motherhood

Finding Peace in the Smallness

Uncategorized

There’s an inspirational quote that has made the rounds in my social media networks:

“You are bigger than what is making you anxious.”

The statement is painted in vibrant red and orange stencils against aged brick facades and emblazoned across oversized coffee mugs in chic metallic script. It is an uplifting statement, designed to help those of us plagued with daily stress and anxiety to rise above the seemingly trivial triggers that undermine peace.

But there’s an adjacent philosophy that makes this all a bit tricky.

Women in particular are constantly being urged to take up space, to pull up a seat at the table, to speak loudly and unabashedly, and to make no apologies. Aggressively squash the imposter syndrome, and where you have very real knowledge gaps, fake it ‘til you make it. LIVE LARGE.

Undoubtedly, employing these mantras are necessary to revolt against the social conditioning that has pushed so many of us to shrink away from the spotlight, to be talked over, passed over, and marginalized. 

But then, here I am, seemingly an outlier of these social norms. I assert myself. I take up space. I speak up. I cozy up to “the table.” I make the tough calls. And I’m anxious, sad, angry, and stressed precisely because of the boisterous assets that are propelling me forward.

“Your bigness is what is making you anxious” is what my cover image should say. Forget the cheeky brick wall stencils – instead, Banksy should spray paint a woman with a big mouth and sleep-deprived blood shot eyes, painfully stretched across three chairs at the proverbial table.

In the words of the young people: It me.

And I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately. The anxiety runs deep, coursing through every vein of my practical, middle America suburban existence. The stakes feel tremendously high, and every decision I make – from what to order from Uber Eats to what my 3-year strategic plan looks like at work – weighs on my shoulders in equal proportion.

Yes, I’m a 21st century Rosie the Riveter, the portrait of modern femininity (ordered off Etsy from the #Empowerment category, packaged in a shiplap frame). Maneuvering middle management. Navigating the pressures of breadwinning. Mothering a pre-adolescent daughter who wears “Girl Power” buttons on her jacket and just started wearing deodorant – Dove deodorant, which, incidentally, is the leading consumer packaged goods brand in fourth-wave feminist marketing spend.

“You can’t know everything,” I explained to her little angelic type-A face after getting a tire patched up at a local auto parts store. That’s what I said to the condescending little twerp behind the counter after he asked me some stupidly specific question about my vehicle that he, as a subject matter expert on automobile parts, should absolutely know but instead chose to attempt to knock me down a few pegs for not knowing the answer.

“I can’t know everything, okay?” I lobbed back at him. “Look it up.”

But despite that momentary surge of defiance, I’m routinely beating myself up for not immediately landing on The Answer to Everything in every facet of my life. In my preoccupation with stomping out my imposter syndrome and faking it ‘til I make it, I’m incapable of asking for help or accepting support or admitting failure. And to support these deficiencies, I’ve built a personal “brand” of wisecracking self-deprecation. Though I’ll let you in on a little secret: it’s mostly just repressed anxiety masquerading as self-assurance.

It’s a mode of self-preservation.

And sometimes, it hurts.

When Anthony Bourdain died, a tidal wave of quotes surged through the 24-hour news cycle, Instagram and Twitter, and celebrity tributes. (We sure love our inspirational quotes, don’t we?) One quote in particular jumped out from my newsfeed and to this day, I can’t shake its resonance in my own life:

“The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn.

Maybe that’s enlightenment enough – to know that there is no final resting place of the mind, no moment of smug clarity.

Perhaps wisdom, at least for me, means realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go.”

Such calmness these words have brought to me. In a world where you’re being pushed to be big, you need the strength to accept how very small you actually are.

Smallness can be a comfort, alleviating the pressure to have all the answers and halting the grind on all cylinders. And, most importantly, smallness frees up space for others to sidle up next to you – whether at “the table,” at the bar on a lonely Sunday afternoon, or in your bed during a sleepless night – where the demons can be unrelenting until a familiar arm pulls you towards a heart that recognizes your own.

