...and I'm not talking about that time Thor and Loki had it out over an empty sack of Meow Mix, either.
I mean to say that, after months of genuine indecisiveness, I finally turned in my resignation at work. I'm officially a stay-at-home-mom.
I feel relieved to have finally made my choice, but I'm surprised that relief is pretty much all I feel. I thought I'd feel elated and overjoyed and a big rush of warm fuzzies as I hugged and kissed my baby. I thought I'd feel proud, having made the decision that my husband and I agreed was best for my family.
Instead, I sort of feel a little bit...empty. Like I cut the cord in a huge area of my life and I'm in kind of a freefall right now. And challenged, like I'm standing at the base of a wild, snowy mountain and I've committed myself to climbing it but I really haven't packed enough supplies and I've never climbed a mountain before and in fact, I didn't even watch any mountain-climbing videos on YouTube or anything.
After just a few weeks of staying home with the baby (several of those days with family or friends visiting), I can see that raising children is not a job for lightweights. When Ross got home from work yesterday, I was exhausted. Nope, I hadn't finished three loads of laundry, gone grocery shopping, and groomed the cats. I had fed and changed the baby and thought about what I would made for dinner (eggs, fried taters and turkey bacon). And that was enough.
I can see how motherhood, which is supposed to be about family and community, can be isolating instead. I can see how a mom, even a mom who is a good person and full of lots of love, can get frustrated and resentful towards a new baby. Suddenly, your freedom disappears overnight; you're often expected to make decisions about returning to work long before you're physically or emotionally ready; friends and family and total strangers and the creepy staring lady at Giant Eagle all want to see your baby NOW and get upset because they weren't the first on your list to be invited over; your timetable now revolves around feeding a little guy who, in our case, is still figuring out how to eat, which frequently makes mealtimes stressful and unpredictable (the bonding quotient there is pretty much zero); you begin to dread evenings because you're either afraid you'll miss a feeding if the baby monitor doesn't pick up his cries, or you'll stay up all night because his "self-soothing" pug-like grunts just. Don't. Stop.
I thought it would be easy to quit my job. Maybe it would have been, if I despised my job or even felt indifferent towards it. But I actually liked it. I liked my co-workers. I liked what I did and I felt like I did it well. It was also hard to beat a 6-minute commute (which passed by a Starbucks). Plus, the information I gathered from working in a pediatric office has been invaluable during my pregnancy and now, with a preemie in the house. I had an amazing, engaged, compassionate supervisor and I had a good time working with some really fun, lively girls - going from that to being home with three suspicious cats, an often unreadable baby, Klondike bars and Netflix is a huge change.
We haven't been to church in a while because, well, yeah, we have a newborn and we've been advised to keep him out of crowds for a while. Although we've got offers to visit and help from some of the church gals, it's not the same as being in the Word and enjoying fellowship with our spiritual family. I thought I'd automatically feel closer to God after my son's birth, because, after all, I recognize God as the Heavenly Father, and now I was a parent, too, but that didn't happen, either.
I guess it comes down to expectations. The same unrealistic expectations that drive wedges between spouses in the first few years of marriage can overwhelm new parents. I didn't exactly expect the kind of rosy-cheeked, wide-eyed newborn so frequently depicted in movies and on television...nor did I expect to snap back into my pre-pregnancy body in a few weeks...and I certainly didn't expect to get a full night's sleep any time soon after his birth. But maybe my problem was that I really couldn't prepare myself for a new baby - especially the way he ended up coming into the world.
So, that's what I'm going to focus on these next few weeks - making realistic expectations for myself and my baby. Just getting by, one day at a time.
The anxiety of making The Big Decision is over. I have no obligations to anyone but my God and my family. It's okay for me to breathe. And fail, sometimes. And try again. And ask for help. And not take everyone's advice, if I don't want to.
Because really...the 17-year-old cashier at McDonald's might not be the most reputable source of infant knowledge, knowwhatImsayin'?
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