Why Having a Baby Isn't the Worst

When I found out I was pregnant, I was . . . how should I put this . . . pissed. I’m not really sure exactly where the stress came from, but the Internet was not helpful. I subconsciously calculated that mothers of young children on Facebook and in blogs shared struggles and successes in a ratio of about 7:1. Posts about poop smears, complaints about laundry and restless nights seemed to far outweigh expressions of joy in motherhood. Or, the sentiments stood together: “My clothes are covered in spit up and my house is a mess, but [I say, cliché-ly] it’s all worth it!”

What I expected while I was expecting was a life void of freedom and friends and full of frustration and feces. But, may I introduce a voice of moderation about motherhood? I am aware that family planning, pregnancy, birth and postpartum experiences are different for everyone, but there seems to be a lack of optimism and ease about this subject and based on my first (and perhaps, somewhat unique) experience, I’d like to share some things that might balance the ratio.

•In the words of my mother: “Women dumber than you have been doing this for thousands of years. It’s just not that big a deal.”

•Pregnancy ends. Seriously. You think you’re doomed to be 30+ pounds overweight forever and then magically you can shop in the regular section at H&M again.

•Childbirth can be exhilarating and happy and kind of fun. It’s feministic and empowering and a great test for the mind and body. Kind of like speed walking or doing a crossword puzzle. Only harder and more fulfilling.

•People are really friendly to new moms. They bring you food and don’t judge you when you show up 30 minutes late to church.

•Newborn babies sleep ALL DAY LONG. There’s so much time to nap and read and eat and shop and work and clean and stare at your baby’s face and hands and feet and person.

•When newborns don’t sleep, they eat, make funny faces and if they’re anything like Coltrane, occasionally cry, but all of this can be taken care of in the comfort of your own home. While wearing a sports bra and yoga pants and watching Netflix.

•Cleaning poop and pee and spit up becomes just something to be done like showering, and pooping and peeing ourselves. Everyone does it and babies just need some help for a few years.

•Babies aren’t mobile and can’t really see or do anything for quite a while, so there’s lots of time to relax, have a life and create things.

•Babies are almost indestructible. Feeding, changing, holding, loving and talking to them are pretty much all that’s necessary for them to grow up and have a normal life.

When you have your own little person, you have truly never seen anything so cute and perfect and smoochable. You become so infatuated and overwhelmed by love that all previous worries just don’t matter anymore.

Maybe I just have an easy baby, maybe some people like to be “real” and share the good with the bad, but I wish I had had more positive things to read while I was hyperventilating about how horrible I thought my life was going to be. Good and bad always come together, but in the talk about babies, the ratio is ∞:1.

I have never ever been happier.

Neuroses: Volume I

I’ve always wanted to be one of those easy-going people that everyone admires, can depend on, talk to, etc. When I first started dating Tyler, my now husband, I consciously tried to come across this way. I used mascara as my only makeup, wore jeans and a t-shirt on our first date and genuinely enjoyed spending our evenings together sitting on the couch doing homework and eating apples with almond butter for dinner.

Shortly after we met, I changed my major from biology to music after walking out in the middle of a biology lab where my partner, Cody, and I had to determine some pointless connection between conifers and wolves. The thought of studying this and reading 600 pages about the functions of proteins inside the cell, at the expense of playing in the orchestra, was paralyzing. As a fresh, new music major, I felt I could finally relax, listen to some tunes and play the piano all day.

Ha! Just one month spent in a practice room gave me so much anxiety that simply looking at a piano made me cry. I started sleeping with my arms curled into my chest and my hands in tight fists. Upon entering a room, I would search for all possible exits in the event that I would internally explode and need to run away. I couldn’t contain the crazy any longer and this persona I had tried so desperately to convey quickly disappeared to reveal a neurotic monster.

This was not a new persona to me. The first time I noticed the “monster” was after my first break-up with my first long-term boyfriend. Then, as a missionary, she peeked her head out during the stressful summer in North Royalton with Sister Grimnes. This was the first time that church was not a relief from my stress, but rather a cause. Six months later, after contracting the chicken pox while training in a brand new area, she really came to life. Leaving the house was so utterly terrifying, I once begged the mission president’s wife to send me home so I could hibernate forever.

I still don’t really know Tyler’s deepest thoughts about the time he first met the “monster.” He married me less than a year later and continues to be married to me, so I suppose he wasn’t horribly shocked, but there are times I mourn for him. There was a time when brushing my teeth ceased to be just teeth brushing and became: “Are my gums bleeding? Oh no, I should start flossing. I have eight things of floss in my drawer, but I never use any of them. What a waste. And I don’t even have dental insurance. Cavities are so expensive, but they’re cheaper than getting a tooth pulled. Remember that time on Cast Away when Tom Hanks didn’t go to the dentist and then he was trapped on that island and then he had to bust out his own tooth with an ice skate that floated to shore in one of his FedEx boxes? WIIIIIIIILSON!!!!!” 

Since having a baby, I am certainly more relaxed about many things, but I accept that I will never be "easy-going" or dependable. I now sleep with my hands in a relaxed position and think of nothing while brushing my teeth, but I worry about other ways the “monster” affects my marriage and other relationships. I bet Tyler’s tired of hearing, “The salad dressings go in the top shelf of the refrigerator door, not the bottom, dear. But I still love you.” There are children starving all over the world, does it really matter how the refrigerator is organized?

My goodness, yes. (And you better spell “refrigerator” without a “d” or I will freak out.)