flashbacks

When I was posting before, I found this among the many drafts I had started while I was on leave and it made me LOL. Those first weeks are so hard... it doesn't matter what you do, no one prepares you for it. And now, with just 3 more months of surviving by the skin of my teeth parenting under my belt, I feel like this person is not me anymore:

Blogging is something that people with extra time do.

I have all these things to say and I don't have time to say them.
Lets start with the big stuff. I had Logan. Labor was hell. I have no desire to document my experience with labor because there's not a chance in hell that, in 50 years, if someone asks me what my Labor with Logan was like, I won't have a flashback and be able to relive it. I'll be the first to admit, I've led a relatively cushy life thus far, but that was my Vietnam. Almost 20 hours of labor and an excruciating, frustrating, draining 4.5 hours of pushing and then there he was. A vernix covered, blue tinted baby. I was too tired to react... I went into auto pilot. I knew that I was supposed to do skin to skin so I did. The lactaction consultant came in and showed me how to breast feed so I did. I was so tired. So physically and mentally exhausted.  I'm not sure I'll ever forgive myself for not taking the damn c section when it was offered to me. I don't even remember the exact moment that I felt whatever it is mothers are supposed to feel for their newborns, but by the third day in the hospital when Terrance tried to dress him in his adorable going home outfit and Logan started crying, I pushed Terrance aside. Causing the baby discomfort wasn't worth the adorable button down shirt and tie that he was meant to go home in. Causing him anything but comfort wasn't an option. So he went home in an oversized, boring blue sleeper.

Little Logan. Oh dear, little Logan. One day, when you grow up and forget about your mom and everything she's done for you, I'm going to tell you stories about your first 2 months on earth. Parenthood is hard. At this point, victory is making it through the day with my sanity intact. Not cracking all day is a good day. I love Logan more than I every thought I could love anything. I try and read to him and I can't make it through a book because I'm so overcome with emotion. But Holy Christ. He does not make it easy. He cries. A lot. About everything and nothing at all. He cries in the morning. In the afternoon and at night. He won't sleep longer than 2 hours. The other night we made it to 2 hours and 10 minutes and I had to go check on him because i was sure he had stopped breathing. He spits up a lot. He spits up huge amounts of food. If it's breast milk, it was damn hard work getting...

I must have gotten distracted. The baby must have woken up or gotten hungry or I must have drifted off.

I still have trouble with the thought of going through labor again. The board I follow online is filled with women who are getting pregnant again or desperately want to. I can't imagine anything more terrifying. I was more uncomfortable during my pregnancy than most people knew and I still have lingering pain. I sometimes wonder if the fact that I can't forget how hard it was for me is because I have a constant reminder. Overall, though, the joy of parenthood has been something that I can't put in words. In fact, the word joy seems woefully inadequate. Logan and I have shared some rough moments here and there, but he's quite easy to love. Plus, he slept 7 hours straight last night, making him more lovable still.

perspective

Perspective. [per-spek-tiv] a :  the interrelation in which a subject or its parts are mentally viewed  perspective>;also :  point of view

My last post was decidedly depressing. I had (and continue to have) been having a particularly rough time at work, and the stress of my life as a single mom came crashing down in one melodramatic blog entry. It was a catharsis, a way to get my feelings out into the world so that they stopped weighing me down so much. In reality, sometimes life is hard. Not just my life. But life, in general. My father used to tell me that only things are guaranteed in life: death and taxes. The rest of it is basically a crap shoot. You play the hand you are dealt and hope for the best. I probably wouldn’t win the World Series of Poker with my current hand, I could have it worse.  So while I think I’m entitled to my feelings, I fully admit that the extent of my despair may have been impacted by my tendency for hyperbole and, perhaps, some lingering postpartum hormones.  A very dear friend who I have known for a very long time has had a stretch of bad breaks that makes my life look easy. When she called and told me about her most recent issue, a couple of things happened. I cried a little, I googled a lot and I gained some perspective. Sometimes your life just isn’t in sync with where you think it should be and you just have to say bye, bye, bye to the sadness, and self pity and accept the life you have.   And while life hasn’t exactly Gone the way I thought it would, it’s time to stop letting that tear up my heart.  I need to find a way to be at peace with where I am. Only I can do that, I shouldn’t rely on other people for my happiness. It’s not going to be Terrance that fixes me, It’s gonna be me.

