Thank you for reading this

The breast feeding is going….okay. As in, he’s getting enough nourishment, he loves the milk, sucks it right down, etc. It’s me who is in total agony. I figured if I could get one break from his ravenous, ravenous gums, I could pump and establish a real back-up supply. So this morning, Sam and I went to see Sammy who owns the little market on the corner, picked up a can of the fake stuff, and although I thought I would feel defeat by buying formula, I only felt a sweet sense of relief. 

We came home, I happily prepared a bottle, settled in with the latest episode of “Scandal” and…Sam didn’t take it. He hated it. He cried and cried and cried and wouldn’t even touch the stuff. So then I cried and took off my top and offered him what he really wanted.

What a little snob.

But in the end, I guess I’m relieved he didn’t want the formula. I know it’s a slippery slope but I just wanted one little break. But Sam had other plans. And maybe, just maybe, I need to continue taking cues from him for a little while longer?

This (Samuel Baumann Scott) happened on Saturday, weighing in at 8 pounds, 14 ounces and 23 (!) inches long.

I will always, eternally, forever have angst about my career path and what I am doing with my life. It is a given; I will always feel like I can do more. And should be doing more with my talent and abilities in order to be more successful. I will always have a lingering doubt about my place in the working world. Until I win an Academy Award (which I won’t), I will always think that I’m a slight failure.

And in talking to other working women in their early 30s, a lot of us feel that angst. Opportunity wise, it’s been dead out there for the past three, four years. It’s a huge bummer. When we should be doing some of our best work, we’re not; we’re just spinning our wheels until the economy gets better and we can get jobs (and, hopefully, paychecks) that are worth our talent.

But here’s the thing I realized the other day: Although I constantly feel badly about my job prospects, I am so, very, absolutely lucky in my personal life. I might not be a world famous creative but I’m a very good wife and daughter and soon-to-be mother. This pregnancy has brought Nat and me even closer; at the risk of sounding like a Hallmark card, I constantly look at him and think he is the best gift I will ever be given. We love our little baby-to-be. We have a nice, loving dog. We’re not the richest, nor the more successful couple out there, but we’re very, incredibly, annoyingly happy. Our little family is the healthiest and best thing I have going. I don’t know why I beat myself up about where I am career-wise when, in fact, I’m doing so well in every other area of my life.

Jobs can come and go (right?), but nice husbands and healthy fetuses aren’t a dime a dozen. I need to give myself some credit for my role in that.

My pregnancy has gone like this:

Months 1 - 6: Not very pregnant

Months 7+: SUPER PREGNANT!

thedailyfeed:

Bet you’ve never seen snowflakes like this before. Ken Libbrecht, a physics professor at the California Institute of Technology, snaps snowflakes as they fall using a photomicroscope to examine their wondrous patterns in his lab.

I’m a complainer. I always can find something to complain about (especially work). But that doesn’t mean I’m dour or a caustic person. Nat said the other night how nice it was to have such a happy wife, and that pleased me because I worry that I’m not as upbeat as he is. You have to understand that Nat is one of the nicest, most genuine people in the entire world. When we first started dating, I was always curious about his lack of angst; it was so foreign to me. And I’m not just saying that as his wife. Talk to everyone and they will agree: Nat Scott is a nice, happy person. 

What a weirdo. 

I’ve been trying to be very grateful and happy about this whole pregnancy, like Nat is, because I think that’s healthy for me and the wee one and also because I am grateful. When I take stock in my life, I know I have a wonderful, doting husband, a job that lets me be creative and gives me health insurance, a nice dog, and a caring family. We are not in debt and have plenty of savings. Although it seems like we will never be able to afford a second bedroom in Brooklyn, we will not starve and, in fact, we can go out to eat quite often.

I sometimes feel as though I have hit the lottery. 

