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motherhood

Writing My Way Through Early Parenthood

February 19, 2019 By Lindsey Palmer Filed Under: Park Slope Lit Tagged With: lindsey palmer, motherhood, new born, parenthood, working mother, writer

 

 

Armed with my iced coffee and laptop, I settled in to my regular perch at the counter of Konditori, a sunny spot with a front-row view of bustling Fifth Avenue. After a little chatter with the barista, and a little eavesdropping on the conversations of my fellow café dwellers, I turned my attention to reworking the next scene of my novel. It was how I’d spent countless mornings for years. The difference was, for the first time, I was a mother—and at one week old, my daughter was curled against my chest, all eight pounds of her secured by the complicated twists and ties of the cloth carrier I was still mastering. The coos she made in her sleep and the gentle sucks of her thumb sounded like sweet encouragements. For a couple of precious hours, I wrote.

When I was six months pregnant, I had the luck to sell my third novel, what would become Otherwise Engaged. My new editor had pages of smart suggestions, which would require a major overhaul of the manuscript. The official timeline gave me six months to implement the revisions, but I had my own deadline: my due date. Experienced moms had issued dire warnings of what life would be like with a newborn: I’d never sleep again; I wouldn’t have time to shower, never mind eat a meal or run an errand; I’d be stuck on a never-ending merry-go-round of changing, feeding, and shushing a wailing baby. Still pregnant, I couldn’t really imagine this chapter of my life that was about to unfold—I pictured it like a foreign country, or even outer space. But one thing that seemed certain is that it wouldn’t include the stretches of time, not to mention energy and focus, I needed in order to write fiction. And that meant it was a race against the clock: I’d be a writer until I became a mother.

I pride myself on my reliability and responsibility, my knack for meeting deadlines—but I didn’t meet this one. After all, the third trimester of pregnancy is a busy time. There’s birthing class and stocking up on and then learning how to use the seemingly endless list of items required to care for an infant. There’s the effort it takes to commute to and from work each day with twenty extra pounds strapped to one’s stomach, plus the actual workday. Then there’s the trying to pack in all the movies and socializing and sleeping in that I’d been assured would be a thing of the past once my baby arrived. As a result, I didn’t find the time to rewrite my novel.

When my water broke early one Monday morning, a week before my due date, I felt excited and terrified both. I also felt panicked, wondering, When am I going to finish my novel revise now?

Very quickly, this question receded into the fog of new motherhood. At first, everything was a blur, and some stretches did in fact resemble the horror stories my mom friends had shared. Other times were pure joy, and I felt I was all heart, no brain. Every intelligible thought in my head seemed to have been superseded by the bliss of having a baby.

This didn’t last. About a week after returning home from the hospital with my sweet-smelling bundle, my unfinished novel returned to me: the plot inconsistencies that needed fixing, the character motivations that needed clarifying, the conflict that needed ramping up. Even as my body was still recovering from birth, and I wasn’t yet sure what was supposed to go in the diaper bag, there I was hauling my baby and my laptop down two flights of stairs and across Park Slope to my favorite café, ordering a coffee, and getting back to work.

The novel revisions turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I’m lucky enough to work for a company with a great maternity leave policy. But I admit that beforehand, the prospect of twelve weeks of open time—without a job or any structure to my day—scared me nearly as much as the prospect of being permanently responsible for a tiny, helpless being. I’m someone who, to put it mildly, is not very good at simply existing and going with the flow. Of course, anyone who’s taken care of a baby understands something I didn’t, which is that it isn’t open time. It’s hard work—exhausting, relentless, and sometimes mind-numbing. What helped me survive those initial weeks was writing.

It was only an hour or two a day—and sometimes less, if my baby began crying, or squirming, or smelling like she needed a diaper change. Some days, after I’d been up for long spans of the night nursing and then rocking my daughter back to sleep, it was all I could do to move around a comma or two. Still, it was a daily routine. It got me dressed and out of the house. It kept me connected, however tangentially, to the world around me, and to my identity as a writer. I loved being a mother, much more than I’d anticipated I would. But it was grounding and reassuring to remind myself, day after day, that I was also still the person I’d been before becoming a mother. 

