Control | Release

Childbirth (and parenting in general) is such a balance of control and release.  I'm a naturally controlling person.  I like to know as much as I can going into a scenario.  I remember traveling to Paris for the first time and doing as much research as I could just about the airport and how to travel around the airport and to and from the airport/Paris.  I looked up maps, read blog posts about navigating the airport, searched out how to get on the train that took you from the airport to Paris, exactly how and where to buy the tickets to get on the train.  I feel like I'm pretty good at winging it and figuring things out on the fly, but if I have anxiety about something, I like to suss it out and get as much understanding about it as I can.  

I grew up with an extremely medicalized perspective on birth.  My brother was an extremely sick baby, given only weeks to months (max) to live.  And with a dad in medicine, specifically concerning sick and premature babies, I got a very singular view of what could happen during/after pregnancy.  And that view was very negative (or at least very focused on the complications that can arise).  At the same time it was positive in a way, knowing how amazing medicine is and how incredible modern medicine is.  My brother who was supposed to have died after only a few short weeks of life is currently thriving in his late 20s, thanks to the incredible procedures, many of them brand new or experimental, that have kept him alive.  At 25 weeks along, my baby is definitely now in the realm of being saved even if it decides it wants to come out prematurely.  It's pretty incredible.  

But all of that history and knowledge conflicts with my own desire to trust my body and have the most natural birth possible. So much of my view of birth has been so baby-centric, the mother is merely an obstacle to get the baby out of.  But now, as a pregnant woman, I desire so much to be an active participant, and actually, the central focus of the process.  The message that it's no longer about me, or that I no longer matter now that there's a baby involved feels so alienating and discarding.  Like, I was important until I became a mother and now I'm just a second fiddle to the child I created.  While I know there's a mental shift that occurs when you have kids, and you do lose some of that self-centeredness that you have as a solo human, I also know that to be the best mom that I can be, I also need to be a full person.  And I need to be a full person in birth too.

I hear a lot of doctors (and non-doctors too, actually), make fun of women for wanting to have a certain birth experience.  They make fun of them for thinking that the birth process is about them or important in any way that is separate from getting a healthy baby out of them.  For believing that the birthing experience is a profound, spiritual, transformative event that is sacred in addition to biological.  And really, arguing with them feels futile, because you feel like you're made into this selfish, ignorant hippie who doesn't care about the outcome of the baby.  Which is never true.  No mother going into birth cares more about her experience than having a safe and healthy baby at the end of it all.  But ignoring the link between supporting women through birth and their ability to actually give birth more ably and successfully seems like such a common occurrence in the medical community.  

I will be (well, planning) giving birth in a hospital.  There is a huge part of me that would love to have a home birth or give birth at a birthing center.  But I can't shake the knowledge that, if something ends up going sideways, I need to be down the hall from people who can revive my baby, not a car ride away.  I've kind of been ignoring the birth part of this whole pregnancy thing, mostly because it feels so distant.  I haven't even really felt really pregnant due to not showing much throughout the first and most of the second trimesters, not having any morning sickness, and generally feeling pretty normal.  But, holy cow, I only have 3 more months until this child decides it's too cramped inside of me and I need to start focusing on doing what I can to ensure I have the support I need to pursue my desire of a natural birth.  (side note: it feels so backwards that after thousands of years of having no other option but to birth naturally, we now feel like we have to fight to birth naturally).  At the same time, I know that, like all natural things, birth is wild and uncontrollable.  It's unpredictable and spontaneous, and having a plan isn't going to ensure much at all except that I might be sorely disappointed.  

I thought maybe after getting all these thoughts out I might come to a point or conclusion, but maybe I just needed to get them out of my brain and into writing.  Parenting and childbirth are such hotly disputed subjects.  It seems like everyone has a strong opinion about the right way to do it, and will fight you tooth and nail to get you to agree with them.  Part of waiting to announce my pregnancy until I was 23 weeks along was due to wanting to put off the advice-giving for as long as possible.  As soon as you are with-child people feel like they have carte blanche to start pumping you full of advice and opinions.  It's been lovely to stay out of that.  Even the stuff like, "Oh enjoy that sleep now, as soon as baby comes you'll never sleep again!" feels so unnecessary.  And it seems to be never ending.  "You'll be wishing for those newborn days when you're in the throes of the terrible twos!"  "Terrible twos!  Just wait until you have a teenager!"  