But then, because I like to question things, I begin to contemplate why I feel so lucky. I have a job, husband, dog, a baby on the way and I don’t spend more than I earn. I am a 32-year-old college educated female. Aren’t these things a rite of passage? How has it become that something that was once such a given is now something that makes me feel indebted to the Gods? I don’t think there is any one answer. If I really try to dissect it, it’s because of our confessional nature - you can’t go more than 30 minutes into the Internet without reading about fertility problems, money problems, dating and marriage problems; they are so omnipresent that when you are doing something right, it can make you feel like you are the only one in the world. No one wants to read essays about an ordinary life; we want to scrutinize people and their problems. And now people want to tell us about them, all over the place. 

I don’t know the point of this post. I just wanted to let you all know I’m happy and healthy and know how lucky I am, even when I do complain about it. I hope that everyone can experience such a normal thing as making babies with a nice husband while having a job that doesn’t kill you and pays you a living wage. And I hope we as a society get to the point where we make it so this isn’t too much to ask out of life. 

The Brewster Twoster (my husband’s given name is Brewster, but everyone calls him Nat. It’s very awkward) has made it to the Village Voice’s production calendar! But, like all things regarding newspapers, I doubt he’ll make deadline.

I really, really wanted to update more but it’s hard when I’m sleeping 12/13 hours a day on the weekend and at least 10 during the week. I think our baby boy is going through a growth spurt and it’s knocking me down for the count. Well, that, and living in New York City (it is not advisable to be a pregnant lady in New York City) and working full time and trying to knock out a writing project with two very talented writerly friends. It’s all very doable and all of the sleep I’m getting means I’m not tired but you can’t help but feel lazy when, on Friday, I went to prenatal yoga, came home, made myself a BLT, loved the dog a bit, watched an episode of Revenge and then decided to get a bit of reading in of a throw-away Jo Nesbo paperback when I then feel slept for five hours. I mean, deep, deep REM sleep. The kind of sleep insomniacs dream about. The kind of sleep that should only happen during the night, after a long day’s work. It’s hard not to feel guilty when I finally woke up and everything I wanted to do for the day — cleaning, getting Scout to the park for some exercise, writing — just didn’t get done. Nat always makes me feel better about it; he’s been so very helpful and, in fact, he’s cleaning the apartment now, but it’s hard not to be amazed/ashamed at that kind of sleeping. I’m not even hungover! 

So I’ve reached the point in my pregnancy where I find myself weeping over the most inconsequential stuff. This was set off by some bad news a close family member got about her health (more on that later…maybe) and since then, I’ve just been crying on and off for about a week. Sometimes, once the tears start, it’s hard to make your body get back to a place where crying seems foreign.

Being this unstable is so strange and foreign to me.

On Saturday, I got the news that three of my friends had all gotten promotions. And, so, of course, the only response I could give was to cry. I don’t know why, really. I wasn’t sad for them; it just brought up a bunch of emotions that I couldn’t really compartmentalize and so the only response was to cry. Of course, I’m happy for my friends but it made me realize that with the pregnancy the only promotion I’m going to get anytime soon is an upgrade to a new larger bra size. It’s going to be a long, long time until anything exciting work wise comes my way. 

And, you know, I figured this would happen. It’s not like I haven’t read a million and a half essays on the ol’ baby vs. career dilemma. Nat and I thought about it when we thought about having a kid and I figured since media is such a desolate landscape at the moment, I wasn’t going to have a new job anytime soon so maybe we should try for a baby when everything was calm. And I guess when I heard about my friends’ career advancement, I realized that this was it. This is my life. A Mom. That there will be no new jobs (who is going to hire a woman with a newborn/young child? No one), no raises (what company is going to give a woman who just took four months off to have a kid a raise? None), no promotions (why would anyone give a promotion to a woman who leaves at 6 p.m. from her desk to go home and sleep in a darkened room because her pregnancy is so tiring or needs to go home to get her kid to bed? It’s just not feasible). Luckily, I like my job and I like my company. I hope if anyone from there reads this, they know that and they know that I know how lucky I am. But the upward career trajectory I’ve been on for the past 11 years is over. And I mourn that. I mourn that along with my old bras and old pants. As that old hyperdrive is a hard thing to downshift into without a few starts and stops. And maybe even a few tears. 

