happens what does it mean? If they do all these tests, doesn't it mean this many things can go wrong? There are literally thousands of things to worry about in pregnancy if one chose to do so. And it's not even pregnancy itself as a medical condition. Parenthood is an even bigger landmine. Do we live in the right place? Do we make enough money? How can we guarantee our income? How can I work and still be the mother I want to be? Again, there are thousands of things to worry about it if one chooses to do so. Oddly enough, I have felt less anxious, or at least less tempted to be anxious, during this pregnancy than maybe ever before in my life. I'm sure that will come and go – I'll have peaks and valleys as always – but being pregnant has made me have to just accept the flow of life and go with it. Sometimes it feels like I've stepped into a river and I have to put my feet up in order to let it move me forward. There's less anxiety in that than in trying to keep my feet stubbornly rooted. I don't know that we've made the best choices, I don't know that we will in the future. I don't know how to do everything I want to do. I don't know how to make it all work out. But I also can't pretend like God hasn't faithfully guided us already and will do so in the future. Our decisions very well could hurt us at some point in life, but God never will. The best antidote I've found in recent weeks to the temptation to worry is that of thankfulness. I'm sure to a million people wiser than me that seems like an obvious statement. But it's something I am only really experiencing now. I am so deeply thankful to God for the life I have. I am thankful for his material provision in our lives. I'm thankful for how easy it was to get pregnant after all of my fretting. I'm thankful for my work and the jobs he's given me. I'm thankful for the brain he has given me and the education I've received. I'm thankful for my friends and for my family. I'm thankful for Trey. These are all things I worry about so much, but when I stop and reflect with a thankful heart, I truly feel differently. At times I'm overwhelmed with the goodness God has given us. He has even given me a washer and dryer in the new apartment – something so small and trifling and yet so big in my mind as a blessing. There are times in my life when I can't help but consider the ways in which God not only blesses, but blesses abundantly through the little trifles which can seem so important. Tomorrow we find out the baby's gender. I can't wait. It feels like our first introduction to a new friend. I am so thankful for this little life and I pray that God will protect and bless it, just as he has done for me. (Erik Cleves Kristensen, "Painting of a Madonna.") Semitic Museum of Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts
The last couple of weeks have been rough. Job uncertainties, first steps to looking for another job that didn’t lead anywhere, intense travel for work, intense conversations for work, depressing elections, political fights with my dad, friends who don't seem to want to be my friend anymore. But they have all also felt somewhat normal. Or not normal, I guess, but maybe more like this is just what adult life looks like. Being an adult isn't easy – everything is so much more serious. Nothing will just be ok with time. The decisions I make and the words I speak now have far more implications for my life than they did ten years ago. At times it's all felt so heavy, as if the new normal in life requires adaptation to heavier burdens. But this morning while I was getting dressed, all of the sudden I felt an inexplicable joy. I just felt happy. I don't know why, but I did, and I'm thankful for it. The burdens are still there and they won't go away, but there is a profound space for joy and contentment in the world and I felt it this morning. I've started feeling the baby move and it's a wonderful feeling. It's reassuring and comforting, while also being quite surprising. The world this child is coming into is a crazy place with crazy people. And I don't know what this child's life will be like or whether he will honor the Lord, but I'm thankful for this baby and I'm thankful I can feel it move. At Home, Arlington, Massachusetts
I just filled out my graduation petition for next May. Man. I want to attend my graduation ceremony so badly. I know it's silly, but it is important to me. Unfortunately, commencement is only three weeks after my due date. Even if I'm not late, it's probably a stretch that I could attend. But if I'm late at all, it seems like an impossibility. But I really, really want to attend and prove that everything isn't going to come to an end for me academically once my baby arrives. |
About the ProjectThis is a very personal project. It tracks my growth and development as I journeyed toward motherhood over the recent years. It doesn't document every experience I had, and probably neglects my more joyful and peaceful moments in the frenzy of trying to communicate my fears, anxieties, and doubts. If you are a friend or loved one, please do not let anything you read here overshadow what you know of me personally. If you are a stranger, please remember that a living and flawed person stands behind these words. To all my guests here, please understand these are not political statements and try to extend me grace, even as I share my failures and foibles - I have repented of much of what I share. I don't share this journal as an exemplar, but rather out of the desire to share my hope that entrance to motherhood does not need to be a fearful thing - despite the very real fears I have fought against. Motherhood is simply a part of life and one through which I am discovering more of myself and my God. Archives
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