I'm afraid the internet has played a large role in pitting parents against one another regarding parenting and childbirth decisions.  As much as I love the internet and getting to be a part of a larger community online that I don't have access to IRL, it can also be a breeding ground for online bullying, putting other people down from behind a computer screen, and seems to make people unusually certain about their opinions (or at least causing them to confuse the distinction between fact and opinion). 

Stuff I don't need.

It's weird being a part of new marketing sector.  Pregnant lady, new mom.  So far the ads in my facebook and online haven't been super targeted at pregnancy yet, but I have a pregnancy app that has some ads in there, and I got a huge packet of coupons from shopping at a maternity store once, and while I get that some products are nice, it seems like, by and large, most of it is unnecessary.  I don't need a whole new wardrobe full of maternity clothes (but I should probably get a second pair of the maternity jeans I got because I wear them like every day...).  My newborn doesn't need a closet full of cute outfits.

Moving has been a huge process of getting rid of stuff.  So much stuff.  So much stuff we don't need.  And we don't even have a big house. When we were house hunting I think we looked at one house that was 2000 sq/ft, twice as big as our current house.  I can't imagine how much more stuff we would've had with that much room to fill!  I'll admit, I love stuff.  I love stuff a lot.  I like making spaces cozy and styling things to look lovely.  I like having art on my walls and pretty furniture and such.  But still, it's amazing how much unnecessary stuff accumulates without even noticing.  

I'm looking forward to creating a cute, cozy space for our new babe, but I also don't want to end up with a ton of stuff again.  It's so hard to be mindful and intentional about bringing stuff into our house.  That was one thing I really loved about living in the Brave.  You really don't have any space for stuff you don't need.  I loved that simplicity.  That clarity.  I crave it, but at the same time I crave having a beautifully styled home full of stuff I love.  Where is the balance between having enough stuff and cultivating a simple and clear life?  It seems like maybe a push and pull.

Ironically, right now the Brave is actually full of some of our excess that is in storage.  We sold some stuff, took a ton to the thrift store, tossed some, and what doesn't suit us at this stage in life (like my burlesque costumes) we stored with the Brave.

I still dream of life on the road full time in the Brave.  I really adore the lifestyle, I adore the people you meet on the road, I adore seeing new beautiful places each day, experiencing new local cultures, new small businesses.  For now the Brave is in storage.  Maybe, hopefully, someday we will get to pick up that dream again.  Some of my favorite memories of childhood happened in RVs and on longterm trips.  I love following full-timer families on Instagram, homeschooling their kids, showing them new things and teaching them through their travels.

For now, I'm trying to keep from acquiring too much stuff and cluttering up my life again.  Moving is a huge pain, but it's also nice to have something like moving force you to do one of those purges.  I should institute a quarterly purge to keep this simple intention.  Seasonal purges.  As someone who loves thrifting, it can be easy to acquire cool things that I don't actually need and that don't actually serve a purpose, but having a set time to get rid of that stuff could help with it piling up.  

I know I'm about to be in the midst of an onslaught of marketing to tell me that I need a thousand new things to be a mom.  I think I will be happy to keep the stuff acquisition to a minimum and to DIY the shit out of as much as I can.

Sacred Secrets

17 weeks pregnant and no one knows except those friends and family we've told verbally.  To be honest, it's refreshing.  For someone who has had her life broadcast online for years, keeping this to myself has been really nice.  Not dealing with droves of unwanted advice or attention, being able to feel normal, and feeling like this isn't a big deal has been incredibly nice.  I know I will announce online at some point, at least when I'm so big it's not possible to deny the fact that I'm carrying around an extra human inside me, but for now, just letting my life be mine is a luxury I haven't let myself have in 8 years.  

That being said, I am looking forward to talking about it online, since it does affect a lot that will be happening soon.  I want to share baby den decor ideas, get advice from other moms (ah, that word is still weird to think about applying to myself) on various things, talk about us moving to Alaska and why.