So I’m moving on. I can’t say for sure that the thoughts of regret an inadequacy won’t creep back into my head, but I’m going to try my best to push them aside and focus on the good things, strive to change what I don’t like, and be more content with where I am in the moment. This, for now, is either at work or at home, being held hostage by Logan. He has been having some eating issues at day care, so he is extremely hungry when he comes home, which means I get to feed him until he goes to bed. He’s also going through a sleep regression that some babies (and their bleary eyed mothers) go through around 4 months.  We’re partying like we’re 8 weeks old again. 

From what I can tell, it’s pretty normal. Everything I seem to think is a problem is “normal”, which is nice, but the internet is filled with women who make you feel like if your child isn't able to get themselves out of bed and make themselves breakfast by 6 months, you’re a complete failure and your child should be in therapy. Mine isn't even rolling over on a consistent basis. I try and not let the thoughts that there's something wrong with him creep into my head. He seems like a perfectly happy, healthy little boy. As long as he doesn't think there's something wrong, I'll go with it. 

Terrance has been home for 2 whole weeks straight now. It's weird. We've had visitors basically the whole time, but not having the burden of everything with Logan and the dogs and the house fall on my shoulders has been nice. I'm sleeping more. :) I would say that I am a more pleasant person to be around, but I don't know that I'm brave enough to ask anyone else if they agree...

I posted a picture recently on Instagram and facebook. It’s of me, standing in front of some sunflowers at a community garden I work with. It’s what the kids these days are calling a “selfie”.  At first I didn’t want to post it. I didn't like it. In all honesty, I just wanted to show how tall the sunflowers have gotten this year. When I looked at it, I saw my hair out of place, the discoloration of my teeth (except for that pesky one that stays white while the others stain from the gallons of coffee a new born forces you to consume), my crooked smile and nose that no one ever seems to notice but me. I saw a collection of my imperfections. But I posted it anyway, because 7 foot sunflowers are cool. And people liked it. About 30 people to be exact. I’m sure half of them like the sunflowers, and that’s cool. They’re likeable, happy flowers.  But after people liked and commented on it, I look at the picture again. It’s a perfectly lovely picture. I look happy and the flowers are nice. The colors are good. Sometimes, you have to gain a little perspective to see what the big picture really looks like. In a lot of ways, that picture is a metaphor for my life. I have spent a lot of time focusing in on and examining the imperfections of my life.

Every once in a while, it’s good to look at the picture as a whole.

Maybe it’s not so bad, after all. 

Life after a baby...

It’s taken me a long time to write this post. The last 4 months of my life have been a roller coaster of emotions, sometimes due to the changes in my actual chemical make-up, sometimes due to my circumstances, sometimes good, but other times bad. I had the baby. Labor was, well, laborious. At the end of many hours of labor including 4.5 hours of pushing, out came Logan Jame Bragg. 9 pounds, 11.6 ounces. He is, without a doubt the best part of my life. He also makes me think of things in such a different way. The importance of certain things is magnified. Having a baby has been a catalyst to so many conversations I've had with myself and with others about where I am, where I want to be and why it feels like I’ll never make it. And the reality is that, even though I’m amazed at the capacity we have to love our offspring and my heart explodes with love for this little boy every second of everyday, it’s still not enough.

My life is lacking.

I’m not OK.