But I know how lucky I am. I’m typing this with a baby in my belly, my sweet, devoted husband in the next room, and my dog’s nose currently poking underneath from my bedroom door, desperate for my attention and my love. This is my family. And my family doesn’t care about what I do for a job or how much I make or how far I’ll get or how ambitious I am. They just want me around them because they love me and I love them. And that makes me a weepy person for all of the right, uncomplicated reasons. 

A little back story: Before I was pregnant, I was super, super anxious about being pregnant. Namely for every reason a female ladder climber in her early 30s is anxious: It would throw me off the career path I’ve worked so hard for! They are expensive! I don’t know anything about babies! What if I give birth to the anti-christ? Or at least a second-rate demon? You’ve all read a bazillion and a half articles on this exact subject so I don’t need to bore you. But once I did get pregnant, all the magical hormones took over and I was just super happy about being pregnant.  But all of these insecurities came flooding back once I started reading this book:

It is called “The Baby Nurse Bible: Secrets Only a Baby Nurse Can Tell You about Having and Caring for Your Baby” which, btw, is so not true. As once you get pregnant EVERYONE will tell you how to have and care for a baby. Even people who have never had a baby! And let me tell you, they don’t leave anything out. You wanna know about pooping yourself while giving birth? People will tell you about pooping on themselves while giving birth like they’re just giving directions. Another hot topic: Mucus plugs.(Whatever you do, don’t google image search that. Trust me). It’s aaaalllll out there. There are no secrets, “Baby Nurse Bible.” Get over yourself, already.

But back to my story: I was reading said book on the subway and they had a chapter about the gear you need to get because this is something I’ve been nervous about. And guys, babies require SO MUCH GEAR. I mean, I know they don’t because they are BABIES and they won’t even remember any of this. And it’s just a ploy for the baby marketing people to shell out cash for crap but you be pregnant in New York City and read about a $700 stroller. I promise you, you will automatically think: I need to buy that $700 stroller or else I’m a terrible, terrible person. And then you start hyperventilating on the train because you need so much expensive stuff but you live in a one bedroom apartment in Brooklyn and it won’t all fit and although you have money now, you probably won’t after you shell out for a pad that you put under your baby so if it stops breathing because of SIDS it will sound an alarm (those things exist!) which, wow, your baby can just UP and DIE like that? That is crazy! You better buy one of those pads because if your baby dies of SIDS (again! Your baby can just up and die!) and you didn’t have that pad, it is all your fault. Oh, and you’d better get a $1,000 crib because, well, everyone knows any crib less expensive than that has a slight risk of beheading your precious child than one you get at Wal-Mart or, god-forbid, a used one. And a $400 breast milk pump because if you don’t breastfeed you’re just as good as your anti-christ baby. You monster.

And then, because you don’t have the $10,000 you need to buy the stuff you don’t need you start questioning your life choices. Like, “Why didn’t I go to law school? I bet all of my friends who went to law school won’t have a hard time coming up with the cash to not only buy this stuff but also hire a baby tutor to come over and teach the baby Mandarin. But why did I have to go to law school hypothetically in the first place? Why doesn’t my husband make $300,000 a year? HE’S not freaking out about how to afford a $700 stroller that our kid won’t even remember having. This is all his fault.”

Answer: My husband isn’t freaking out about this because he’s sane and lovely and makes a fine paycheck and is able to calm me down because he knows what I (kind of) know: The baby will come and we will love it and we will handle everything that is thrown our way just fine. Babies have lived for thousands of years without $700 strollers or a real nursery or night nurses or a pad that goes underneath of them that monitors their breathing. But then I got onto the chapter about plastics and I swear to god, I had to put my head between my knees. My husband now has the book and is not letting me read it.