A shift of axis

It's day two and thanks in large part to waking up at 7 a.m., dragging myself into the shower and mentally planning my workday before realizing it was Sunday, I've managed to begin my second day of writing (before 8 am) - hooray!

As some friends might have noticed, yesterday I modified a lot of this blog's right hand side "gadgets," keeping only a couple photos and adding more parenting websites. You'll also notice that the topics for my writing sessions might feature fetuses, infants, toddlers, and the person they make me (and B) fairly frequently. It's not because becoming a parent has become my sole identity. But having a child does shift your world onto a different axis, and at the moment I happen to know a lot of people who are going through that same primordial, irreversible, life-altering shift. As it's the process that perpetuates our species (and created each of us), there's a lot of things to think about. And with thoughts come opinions. And with opinions come differences in them.

One of the most irksome challenges of this transition to someone expecting and then caring for a child, has been the inevitable lectures that have come from others, advising and then evaluating everything from my birth choices to how I put my baby to sleep. Frankly, it is exhausting and discouraging to have to defend every choice you make as a parent (because no matter what you choose, someone will disagree with it). In the meantime, you're doing whatever you can to cling on to your own exponential learning curve, while the miniature being around whom your life suddenly revolves does everything he or she can do to communicate her own set of needs, dislikes and desires.

In addition to those "usual" challenges of parenthood, there is the complex cocktail of emotional decision-making that comes with our personal choices for me to be a working mother, to enlist a nanny, and now for B to be a Stay At Home Dad (SAHD).

And perhaps worse of all, I've realized through this process that I'm only human. No matter how much I cringe as others try to share with me the highlights and benefits of their chosen birth/sleep/feeding/working choices (or simply decry the alternatives), I realize the process of making our own choices for our family has influenced me to support them as well. Perhaps its the sheer strength of our love, devotion, exasperation or commitment to our children that makes choices on how we relate to them such hot-button issues? Does this much love naturally beget a similar level of passionate dedication to what we think is best for them (or us)?

B is currently most passionate about getting our family to the beach this morning before San Diego's most precious resource - parking - is nearly exhausted. And as my hour is almost complete I will leave discussions of certain choices to other posts. Let this serve as my prologue, a caveat that recognizes that some people will be offended by my choices (and reasons for them) because they do not mesh with their own. I empathize with you. I'll do my best to not vilify others who have not made the same choices we have.

Most of all, this entire blog is really just about me... a writing exercise that happens to be in a public space. But not a public space that I actually expect many people to read. I don't know how people become super-bloggers, but I have no illusions that my ramblings will go viral on Facebook. Hopefully those who are reading this are only a few friends, family, and the odd person who stumbled here accidentally, and the vast majority of you will forgive me for any bruised toes. After all, the only perfect parents out there are those without children, myself included!

Now, off to the beach!

A new page

A writer friend of mine is in the process of sloughing off a few years of other pursuits to return to writing full-time. To help her do so, she's practicing a daily ritual of writing for one hour every day, even if that means an hour of writing "I don't know what to write. I don't know what to write. I don't know what to write."

It seemed like a brilliant idea, and what better time than when I'm 5 1/2 months pregnant, working full time and chasing a preschooler around? So at 2 p.m. on July 30, I begin what will likely be at least four months (now that I know how hard balancing a computer on your lap with a nursing infant can be) of daily drivel, sent out into the universe via the internet.

One reason why I chose this weekend to start is because I'm feeling a bit (pleasantly) lonely, as many of our close friends and family, here and abroad, are otherwise occupied with major life transitions. A birthday, a reunion, building a house and two new babies, to name a few. It's given us some needed time for reflection on the gifts of our life and the realization that in four short months we'll be receiving another small, loud, squirming, beautiful, sweet-smelling (most of the time) one of our own.

How is it nearly August anyway? With my work getting increasingly busy towards the chock-a-block mayhem of fall, B & I are feeling pressure to prepare for the baby yesterday. I've spent the past week contacting doulas and researching hypnobirthing classes, and trying to find the babysitter necessary for us to attend them! And while all three will punch a large hole in our very small bank account, the more I learn about the deep relaxation of hypnobirthing and read the responses we've gotten from San Diego doulas, the more excited I'm getting about this birth.

I mused the other day, listening to snippets about my friends' recent births, and thinking back to T's, about the learning curve of birth. That perhaps I needed T's wild, unpredictable, not-as-I'd-planned labor, to fully appreciate what I did need for that experience so that this time I can make sure I get it. For me, that means a dedicated labor support professional (i.e. doula), in addition to B's irreplaceable presence, love and assistance as my partner; a more mature, calm and flexible attitude towards birth; and perhaps the sanctity of planning on remaining in our home, or staying with our hospital-planned birth to allow for the kind of unpredictable variables (like that stubborn meconium) that popped up with T.

Regardless of whether our plan for a doula and study of hypnobirthing leads to a birth experience closer to the one I hope for, there's likely some truth in another story I heard recently. A mother of four asserted that while each of her births went differently, each contained a lesson she needed to learn for parenting that child. For those of us who believe birth is a natural, sacred process, it seems like sage advice.

That's my hour today. Hope to see you again tomorrow.