I. AM. UNHAPPY.

This is something that we aren't supposed to admit when we've got an adorable brand new bouncing baby boy who we love at home. Being a mother is supposed to make the world make sense. Nothing else matters. And Logan truly does make me happy. I cherish the moments I have with him. My life before him seems like a universe away… I can remember life without him, but I can’t imagine what life would be like now if he wasn't here. Suddenly, my old, pre baby life seems glaringly incomplete. Like a paint by number painting missing an entire digit. I hold on to my moments with him so fiercely and yet they slip away. They seem like grains of sand, running too quickly through my fingers.  I just want to pause these moments and be able to hold on to them. (I guess that’s what Instagram is for.)  I love watching him explore his world – things that I long ago stopped observing, he views with wonder and amazement and an intense concentration that is wonderful to observe. The vibrant green of the grass in our back yard, the trees blowing in the wind, the ceiling fan (that last one is really just him. Ceiling fans are really not exciting to watch anymore… but he loves them!) I also worry about him, as most mothers do. When he's crying, as he does quite often, is he sick? I've convinced myself more than once that he has autism because he won’t make eye contact with me. 8 week olds aren't really good at the whole eye contact thing yet. I think about who he’ll be and what he’ll like. I wonder if he’ll marry or have kids of his own. I wonder if he’ll prefer sports or academics. I wonder what the world will be like for him as he grows. Even now, I’m smiling thinking about it…

And yet, I am not happy. Motherhood is wonderful. It truly, truly is. But it has also consumed my life and left little of me to give to everything else. I should first say that I understand that my issues are first world problems. I am grateful to have a job. But Maslow didn't stop at just food and shelter and work. True self-actualization requires self-esteem, confidence, and an entire top tier filled with things I don’t do. In fact, my current situation has so damaged my self-esteem and confidence about my abilities that I’m having trouble convincing myself that I’m worth pursuing another job, on the nights I have enough energy to job hunt. I read listings for positions that I love and immediately, my mind goes to “it’s not like I’d ever get that job anyway” and I click on, searching for something that I feel like I’d be good at. That I deserve.  

It used to be having a job that I didn't enjoy and didn't challenge me was just an annoyance. Something to pass the time while I finished school. Now, I find myself with a decade of experience and a masters degree with nothing more than student loans to show for it.  Now, it’s a rotting albatross around my neck. Something that prevents me from spending time with my child. Something that makes me take my child to another woman. A woman that will probably see him roll over, sit up, crawl and walk before I do. A woman who gets to enjoy smiles and coos all day while I fight with the bad sleeper all night. I think back to a time when I had dreams of doing more and my life now looks like a scattered mess of unfulfilled potential. I could have been great. The pieces were all there. I just didn't put them together.

And I understand that my life is out of balance.  Part of it is that Terrance got a new job with a great new company. He’s doing very well and I’m incredibly proud of him. It also means his work schedule is that he’s gone just about 3 weeks out of every month. So, for Logan, Leo, Baxter and Charlie, I am it. I take care of the baby. I take care of the house. I take care of the dogs. It’s what I do when I’m not at work. It’s who I am now.  Part of it is that I’m breastfeeding, so I am tied to him. I can’t go see a movie or get my hair done or anything that will separate me from him for more than 3 hours, even if I had help. Sometimes, breastfeeding feels like an anchor so heavy that I’ll never reach the surface again. And then, truth be told, sometimes I love it. Which is good because I've found that the whole “breastfeed and the baby weight will just fall off” is the biggest load of crap that anyone has ever shoveled. They love to tell you that you burn 500-600 calories a day breastfeeding. The tiny print on that is that you have to replace it or your supply goes down. Nerds. Part of it is that I'm still in pain. Things didn't exactly snap back together like they were supposed to. I still can't walk around the block comfortably. I still wake up in pain. Pre baby, I was a runner. I wasn't a fast runner, but I ran. Now I have to grimace through my sedentary work to go home and lift a little person and all of his accoutrements. Being in constant pain is draining. It does a number on your outlook. I'm getting help, but progress is slow and frustrating.