An added benefit? My writing practice made me a better mother, too. After flexing my brain to solve problems on the page, I’d leave the café feeling ready to tune back in to the very different work of motherhood. I felt more focused and joyful, and more available to my daughter when we faced the daunting task of tummy time or a third diaper change within an hour.

By the end of my maternity leave, I’d nearly finished my novel revision… but not quite. In retrospect, I wonder if that was a subconscious decision. During those chaotic early weeks of returning to my job and figuring out the working-parenting balance, I still spent stints writing at Konditori. Keeping up this routine was steadying. Eventually, I finished the revision, meeting the publisher’s deadline. I didn’t yet know that I’d go on to complete several more revisions; publishing a book, much like parenthood, is a marathon, not a sprint.

Meanwhile, my daughter started crawling and then walking. These days, she rarely sits still for more than a few minutes. So, I’ve returned to writing on my own. Weekend mornings are my husband’s father-daughter time, and my solo writing time. My daughter loves to imitate me, so if she spots my open laptop, she begins banging at its keys. Reviewing her nonsensical edits is decent entertainment, and it also makes me reminisce about editing in those early days of parenthood: As my newborn breathed softly against my chest, I’d take a break between paragraphs to stroke her hair and inhale her special scent, before returning to the screen, pressing enter, and writing on.

Filed Under: Park Slope Lit Tagged With: lindsey palmer, motherhood, new born, parenthood, working mother, writer

Selfish Dreams

December 6, 2017 By Ambika Samarthya-Howard Filed Under: Park Slope Life Tagged With: career, children, dreams, family, life, mother, motherhood

There’s pivotal moment in every mom’s life after the birth or adoption of her child when she decides she has the space, desire, and need for self-care. This can come in the form of returning to the book by the bedside that’s been there since 36 weeks, or returning to her favorite yoga class.  Unfortunately, for working moms, this moment sometimes comes later, and for me, it came a year after my child was born and I went on my first retreat. From there, I was inspired to head back (reluctantly) to the gym.  And that’s where I met Natasha Forrest.

I think there’s a Natasha in many of our lives.  She’s the woman you randomly meet in the library or bar who is just a kick-ass woman, and then you realize that not only is she a mom, but she’s also doing amazing and unconventional things in their career. Natasha is even more of an inspiration for me because she’s a single mom. Natasha was a full time accountant, with crazy hours, doing part time fitness training on the side, when she was let go from her job during a company lay-off.  Her son was one at the time (he’s now five), and she decided she actually liked her part time job more. She had the choice to find a new accountant job, or follow her dreams.

So she decided to go for it.

The irony of having a child is that is gives you a deep awareness of what truly matters to you, but the clarity it shows you is even harder to put into place because you now have another being completely dependent on you.  I left my ad agency job after I had Ananda to go back to writing and filming for social good. I have friends who left their jobs after having a kid to pursue their novel or graduate degree.  I realize this is a position of economic privilege – to be able to leave your stable job to pursue a risky alternative.  With Natasha the courage was even more profound because she is the primary caretaker. “Is it selfish? Of course it is. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. You have to look out for you. At the end of the day no one else is going to,” she said honestly.

It’s a way of being and speaking we are not comfortable with because of many of the parameters of guilt and shame often put onto moms. I myself am often overwhelmed by the guilt that comes with caring about something outside of my child. I feel it both as a social taboo and a biological pull.  Annabel Crabb once said: “The obligation for working moms is a very precise one: the feeling that one ought to work as if one did not have children, while raising one’s children as if one didn’t have a job.”

It’s even more audacious for moms who love their job and pursue dreams, because they love what they do, and want to do more of it. I asked Natasha how she copes with the guilt, and she responded that following what she loves actually enables her more flexibility to be with her son. “I set my own hours, I don’t stay up all night stressed out with work.”

I found myself making similar adjustments when I took on the lead communications role at a global NGO based in South Africa. I start working as soon as I wake up at 6am on most days, to make sure I can pick up Ananda by mid-afternoon.  My job involves deadline pressures, conference presentations, and frequent travel – all of which sit with my personality quite easily. But I still catch myself justifying my career: whenever someone asks “wow, how do you balance all the hours” or “don’t you miss your son when you’re away?” I immediately explain how the job allows me flexibility to be on his schedule so I still spend half the day with him.

