Thank you for reading this

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.