Her Pleasure Peaks at 10/9 CT

Uncategorized

Blood pulses through her veins, filling each and every one of her extremities with intoxicating warmth, as if every strip of sinew is dripping in thick molasses. Her muscles alternate between tension and relaxation as she’s enveloped in mind-numbing desire, almost to the point of seeing stars. She bites her lower lip and lets out a deep moan. Her spirit grabs onto this exhalation, finally escaping the chokehold of her body and freely dancing along the sparkling, infinite freeway of existential exploration.  

This is absolute pleasure.

This is self-actualization.

This is an ultra-plush microfiber blanket she found on clearance in the Nate Berkus Décor endcap at Target, and now it’s covering her body as she eats Triscuits on the couch, watching low-def Everybody Loves Raymond reruns on TV Land after a 10-hour work day and a 45-minute bedtime routine with the kids, who for some reason can never remember that they have to brush their teeth and put on pajamas literally every single night even though she’s been doing the exact routine with them for over ten years, which is also the same routine every other human being does before bed across seven continents – well probably just six, since she’s not sure climate researchers in Antarctica ritualistically change into PJs and floss every night like the rest of us do…well, maybe they do, because there’s probably comfort in consistency when you spend the rest of your day using data analytics to predict the planet’s inevitable demise, as well as fleeing from ravenous polar bears.

Ooohhhh yeah, baby. It doesn’t get any better than this. 

A Simple Mother’s Day Agenda

Mother's Day, Motherhood

To my beloved family on this blessed Mother’s Day:

Here is my proposed agenda for the day’s festivities. As you know, I am a simple woman who enjoys simple pleasures. I hope you find the following itinerary as lovely as I do.

First, even though it will be Sunday morning, I will still set my alarm for 6AM. I have no intention of rising at 6AM, but as you know, I derive great pleasure out of hitting snooze every 10 minutes while chaos slowly erupts around me. Dear son, please know that if you choose to drag that chair across my wood floors so you can climb to the top of the pantry and dump Grape Nuts all over the place, understand that you’ll have to eat it off the floor because Mommy will still be upstairs hitting snooze with her face buried in her pillow.

Now that breakfast is out of the way, I will roll out of bed and make my way downstairs. Dear husband, this is when you will comment on my natural beauty. Notice how my hair is both sticking straight up as well as matted flat against my drool-soaked cheek. That’s no accident. That’s how I keep things spicy.

Time for me to groom myself! I love a good at-home spa day. Some moms may exfoliate with a homemade sugar scrub or apply an organic conditioning mask to their hair. Not me. I’m just going to stand in the shower motionless under the scalding water for 35 minutes, because I can. I hope no one else will need to take a shower after me because at this point there will be no more hot water left. I love self-care!

At this point, I’ll feel refreshed. Time to slip into my Sunday best and hit the town! First I’ll need to pick out what I want to wear. Something floral for spring? Something with the shoulders cut out? I know! Something that says “I bought this dress online specifically for this occasion but I’ve never tried it on until just now.” Well, that was a huge mistake – now it’s time to cry on my bed. But don’t be alarmed. It’s just hormones. I’m 226 weeks post-partum.

Dear daughter, this will be your cue to bring me a mimosa. No, I don’t need OJ in it, and no, I don’t need a glass. Please stop asking Mommy all these questions.

After a couple “mimosas,” I’ll be ready to get back on the saddle. I can get back on the saddle because I decided to ditch the dress and just wear leggings as pants. And no one better say one word about how they’re not pants. They’re pants because I put my legs in them, end of story.

Time for brunch! I’ll order an egg white omelet with sliced tomatoes and a cup of fruit. “This is hardly any points,” I’ll announce to the table as I log my meal into my phone. “Weight Watchers is not a diet, it’s a lifestyle change,” I’ll continue, as I grab greasy handfuls of tater tots off the kids’ plates and stuff them in my mouth when no one’s looking.

“Hey, who ate all my tater tots,” they’ll cry. I realize there’s a lot more spontaneous crying in this itinerary than you may have anticipated, but why shouldn’t Mother’s Day be like every other holiday?

