Goodnight Mom

Needless to say, Steve and I didn’t expect to have a baby at the onset of a global pandemic. I imagined months of Max crawling around circles of my closest friends. Of nights where he slept through the noise while we partied in the basement below. Of day trips and adventures to places and other people’s houses. Playdates with other moms & babies.  The pandemic took away a lot of things that make life really enjoyable. Being around friends, sharing meals, being in crowds of strangers, feeling a sense of community at a local park, farmers’ market, or art museum.  For me, it was very challenging that the beginning of the pandemic - when we knew very little about covid - coincided with the beginning of becoming a Mom - when I knew very little about babies! Note - I took inspiration for the title of this post from collaborative writing project, Born In Lockdown , a collection of experiences from over 200 women who became mothers in 2020. Baby Moon Before Max was born, I had rea...

  It’s been a few months since I was able to post on this blog. That’s because I went back to work! It wasn’t easing being a full-time Mom and working, even part-time ( as if moms ever stop being a mom just because they’re working, or not physically present all the time. When I use it here, I just mean my “job” is to be a Mom) .  I told my friend I was writing a post about being a full time mom and working, and she asked, “So, do you mean it was just you with your head face-down on your keyboard for 5 minutes?!”  I’m not the first or the only parent to have to figure out balancing childcare and work during a global pandemic. We made it work, and I’m glad we did because I love my job. Though at times maybe I did want to face plant into my keyboard, that wouldn’t make a good blog post! Actual photo of me working. (JK this is @cookiethepom) Getting back into it Before Max, I was working as a consultant for an awesome learning & development company, A Positive Adventure ...

  On August 7th, I put Max down for his morning nap, grabbed my breast pump and sat on the sofa. I looked at the pump and suddenly was filled with dread. I really didn’t want to do this again. It was such a drag to sit there for 20 minutes for the smallest amount of milk. Such a bore, so much effort. Was it really worth it to keep going? At this point, for a number of reasons, I had stopped nursing Max and was only pumping twice a day. I wasn’t getting much milk. Every two days I had enough to feed him a full bottle. I was over it. It didn’t feel worthwhile. I started to cry. It was so hard to give this up, even at this scaled back point. I realized that I wanted to, so badly, but I felt immense guilt over not giving Max breastmilk for at least the first 6 months of his life. It brought up all the pain I experienced in the first few weeks (months in fact) of his life when I realized I wouldn’t be able to fully breastfeed Max. I texted my friend, my mom and my sisters for support. T...