What’s shocking is how much I’ve internalized this, to the point that when someone says “sounds like the perfect job for you”, I still respond with the script of “but I do it cause I can make the hours work”. When did following our own dreams feel like such a guilty pleasure?

Motherhood and careers hardly feels a balance – it feels more like an avalanche. Natasha has worked hard the last four years, getting training certificates, putting in extra hours, all while managing drop offs and pick-ups. She’s had a series of promotions – and an insanely toned body – to show for it.  She also has a wonderful, active son.  The worst thing about giving your all to your career and your family is that you’re exhausted. “When I’ve been training all day, I’m tired at 9 and can’t play soccer with my son,” she confides.

Ironically, listening to Natasha’s long-term commitment to herself and family gave me the strength to pursue my last selfish goal: to get back to working out regularly.  I’ve started to see exhaustion as not a reason to not do something, but as part of the journey.

It’s always about trade-offs. But it’s also about being happy. And when a mom is happy, often her children and families are too. Natasha may be an ambitious personal trainer and single mom but she’s one happy woman, and I can imagine her son is better off for it. “I still sometimes ask myself when I’m going to get a real job,” she jokes. Then she turns and asks me to give her another set of mountain climbers.

Filed Under: Park Slope Life Tagged With: career, children, dreams, family, life, mother, motherhood

PLANNING THE UNEXPECTED

May 16, 2016 By Ambika Samarthya-Howard Filed Under: Park Slope Life Tagged With: birth, birth plan, c-section, childbirth, dilated, doula, epidural, labor, midwives, motherhood, postpartum, pregnancy, pregnant

Tibetan prayer flags decorated my couch for weeks. Each was created by a friend to encourage me through labor and to welcome my son home. Between preparing playlists for all stages of labor, reading childbirth books, and drinking daily raspberry tea, I had become obsessed with when and how I would give birth. How did I get here?

Ambition and desire plays a part in everyone’s life. Since I was a teenager I had envisioned the exact Ritu Kumar red and gold dress I wanted to wear for my grand Indian wedding. I dreamed about living in New York after college. I read books and essays fantasizing about working and traveling in distinct corners of the world, which I pursued with passion. And I took all my plans seriously, putting them into motion. But I had never given being pregnant or birthing any thought.

Then here I was pregnant, with everyone asking me how I wanted to give birth, and what I had imagined it would look like. I had always assumed birth happens, not that I had to plan it. I knew I would not necessarily have control over my body – so why fantasize?

 

[pullquote]The lessons I learned to let go and accept my body and myself for what it is will stay with me through my motherhood.
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But my doula, doctors, and hospital had all encouraged me to come up with a birth plan and I enjoyed the exercise. The plan included words describing how I wanted the birth to go, what medications I was open to, who would be involved and how, and procedural consent. Every woman I spoke to who created a birth plan had an entirely different labor, but I still felt at least asking the questions to myself would put me in a good place emotionally.

When the day came, I went from early labor to more intense labor, from bathtub to bouncy ball to wall clutching in 18 hours, I put all my tools into use until I felt I could no longer take the contractions and wanted an epidural. At 3:1:1 (1 minute contractions every 3 minutes for an hour) I felt ready to go to the hospital. “This is just pain. This is not suffering.” I repeated those phrases repeatedly in the dreaded cab ride to the hospital.

Hoping I was close to 6 or 7 cms dilated, the nurse solemnly told me I was not dilated at all, and the baby had hardly even fallen. I was experiencing prodromal labor – where a woman is in labor for hours, days, weeks, without her body dilating as one would in active labor. The writing was on the wall: within 14 hours I went from an epidural to Pitocin to induce labor to a c-section. I was thrilled to feel my lovely baby boy finally on me and relieved to eat and just be with my family.

The c-section was not in my birth plan, and it made me feel like a failure and less of a woman/ mother. But as I began nursing and getting to know my son, I realized motherhood was just beginning. I asked Leigh Kader, a doula whose birth education classes I attended this fall, about the point of doing a birth plan, as I grew in the coming weeks to slowly question why I had spent so much time in my pregnancy creating expectations. She responded: “If you don’t know your options, you don’t have any. But because of the unpredictability of birth, I prefer the term “preferences” to “plan” because plan feels rigid (and rigidity leads to disappointment) whereas preferences imply open mindedness. Writing your preferences down insures that you and your partner on the same page about what is important to you both during the labor and immediate postpartum.”