Once brunch is over, it will be the perfect time to take in the spring air with a long stroll around town. It was a long winter and it will be so nice to just walk around, window shop, and enjoy the simplicity of the moment.

Kids, this is when your legs stop working and you have to go to the bathroom. No, dear husband, I didn’t remember to pack the stroller, I thought we were past that. Please just lug him back to the car and I’ll take her to the most disgusting store restroom possible, where every surface is wet for some reason.

Okay, now everyone’s crying. Let’s just go home and take a nap.

You’ll all fall asleep immediately but it will take me a good 50 to 60 minutes to doze off because the act of relaxation will give me a severe guilt complex, the result of centuries of oppressive gender norms. Rejuvenating!

When we wake up a few hours later, it’ll be dark out and the day will almost be over.

Kids, this is when you’ll remember that you have Mother’s Day projects from school hidden in the downstairs closet. You’ll run to get them. They’ll be covered with construction paper hearts, dried glue, and shaky little letters spelling your names.

You’ll tell me you love me and I’m the best mom ever. I’ll cry some more.

I’ll go to bed that night happy, my heart full.

And before drifting to sleep, I’ll set my alarm. For 6AM.

Desperately Seeking Solidarity

Motherhood, Parenthood, Uncategorized

As performed live on December 11 at Christ Church of Oak Brook, IL, as part of the “Advent: Questions of Christmas” series. Inspired by Luke 1:39-45, aka the story of Mary visiting Elizabeth.

I had my first child when I was 25. I was not ready. Now, I know what some of you are thinking, “No one’s REALLY ready to have a baby.” Well, believe me when I tell you, I was REALLY not ready. Just earlier that year, I had accidentally brushed my teeth with the same toothbrush I used to clean the shower grout. 

So there I was at 25, thrust from my life as a fuzzy-brained 20-something to a fuzzy-brained mother. 

One thing I quickly learned as a first-time mom is that EVERYONE is invested in other people’s parenting choices. Everyone has a position on everything – parents, in-laws, grandparents, friends, strangers on the internet, strangers in the Target checkout line. In my case, the well-intended suggestions quickly produced the inverse effect. I fell head-first down the rabbit hole of self-doubt and fear, another victim of public opinion. “You’re doing it wrong, you’re doing it wrong” I would repeat to myself. I knew I was doing it wrong because “they” told me so. 

At 25, holding the little baby I was trying really hard not to break.

On a rather frigid day, the baby and I made the brave trek to the mall. As we maneuvered around the pretty handbags, I started to feel like myself again. “How old is she?” a saleswoman asked as she peered into the stroller. “Six weeks,” I replied proudly as I looked at her rosy little face.  

“You know, you’re not supposed to take the baby out into public before eight weeks,” she said, snidely. “She could get sick.” 

You’re doing it wrong, you’re doing it wrong. The chant of disapproval roared through my head as I escaped the counter and rushed to the women’s restroom. My daughter could always sense my sadness and she began to cry. I frantically nursed her, my own hot tears dropping down onto her soft little head. 

Moments later, another young mother clumsily pushed her stroller into the lounge and plopped down on the opposite bench. As she lifted her screaming baby out of the mound of blankets, our eyes met. We exchanged strained smiles. “This is like, the third time I’ve had to nurse him since I’ve been here,” she said. “Why don’t we get their metabolism?” 

I let out a cackle. The joke was pretty weak but to me in that moment, she might as well have been Steve Martin. 

“How old is your baby?” she asked. 

“She’s six weeks,” I replied, timidly. 

“Wow, six weeks?” she replied.

I braced for the condemnation that would never come. 

“That’s awesome. I bet she’s going to be super well-behaved when she’s older,” she said as she stuck a pacifier in her baby’s mouth and tucked him back into the stroller. “You’re doing a great job.” 

You’re doing a great job. You’re doing a great job. It repeated in my head over and over again, effectively muting the ugly naysaying that had invaded that space for weeks.

“Thank you,” I managed to call out as she backed out of the room. 

