From Here to Autonomy

Pregnancy Journal, Week 36: Working with my feet up

A friend of mine called me from New York. We talked for a while about his new job--I may be one of the few people who enjoys discussing with my friends the intricacies of their day to day work.

He asked me, so how are you?

I had to preface my response with a disclaimer,

"Nothing's wrong," I said. "But things are different." My friend probed to determine if I was unhappy.

"Nope," I said. "I'm just getting used to this change." I felt inarticulate, like when I had nightmares as a kid and my mom came into my room and asked me what I was afraid of, and I didn't know. One time I told her, "I'm feeling something skinny; a skinny string." I still get the sensation, but I don't know what it means.

By "change" I think I mean all that has shifted since becoming pregnant. For years I've been told about how the focus of energy shifts when you become a parent. I've held off on my decision to have children knowing this shift occurs. 

But even knowing that I am supposed to slow the centrifugal force that has tied me to a grinding schedule for so long, I find that I still give myself a spin or two to stay in motion, even during times of physical exhaustion. I wonder if I do this out of habit; being in motion is all that I know. Or because the slowdown scares me; all this momentum, what would it take to start up again? What if I fall in love with slow? What if slow feels like a skinny string?

A trusted friend--a powerhouse, even to other powerhouses--tells me that her desire to work, to achieve, didn't change when she had her son, but her reason for working did.

"I did everything because of him," she said.

Some might bristle at that thought, especially since working women are encouraged to have their careers "for themselves". But some of us have been working "for ourselves" for a very, very long time, at the risk of having no perspective and losing the meaning behind what we do. For me, the thought of working for someone else is liberating; it opens possibilities. It bends the rules I set in my mind of the way work must be.

Still, the rules run deep. My business partner said to me last week that if I may not want to bother commuting these last few weeks before the baby is born. Makes sense: an hour-long commute (on a good day) is hardly safe or desirable should I go into labor a few weeks early. After five years of working together (two of those virtually) she knows the work will get done anywhere. But I struggle to take her up on her suggestion. I've always valued physical, tangible presence. Presence is being in motion.

Another co-worker suggested that I use the couch she has in her cube--something she's integrated into her space for extreme back issues. I thanked her and wondered, when would I think to put my feet up? My first job out of college, when my boss traveled I'd sneak cat naps in her office. Why was it so much easier to acknowledge exhaustion when I was 21?

At the BlogHer conference I promised my colleagues and husband that I would put my feet up regularly. It took my husband physically guiding me back to my hotel room 14 hours after I started the day to do what I'd promised. As I sat there, propped by pillows, feet up against the wall, tired and restless, I lamented that it was still so early--I was leaving first thing in the morning and still hadn't seen or done everything I'd wanted to do.

I am hardly a sadomasochist or born with more energy than others. I just don't know otherwise. I suppose I will learn. And I will learn how to channel that energy where it needs to go. And rather than look upon these offers of support suspiciously, I will learn to put my feet up and note that there are moments that we work and moments that we work FOR.

And that skinny string that keeps us tethered to a life in which we've done very well won't break.

New Core Competencies--How Type A's learn to parent

We sat in a room decorated with pictures of pregnant women and babies--H-band sat on the couch, and I had moved to a glider because my back was starting to hurt.

We watched our instructor, who has been a doula for two decades, swaddle a stuffed plastic baby to near perfection.

"Who'd like to go first?" she said. I much preferred the labor massage part of the course.

H-band crouched over the table and began to crease the blanket, starting over once to crispen his fold.

"He wraps all the presents in the house," I felt compelled to explain. "He'll do better at this." In less than a minute the baby was wrapped in inescapable warmth, the permanently molded "O" of her mouth seemed to say, "Good job!"

"OK," said the doula, "now it's Mom's turn." I wasn't sure to whom she was referring.

I spread the blanket out on a surface and folded over one corner,

"Babe don't forget to fold in her arms," H-band reminded.

"Tuck it in before you grab the next piece, under her side," reminded the doula.

"Next piece is the bottom," H-band added. "Don't wrap the next side around yet."

In the finished look the plastic baby floated in a doughnutty concoction. A mass of blanket surrounding, but not exactly swaddling, her.

"You'll get better at it," the doula said.

Next was a video featuring a Mexican midwife who was giving birth to her own child. She looked healthy and zaftig, taking a vigorous hike with her Japanese husband and parents on their lush farm.