As I drove to work today, on the verge of tears as I am most days I drive to work, I suddenly got mad. Why? Because it’s not fair. I got mad because I had to leave my son to come to this job. Because I don't have a lot of help. I want to be able to go to the store by myself. And then I feel guilty because I want to be away from him. And I really don't. But just for a little. To feel like a person unto myself again - just Kelly. Not being solely defined as Logan's mom or Terrance's wife. And because I want to be able to be the me I want to be.   I really could have done more. And I haven’t. I always thought that if you’re nice and you work hard, things will happen for you.  For the past two years, every move I've made has been for someone else. I encouraged Terrance to take a job in Ohio because it would do so much for his career. And it has. And I’m grateful. I took a job I knew I wouldn't like so that I could move to Ohio and be with my husband. For 6 months, I commuted two and a half hours round trip for him.  I stayed at that job for our family. I wanted a house for our family. Now, I’m faced with the reality that I’m stuck. And I don’t blame Terrance. I did encourage him. I’m happy that he’s doing so well. But where does that leave me? When do I get to make a move for myself again? Never? Am I still allowed to want more? Or do my roles as mother and wife simply have to trump my role as person, at least right now? I am aware that Logan, despite my strenuous objections will continue to grow and move on. This time is so brief, should I just settle in for the professionally unfulfilled, intellectually stunted ride now? In a year will it be better? 5 years?  

From my observations, women are faced with this dilemma more than men. Is it because we are the mothers, the sustenance providers, the traditional care  givers? Are we just biologically wired to do this? Has the universe set us up this way? My schooling goes well beyond my husband's and I am an actual card carrying member of NOW, yet when I became pregnant, my career took an immediate back seat to his. He has continued to advance and I'm, on my best day, treading water.

To recap, I had a baby. And now I get to figure out where the rest of me is supposed to go.

Terrance and I had a conversation the other day about our move up here and how I have trouble driving by Dayton because it makes me sad. I remember when we were moving here – the excitement. The anticipation. The hope that life would be better. And in ways, it is. But in some ways, nothing has changed.

But in one greater-than-I-ever-could-have-imagined-it-could-be way it has. And maybe that's enough for right now.

I'm a Halloweenie

So, I'm kind of a wuss when it comes to Halloween. I used to love horror movies. Now, when I try and watch them, they keep me up all night. I actually wake up in the middle of the night convinced that whoever or whatever I watched attacking people on the screen 5 hours ago is in my bedroom, ready to pounce the second I move. (The exception here is the movie Jaws, which is one of the top two movies ever made. Plus, it would be really weird if there were a 25 foot man eating shark hanging out in my bedroom in the middle of the night... ) Terrance and I are very different, in that I don't like to be scared just to be scared. I find gratuitous violence completely unnerving. And anything that deals with possession, demonic or otherwise? Forget it! But I do love the concept of the costume. I've already got a list in my brain of all of the things I can do to Logan before he's big enough to stand up for himself. I'm sure Terrance will veto them all so that we can dress him up like a little zombie every year, but we'll decide that when the time comes and he realizes that I'm not going to back down. :) I like the idea of dressing up as something you aren't and getting to pretend for an entire day. We went to a Halloween party over the weekend and I went as Medusa - black maxi dress, some exaggerated eye makeup and snakes in my hair (I didn't get any good pics though). I couldn't really pull that off for work, so I went this route. I bought the shirt at Goodwill and had everything else. 1 brown shirt + white puffy paint laces = a football costume suitable for a pregnant lady! Plus, since it involved a really comfy skirt and some comfy shoes, it was by far the most comfortable thing I have ever worn to work. Win-win!

The Sartorialist

So, I have an issue with maternity clothes made for people my size. I'm a bigger person - I discussed my issues with that in my last post. But gaining weight quickly is tough enough without feeling like I'm dressed like a slob. I don't want to just drape fabric over myself and hide behind over-sized t shirts.  In an effort to make myself feel a little better everyday, I dress consistently nicer than I ever have. My goal is to look presentable and cute, no matter what. And, if I could toot my own horn, I feel like I've done pretty well! On a budget!  So I started taking some pics of my outfits - forgive the bathroom shots, it has the best lighting. 