It definitely had helped in discussions with my husband and doula. “It’s a useful tool for thinking through what is most important during the birth and the immediate postpartum time. It can also be a great way to get to know your care provider and feel reassured that your birth team is all on the same page about your preferences.” another doula, Sarah Lewin, described. I still had a hard time wrapping my head around writing down choices for an event I couldn’t control.

People can clearly see the harm of holding onto the image of the perfect relationship, the ideal partner, or the dream apartment. So how does one envision birth without attachment, to hold preferences without expectations?

Maybe the focus should be about the process itself: the idea of birth plans as a movement for pregnant women to have their voices and choices heard in a process that has become overly medicalized and less personal. Roseanna Seminar, a midwife at Park Slope Midwives, pointed out that “items that people used to put in the birth plan are now automatic (skin to skin, no separation, delayed cord clamping etc).  We build a trust with women during the pregnancy. This helps when things don’t go as planned and we need to change it.” I definitely did appreciate looking forward to the choices I made about skin to skin and not being separated from my son.

As I reflect at my recovery, my healthy boy, and the loving manner in which my surgery occurred (my son was on my chest the entire time), I am thankful. The lessons I learned to let go and accept my body and myself for what it is will stay with me through my motherhood.

 

Ambika&Child

 

Filed Under: Park Slope Life Tagged With: birth, birth plan, c-section, childbirth, dilated, doula, epidural, labor, midwives, motherhood, postpartum, pregnancy, pregnant

Mom Bod

September 1, 2015 By Jessica Phillips Lorenz Filed Under: Yoga Tagged With: body image, motherhood, parenting, yoga

We all sit with our yoga mats in a circle, moms holding their babies. At the beginning of each class, I ask everyone to share their name, their baby’s name and age, and what’s new for their child that week. Whether it’s a fresh-cut tooth, colic, or 5 a.m. ready-to-play wake-ups, I like to hear about it. I also invite the mothers to share what is going on with their bodies. “What body?” I can hear them thinking, as they unload the contents of their diaper bags and peel infants out of Moby wraps. One by one, we go around the room, and each mom shares a “discovery.” Or, what I’ve begun to think of as chapters in a book called:

Things That Happen to Your Body After You Have a Baby That No One Told You About

Your hair might fall out. (Maybe no one else will notice the change, but that doesn’t spare you the indignity of wiping up handfuls of your own hair off the bathroom tile.)

Your abdominal muscles may have separated, a condition known as diastasis recti. (You mean, I shouldn’t be doing sit ups?)

You wake up in middle of the night dripping wet with sweat. (Hormones give you the business.)

You can’t sleep even when the baby does. (Your nervous system is on hyper-drive.)

You feel like you have a hunchback. (Nursing and feeding does a number on your posture.)

Your thumbs, wrists, knees, feet, or back hurt in weird and confusing ways. (Hormones, again.)

You are tired. Really. Freaking. Tired. (It’s shocking how tired you can feel. You’re so tired you can’t come up with creative ways to express how tired you are. )

Recently one mommy said she was ready to get her “body back”. She continued, “I’m ready to feel like myself again.” From feeling like ‘me’ to feeling like ‘mommy’ and back again Whenever someone says they want to get their body back, I immediately think, “From whom?! What happened? Did that cute baby steal your body?!” Because you still have a body. Your body. But it’s different now, and that’s a hard truth to swallow. I think what they really mean is, “I want my body to be something I know and something I like…because I’m not sure I like this.”

Wanting to feel like yourself again—now, that’s big time stuff. Just like our bodies have changed by becoming mothers, there is sort of a seismic identity shift that happens as well. Unfortunately, you may have to wade through some pretty murky, unknown waters until you suddenly realize, “Oh yeah. This is still me. I should get out of this gross water now.”

You may think I am sitting from a perch of answers at the front of the class. Not quite—I’m in the circle, too. I have an infant and a four year old. I know what my students are talking about because I feel it in my own body. I want what they want. I, too, want to tighten up my ish! I want to feel stronger! And sexier! Or at least start caring about being sexy again.