"I thought she was in labor," I said to the doula.

"She is," she said. "She's still in the early stages."

I hoped the midwife wouldn't trip on the rocks she was traipsing across. Jesus, I thought, someone stop her!

The Mexican midwife and her husband retreated to their bathroom to soak in the tub as she labored. They sat in relatively peaceful repose; she moaned softly.

"Look at their bathroom," I said. "Gorgeous tile...I would consider a home birth if I had that tile."

"Are you going to provide commentary throughout?" H-band said.

"Sorry. Just saying."

Being a midwife, the woman instinctively knew when it was time to push, and she did with no screaming, simply pulling her baby to the surface of the water. At this point, her naked, cherubic sons entered the bathroom and joined their parents in the tub. A happy, naked family, sitting in a tub--full of floaties.

H-band looked on with tears in his eyes. I was tearing up too, but for different reasons. I thought of parts of my body stretching beyond recognition. Of me, a beaten carcass with nipples.

"Next video," the doula said, "caring for a newborn." This video was much longer. It opened with an outline of topics that would be covered, including subtopics. Very thorough.

The couple hosting the video looked clean and well-kempt. I don't know if they are actual parents but I like to believe that they were. They seemed to have survived.

As we watched my commentary commenced. I began speaking to no one in particular.

During the diapering part: Are we set on cloth? No cloth? ... Three thousand changes in the first year!... whassat mean for me? At least one thousand...which end is the front?

During the feeding part: You hear that? No bottles until 4-6 weeks. We won't pump until, like, November...notice she's using pillows to prop the baby--why not use them with the Boppy? What's wrong with the Boppy? We can't use those newly upholstered ones...Look, the whole nipple. We have to make sure she latches properly...

During the bathing part: Look both of them are involved... we need two people for this, not just one. They're slippery. Very slippery...We'll have to coordinate ...

"Enough from the peanut gallery already," H-band said.

I have no idea what he's talking about. Clearly he is stressed about his new role. I keep my comments to myself. He just needs time.

BlogHer'10 Wrap-Up: The Premature Version

Every year I have a moment of decompression after a week spent pent up in a hotel--you see, BlogHer for me starts days before the actual event. There's going to be much more to process over the coming weeks from sponsors and attendees, but today, here's what I noticed as an attendee of BlogHer.

• If there's any place to be pregnant, it's BlogHer, (if you can make the trip to the event). People appreciate your plight: They direct you toward chairs, hand you things to eat, insist that you put your feet up. It's like having a thousand mothers checking in on you. I've never been a mom at BlogHer until now--I have always been one of the many non-moms. And while I have loved the amenities we've set up for moms, such as the lactation lounge, it wasn't until this year that I found myself lapping up the discussions with sponsors about BPA-free products, smart snacking options for kids, and educational toys.

• Regardless, you exhaust yourself. I built in time to relax and put my feet up, but my down time became more like catch up time. You find that you want to catch panels and see where folks got their s'mores and makeovers. I insisted to everyone I saw Saturday night that I was just "popping in" to the parties. But then, you know, you get to talking, then dancing, and then you are groaning in your hotel room because you dragged your eight-months-pregnant butt through an hour of eighties music, eaten taffy apples and various fried delights--not to mention screamed over music to talk to people, and hugged hundreds of folks while shlepping various T-shirts, business cards, and samples.

• You can only plan so much at BlogHer: I shared with our staff that while it makes sense to map out the sessions you want to attend and connect with the people you want to meet, it can be a Sisyphean effort attempting to control every minute of the experience.

Imagine a typical scenario: You are planning on meeting someone in front of the exhibitor hall. You've set the time and the place, but then, on your way, you run into someone you see every year at BlogHer. You insist on catching up for a few minutes, then try to compare schedules for when to meet later for more substantive conversation. Then, you realize that it makes sense to capture a bathroom break before a session lets out, and you are in a longer line than the one you've encountered. You check the former men's bathroom that has been converted, which has fewer people, and realize that you are washing hands next to someone you have been wanting to meet since you stumbled on her blog a year ago. You two chat. You navigate your way to the exhibitor hall and don't hear your cell phone or think to check your email or Twitter feed enroute because you bump into more blog buddies, missing your friend's message that she's running late, and would you be able to meet her in the Volt Recharge Lounge instead? Imagine this happening many, many more times.