                                                    

Ramblings

Being pregnant has done many things for me. I'm sure everyone who stumbles backward onto being ready for kids like I did goes through a bit of the same thing. It sounds awful, but if you aren't one of those women who were convinced from the time they could think about such things that motherhood was for you, it can be different than you are taught that it should be. I am happy to be pregnant. I am thankful that I have a healthy baby growing inside me. I am thankful I have a partner to go through it with that supports me and lets me be crazy when I need to be. I also feel like I'm missing a chip of some sort. I didn't get an emotional reaction when I took the test, when I heard the heartbeat, when we saw the ultrasound, when I found out "it" was a "him," when I felt him move for the first time. My reactions have been almost clinical and overwhelmingly along the lines of "is that normal?" Is that a normal heartrate? Is that a normal weight? Is his head a normal size? Is his cervical spine measuring correctly? Is there an abnormal amount of fluid there? I have no doubt that I will love my child. I just hope when he comes out, I want to know more about him than whether or not he is normal. 

Like most little girls raised in middle class America, I wanted kids when I was little. I played house. I thought having kids was normal. Somewhere along the way, though, that changed. Were kids for me? Am I a suitable parent? And, the one we're never supposed to utter because it makes us feel like selfish trolls - am I willing to give up my life and whatever dreams I haven't achieved yet to have a child and help them find dreams to achieve? And don't get me wrong, I understand that having children fulfills you in a way that a career never could. I also understand that my career isn't going to be stalled forever because of having children. The nice thing about the freshly minted MPH is that they won't take it away if I don't use it for a few years. But the vision of Terrance and I moving to New York or Boston or DC for a few years? That vision will probably remain a blurry in watercolor in my head. That idea I had of me getting an awesome job with an NGO or federal agency? Probably not going to happen. Because it's hard to move with kids. And it's silly to move from such an obvious family town so that I can have that experience. And it's downright irresponsible for Terrance to give up his good job and move to a place where his company isn't because of my dream. 

Still, despite what my previous ramblings might lead you to believe,  I'm having this baby and I am happy about it. And I am excited. I'm excited to see what he's going to be like. And who he'll look more like. And teach him things. And watch Terrance be a dad. Being pregnant has made me think about the world beyond my bubble and my dreams in a way that I never would have. And it's made me adjust my goals, but not give up on them. No, we might never move to New York or Boston or DC. Or maybe we will. Or maybe I'll end up doing something fabulous with my life here. Despite those who think you should be done procreating by the time you're 30 (lest all of your viable eggs dry up), I'm ONLY 32. If nothing else, I have like 35 more years until retirement. I can do a lot with 35 years. And now I get a child to be a role model for. To inspire. To be better for. 

Pregnancy has also made me confront some issues. Again, like most little girls growing up in middle class America, I have, from time to time, called myself fat. Except for me, it wasn't really from time to time. It was every day. Starting in about the fourth grade. And I'm the first to admit that there was a time when I was fat. The rest of the time, I've been just overweight - I've always needed to lose a few pounds. I've never been happy with my weight. I ran a half marathon last year, and when I looked at the pictures of me on the course, my first thought was how big I looked. It's always my first thought when I see a picture of myself. The rapid weight gain of pregnancy has been hard on my psyche. The stomach is the obvious problem area, but my thighs have grown at such a rate that I joke that Logan will get stuck in them on the way out. Unknowing people comment on my size - I've gotten more than one "are you sure there's just one in there?" and "you're HOW far along? Surely, you must be further - I mean, look at your belly!" For the record, these are things you should never say to a pregnant woman. 

So pregnancy has been an experience. Part of me feels like I'm going to look back and regret the amount of complaining I've done. I feel like I should be embracing it more. I guess after this, I'll have a baby to embrace and this will all just seem like a blink of the eye and a means to a wonderful end. 

In the immortal words of Meatloaf, “two out of three ain’t bad.”

Since my last post, a lot has happened. I graduated, we found out I was pregnant, and we bought a house! Well, sort of…

To start, after a marathon summer of late nights with my epidemiology text and feeling stupid after just about every weekly quiz, I managed to not only pass epidemiology, but I missed an H by 2 points (H means A in the somewhat pretentious word of UNC grad school grading. It stands for honors pass. It’s dumb system. If I ever become dean, I’m doing away with it). I never looked close enough to see if there was a curve, and frankly, I prefer to believe that there wasn't. I like to think that I’m just that smart.  So now I'm officially Kelly Bragg, MPH, CHES. The plan was to actually go to graduation and celebrate, but given my current state of gestating, that might now work out... 