My friend was saying that I'm probably documenting this whole process because I'm a blogger, but actually, I haven't been.  Maybe I'll regret that later, but for now, I don't have to blog about it, and that's nice.  And honestly there hasn't been much to blog about "it."  I haven't felt sick, I'm not really showing very much (just feeling chubby-ish), and feel pretty normal all around.  I think I may have felt the first flutters of "it" moving inside me a few days ago, but other than that, not a lot that is noteworthy has happened.  I had my first prenatal appointment when I was up in Anchorage 2 weeks ago and got an ultrasound where I saw the baby, which was bizzare.  But most of my thought energy has been consumed with editing and taking wedding photos for my clients and trying to make a final decision on whether or not we're moving to Alaska.  Boring stuff, really.  No profound thoughts on being a mother or carrying a child.  No solid answers to the endless, "how do you feel?" queries, and I'm never sure whether they're referring to my mental or physical state, and either way the answer is pretty boring.

Something's Growing

It's been a while since I've put pen to paper, or rather, blinking cursor to vast white expanse.  This post will actually end up sitting in my drafts for a while, as I haven't yet announced that I'm growing a human, but so much of my thoughts and so much of the decisions we're making right now revolve around that.  

I don't feel like I'm the type of person to be pregnant.  At least in our culture.  I'm so tired of our culture and the confined boxes it constantly tries to put people in.  Being pregnant is like being shoved into the tiniest box, which is a bit uncomfortable as you're supposed to be growing.  Everything tells you to be one way, or to feel one way, or to do things one way.  I remember being only 5 weeks pregnant, in Maui, and reading in my pregnancy app that I probably wouldn't feel like squeezing into a teeny bikini, to which I replied aloud, "screw you, I'm in Maui, yes I do want to don a teeny bikini."  And so the pregnancy-fat shaming seemed to begin.  

But it's a double edged sword because then I get that person coming up to me at the buffet line at a wedding covertly telling me that I was lucky that I could eat whatever I wanted for the next 9 months.  Which also confused me because, hi, I'd like to remain eating and feeling healthy, which means not shoving my face with ice cream and fast food for the next 9 months.  Yes I will be gaining weight, but being pregnant is not an excuse to eat unhealthily with no consequences.  And I can eat whatever I want any time of my life.  I choose to eat or not eat certain things to maintain my health.  A fetus isn't a get-out-of-unhealthy-habits-free card.  And since I haven't had any morning (or other time of day) sickness, I get people saying stuff like, "well, you might later."  Thank you?  I'm so glad you're wishing nausea and vomiting upon me later on in my pregnancy because I haven't experienced it during the typical time.  

And then there are feelings.  Or the lack of them.  I see pregnancy announcements everywhere with phrases like, "over the moon" and "tickled pink" and honestly I don't feel those things.  It isn't because we aren't looking forward to the future with this new person in our lives.  Sure, we weren't "trying," but we also weren't being super strict about our birth control method, so I knew it was a possibility.  I don't have feelings of love and awe towards the thing that's inside me.  I don't feel like a mom, and I don't know what that even means.  Conceptualizing pushing a human out of me and then having it be in our lives forever just isn't happening for me.  I don't know when it will hit me.  For all I know it won't be until it's out of me.

I get the sense that the way I feel and how I talk about all this could be off-putting to some people who can feel those "over the moon" feelings, and who can't wait to hold their infant in their arms, and who feel in love with the tiny baby growing inside them.  I'm pushing back against that seed of shame that I'm already screwing up being a parent by not feeling the "right" way during pregnancy.  

I remember reading Mellisa's blog "Dear Baby" which she wrote while she was pregnant with her first child.  I remember wanting to do the same thing for my future baby, write letters to them while they were in utero, but here we are and I'm like, "I don't know what to tell you except I imagine you will LOVE orange juice based on how much OJ I'm ingesting these days."  Nothing profound to tell them.  No huge orations of love and amazement.  I'm not a feeler.  I'm a thinker.  I often wish I felt more often and stronger.  As a woman, I feel expected to feel strongly.  But my feelings are deep currents, usually lingering below the surface, not producing waves.  Articulating words to encapsulate those feelings is especially difficult.  Thinking comes much more naturally.  But I get the sense that I come off as unfeeling and curt because in my communication with most people I'm all information, very little feeling.  In fact, when I write emails, I almost always write out the email how I normally would (all info), then have to go back and insert pleasantries and "feelings," just to ensure I don't come off as rude or uncaring.  I imagine men don't deal with this same pressure.  I wonder what it would be like to not feel the pressure to be touchy feely.