This is where aparigraha can come in handy. Aparigraha—one of the Yoga Sutras or Eight Limbs of Yoga—represents the practice of non-possessiveness otherwise known as non-attachment. Breathing and stepping back, at least figuratively, can be a secret weapon in making peace with the body and the baby.

But how do we practice non-attachment in the age of attachment parenting?

One of my favorite moving meditations is a simple one: “Let. Go.” I encourage my students to breath in the word “Let” and breathe out the word “Go”. Inhale, “Let.” Exhale, “Go.” That’s it. Let go of the expectations. Let go of trying to lose the weight. Let go of wanting the baby to be good. Let go of what you read last night on Babycenter.com—and maybe just stop reading it altogether!

The idea of non-attachment in yoga is about fully participating in the process without getting tied up in the outcome of the product. Sounds breezy, right? Um. Maybe. But it takes practice just like the physical aspect of yoga takes practice.

Working towards non-attachment has been particularly helpful for me when it comes to toddler mealtime. “What!? You don’t want to eat your favorite meal I made for you? That thirty-minute meal took all day to make in five-minute increments! I was looking forward to eating with you and watching you enjoy it BECAUSE IT’S YOUR FAVORITE! But today, you’re not going to eat it!? Okay.”

I get it. Making the meal was the process. Daughter actually eating it was the product. So much for the good intentions of my home cookin’. Deep breaths. Let. Go.

Potty training is another time when aparighara helped my parenting strategies. It would drive me absolutely bananas when we were about to leave the apartment and my daughter would refuse to go potty. A gentler reminder to “give it a try” would become a wild-west style stand off. It wasn’t until I stepped back a little—well a lot, really—that things improved. Let. Go.

How do you let go without letting yourself go?

The media is relentless when it comes to inundating us with images of how a woman should look, especially after having a baby. The beautiful people seem to have little arrows pointing to their bikini bodies saying things like, “SEVEN WEEKS AFTER BABY!” A lot of women internalize this to mean, “YOU LOOK BAD IF YOU DON’T LOOK LIKE THIS SEVEN WEEKS AFTER BABY”. Maybe we should stop reading this stuff, too.

I’m trying to refocus the lens a bit, one class at a time. I want my students—my fellow new mothers—not to feel bad for having bodies that change. If you were lucky enough to get pregnant, give birth, nurse or feed an infant, and shift your identity to include being a mother, then YEAH, stuff has changed. Also, let’s not forget that the last time you tried to wear those shorts was two summers ago—last summer you were pregnant, remember? Now you are two years older. Time is marching on, my friends.

So let’s sit in a circle and marvel at our bodies—their health, their vigor, what they can do on six hours of constantly interrupted sleep for months or years on end. Let’s be proud of what we just did! We had some babies!!! We adopted some babies! Some of our wives had babies, too!

Post-natal and baby yoga classes are not exclusively about getting in shape, although it’s important to have an opportunity to exercise with your little one. I want people to feel like they are a part of something; they are connected to their babies and each other in the circle. I want people to laugh and blow off steam, because that may help you feel more like yourself again. But there is a fine line between feeling good in your skin and trying to get skinny in order to feel good. Let’s stick with the former, shall we?

I recently started practicing yoga regularly again since having my second child. It has been a humbling experience. When I curl my body into child’s pose, I feel my hip flexors boing-ing me upwards. I am tight and loose in all the wrong places. There are no arm balances or binds. At least, not yet!

But you know what? I just built some people with my body! Who cares that my boat pose may look a little like a sinking ship? I do, but I don’t. I’m trying to let go, too, one breath at a time.


Jessica Phillips Lorenz has been teaching yoga and creative drama classes to children and families in NYC for over a decade.  Also a playwright and lyricist, she has performed many original solo works and her songs appear on the award-winning children’s record  Come Play Yoga.  Her work has appeared in Mutha magazine.  Jess lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two kids, who sometimes co-teach family yoga classes with her.  She teaches at Bend & Bloom Yoga in Park Slope.

Filed Under: Yoga Tagged With: body image, motherhood, parenting, yoga

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