Oh, yeah. So about that whole gestating thing, 3 weeks before I took my final, I went from being able to run 5-6 miles to not being able to go more than 2 without the very real fear that I would actually pee in my pants.  Combined with some other fun symptoms that I won’t get into, I deduced that there might be a chance I was “in the family way”. With Terrance out of town, I took a test. It was positive! Confirmed an annoying amount of weeks later by the doctor’s office who won’t see people until a certain point, no matter how neurotic they are and how crazy they must be driving their husband with “do you think this is normal?” questions. Fingers crossed the 3-6 cups of coffee and countless sodas I was drinking to stay awake enough to complete epi haven’t done major damage to the little one. We found out last week that it’s a boy. We’re naming him Logan James – Logan has been Terrance’s choice for a boy since the beginning and James is after my father. I’m trying really hard to make myself believe that Logan isn't Terrance’s choice because it’s Wolverine’s name. Those of you who know him know that it probably is, but, you know, keep those fingers crossed.

Since the baby is coming, Terrance and I started throwing around the idea of buying a house. Terrance's financial health hasn't always been stellar, but he's been working hard on getting it in shape. Since our entire mortgage from the Gastonia house is in my name and I have a load of student loan debt now, I sent him to the bank to see what he would qualify for. His hard work paid off and he qualified for a mortgage on his own. He got his preapproval letter, contacted a real estate agent, and we were off! We looked at about 6 houses and found one that we both sort of fell in love with. It is a 2 story, 4 bedroom, 2 bath brown stucco built in 1901 with a yard for the dogs. It’s on a great street. It also needs a bit of work, but both of us saw this as having the potential to be our dream home. After a small amount of negotiation, we seemed good to go. Barring any sort of major problem that popped up on the inspection, the house was ours. We went to the store to pick out flooring. We decided what kind of fence we were going to put in. I had the baby’s nursery all decorated in my head. Heck, I had the entire house all decorated in my head. Friday, Terrance went to the bank to get the paperwork started and something was off. Because of some sort of issue with our tax return, he suddenly might not be able to get the loan. I don’t really understand it all, but basically even though we want the house, and we need the house, there might not be any way we’re ever going to own the house on Lincoln Ave.

Because I stupidly plastered the fact that we were buying a house all over social media, I now will have to deal with questions – When are you moving? How’d the inspection go? When do you close? - when I don’t really want to talk about it at all. But that’s my fault. I admit I over share. Lesson learned.

Terrance feels like this is his fault. It’s not, of course. I want to blame the accountant for whatever is wrong with our taxes or the guy at PNC for giving us a preapproval letter that he could never follow through with. But not Terrance, who's just as upset as I am about it and tried everything he can do to fix this. I'm actually really proud of how far he's come. The cookie just crumbles the wrong way sometimes. I’m trying really hard to hide my disappointment. When I can’t hide it anymore and I start to cry, he tells me it’s not over. He hates to see me upset. He’ll do whatever he can to fix this and get us our dream house. The unspoken truth in the room is that there might not be a damn thing we can do about it. I've tried to tell him that I just need to mourn it – the visions I had in my head of us bringing Logan home to THAT house, sitting out in THAT yard with the baby and the dogs on a sunny day and watching the clouds go by, fixing THAT awful bathroom upstairs...

I know eventually, this won’t seem so bad. Eventually, I won’t be battling pregnancy hormones and this won’t feel like such a crushing defeat of our dream.  I know these are first world problems. I understand that we’re lucky to have a place to live and jobs and food on the table and a healthy (albeit hungry and huge) baby on the way. It’s a no brainer that, if I was forced to choose, out of the 3 major things that I have experienced in the last 6 months – graduation, baby, house – the one I would give up if I had to give up something would be the house.

But I didn't really want to give it up.