Pregnancy

My nature, for the most part, is to worry, collect data, worry some more, create multiple scenarios in my head, worry even more, make a plan for each possibility I can imagine, and then act. Works great in my profession, not so much in everything else. I spent most of my pregnancy in this cycle, but there really weren't a lot of actions I could take, only to wait. From pregnancy to birth, my son helped me realize an important lesson: learning to surrender. This baby had been breech the whole pregnancy. At 38 weeks, one day before we were going to schedule a section, he flipped head down on his own. So now we wait for labor to spontaneously...

Dear little human growing inside me, First, I would like to tell you that I already love you more than I imagined I could love anyone (don’t tell your dad - I love him a lot too). Second, pregnancy sucks. You’ll likely never be pregnant, but I hope you’ll learn to be in awe of pregnant parents and support them in every way you can.  It is a strange thing, but even though you are so little, you already know more about me than I’ll ever know about myself. There’s no hiding how I feel, my impulses or reactions since you have access to all this information in the raw. All the things I went through while I was pregnant are the...

Alone. I recall sitting at my home, listening to the silence as it roared in my ears. I was supposed to have a baby to care for at this time. I was supposed to be sleep deprived from midnight feedings and 2 am diaper changes. Instead, I was sleep-deprived from crying out in grief through late-night hours. My arms felt weightless, they ached to be filled by my missing child. Wherever he was, I wanted to be. I wasn't suicidal so to speak, but I wanted to be where Weston was. In the days following, I felt my chest heavy as milk began to fill, another blow to my spirit. My body was ready to feed him, to nurture him, but...

Hi there. Did you click on this link because the title stirs something in you? Was there a moment in your life where someone didn't believe you? I do. I promise. I just wanted to get that out of the way before I tell you my story. Seriously, I do. Drama Queen When I was a girl, I wanted to be on the stage. I was sensible enough in those years to recognize I had a slightly above-par singing voice and an awkward yet tolerable stage-presence, so the theater wasn’t going to ever be my endgame. Still, I reveled in the moments I spent under a make-shift high school spotlight crooning Hard Candy Christmas. At the end of my senior year,...

Everyone warned me "nesting" would occur and I would feel the urge to renovate my whole house. I thought, well, this is my natural stage at all times, so it will not affect me. Wrong. Daydreaming about every detail pretty much happened every time I took any break, including 4 am bladder breaks. My brain starts racing and no sleep occurs. It is all a little bit worse because my dark pit of information and possibilities on the renovation topic is deep enough that I can get forever lost on gaskets, a/c grilles, and threshold details. It is a bit exhausting. Also very exciting. Seeing a project unfold before my eyes is absolutely fulfilling. As a pregnant-architect, I learned...