• I continue to be amazed at the work women are doing with their blogs. Saturday morning's international panel got me thinking that blogging has not only allowed us to build businesses and connect with each other, it has enabled women with a line of access in raising awareness of their country's civic unrest. This is a big "no duh" when you see all that we've covered on BlogHer.com, and the many many activist blogs out there, but having some of these women sitting in front of me in a live setting, sharing stories of poverty, danger, and death, drove this home.

It certainly put into perspective the concept of "risk" we often talk about when referring to how much of ourselves we put out there on social media. Some of us fear losing face, some of us fear losing our jobs, and some of us fear losing our lives.

• We all publish for different reasons, just as we attend BlogHer for different reasons. Some may be more commercial than others, or more activist, or more personal. Some of us come for the parties, some for the sessions only, some to promote ourselves. But we all still have the squealing reflex when we see the people we read.

 

BlogHer '10: My first conference as a working mother

I was chatting with my BlogHer co-panelists last week about our panel: Where's the Line or the Lie: Storytelling, Memoir and Poetic License. I find that I often moderate these more personal-blogging-type sessions at BlogHer, because I started as an identity blogger. I have a natural affinity with those who put it all out there, even if that has not been my reality for five years, since BlogHer began.

I realized, hot damn, I have not posted to this blog in over a month. That's not very bloggy of me. And I and my colleagues will be running a conference built by and for bloggers. I find myself asking, Jory, WTF? Are you still an identity blogger? Do you still see life through the lens of what would make a compelling blog post? The truthful answer is, sometimes.

Sure I've been busy--everybody's busy. Though I must confess the recent disadvantage of pregnancy. I don't cram things in my day anymore, like a blog post or an extra call. I do what's directly in front of my face, get the immediate priorities done, and then call it a day. This has become a physical necessity, one I knew would manifest by my third trimester but chose to not think about...until I noticed things, like how breathless I get when I'm speaking, and how forgetful, and that it's been a month since my last post.

There's a lot of withheld information in my unwritten posts about women, work, and family making; I've thought about this in light of my BlogHer session. Before I was pregnant, I read voraciously about women raising kids and building careers. The only impediment to achieving in both realms, I thought, were others' preconceived notions about women and work--the assumption that once we procreate we're no longer interested in pursuing our careers.

Clearly that's not the case--I know too many women who have achieved even more post-children than pre. Some of the most prolific, and commercially successful, bloggers are full-time moms. While I can't explain why without having been there myself, I do believe it probably has something to do with an efficiency that develops among women who now have two jobs to do: There's no time for questioning your ability; both jobs simply have to get done. Kids need to have their lunches made, just as presentations need to be completed. There's less time to stew and wonder, could I have done that better? Was I less than perfect in that meeting? It's a strange luxury--not having the time to overthink, just to do.

I recall the first BlogHer, when I woke up at 5a.m., arrived at the TechMart at 6am to help post signage and prepare the registration line, and was sick with nerves. Though I was a blogger and can relate to the many pre-BlogHer posts I read by women with social anxieties, my concerns were hardly around who congregated with whom, or what bloggers might blow me off, but rather whether the food was coming out on time, if sponsors got what we promised them, if the sessions were useful. Connecting later with other women over drinks, or even in the hallway on their way to a session, was pure pleasure in comparison.

I realize now that my stress during BlogHer is the kind that lies in the eye of the storm, where anxiety is minimalized to the bare essentials. After BlogHer '05 I cared less about my blog traffic--even stopped monitoring it altogether--or whether I was included in top blogger lists. I was enveloped in a new purpose of creating a space for this community. The act of creation and nurturing something or someone other than yourself immunizes you from seeing the world as a pecking order, or as a series of parties you are not invited to, or as an old-boys network. These constructs melt away; paradoxically, there is less time AND fewer constraints. It's a place of re-invention.

Perhaps, since BlogHer is my "baby" this is not dissimilar to the situation of the working mother.

This year for me will be different. I have a new consideration that is purely physical. I won't likely be able to weather a day of not eating. I won't laugh off suggestions of taking a load off. I'm not concerned about making it to all of the parties, but rather whether I will have the energy to make it to A party. I will literally have to put my feet up at times over the next few days. Perhaps, from this standpoint, I will get to see the event from others' eyes.

But from my own it will be different because I have another job, if you will, that makes some of the rushing, the stressing, the performing a bit absurd. And it will be different because I will be in wonderment at those who have children already, or another baby--literal or figurative--in the making who attack this event like they do every thing else, with no second thoughts.