She didn’t hear me, but her words stayed in my head. They helped carry me through the coldest winter I can remember. 

That little baby of mine is now eight years old and I’ve since had another child. All my friends are just now starting to have children, making me the old veteran. Some days I feel the urge to dispense sage advice but the memory of that woman always gives me pause, reminding me of the power of a few simple words of encouragement. Of a gentle joke. And of a warm smile. 

As we reflect on the story of Mary and Elizabeth, two women carrying the load of unthinkable pressure and responsibility, may we recognize the impact of their humility as they shared in that experience so long ago. Empathy and solidarity really do have the power to change lives, whether in Judea 2,000 years ago, or eight years ago in a department store bathroom.

You can view the companion sermon, “Why Am I So Favored?” from the fabulous Tracey Bianchi here. 

Fear and Loathing in Parenthood

Adulthood, Childbirth, Mother's Day, Motherhood, Parenthood, Uncategorized, Working Mom

Once, during a meeting at work, my manager was assessing potential cross-training opportunities across the team. Did we all know how to process purchase orders? Fill out a creative brief? Change the toner in the printer? “After all,” he said. “One of us could get hit by a bus tomorrow.” The team nodded in agreement. “Right,” I chimed in. “I mean, have you seen the way these bus drivers push their way through traffic and run all the yellow lights? Sooner or later someone is going to get smashed.” The rest of the team just blinked at me. Perhaps it had never occurred to them that death is imminent. Perhaps they never really considered their mortality. But the truth was that my boss was right. By dusk, half of us could have been swept up into the heavens by The Rapture and then what? That toner was not going to change itself. 

I’ve always had a slightly heightened awareness of potential disaster compared to my peers. Fear of severe weather, knife wielding cat burglars, and clowns crept into my psyche at night. (Their smiles are painted on, I once explained to my parents. PAINTED ON.) But the fears of my youth could not match what I experienced once I became a mother. Not coincidentally, those blinking co-workers were nearly all childfree and therefore ready to seize any chance to ski down a mountain, dive out of a plane, or ride an evil rickshaw of doom (i.e., rollercoaster). I used to love riding rollercoasters. I used to enjoy the feeling of taking off and landing in a 757. I used to ride the elevator without reading the legally-required maintenance report posted above the buttons. But that was back when I didn’t have two little children at home. Things are different now. I thought about this seismic shift as I considered about what I should write about for Mother’s Day. I thought about all the ways that parenthood has changed me. What struck me initially were the typical parenting themes we always talk about – joy, exhaustion, pride, self-doubt. But what about real fear? This anxiety I’m talking about is the kind that makes you keenly aware of every bump of turbulence, every rattle of the elevator walls, and generates all those extra seconds of added hesitation before you pull into an intersection. It’s the fear of death. Of your own death, your partner’s death, or, God forbid, the death of your children. I don’t know if this is all just my own issues or if the fear comes standard for everyone who has ever had a baby. What I do know is that we don’t talk about it very much. And I feel it every day, when I’m kissing my kids goodbye in the morning or when I’m reading about a tragedy in the news at night.

 When it comes down to it, what really scares me is that no matter how much I try to make smart choices on behalf of my children and try to control their environment, I know that absolute control is an illusion. I can’t control physics. I can’t control whether a gunman enters the movie theater or if a trucker falls asleep at the wheel as he barrels down the interstate. I can’t control the weather and I can’t control homicidal cat burglars in the middle of the night.

 The only thing I can control is how many times I say “I love you” to my kids when we’re together. I can control the amount of patience I exhibit after a stressful work day and a disastrous attempt at a bedtime routine. I can control the example that I set for them in my marriage and in the way I interact with strangers on the street. I can control the way I talk about my faith, dreams, and values — and how I pass those things down to them.

 Because yes, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow and then the only thing that will matter will be the type of person I was today.

 And that’s what scares me the most.

Early Dismissal

Mother's Day, Motherhood, Uncategorized, Working Mom

As performed live by Rachel Pokay at Listen to Your Mother in Chicago on May 1, 2016. And yes, this really happened. 

On a particularly hectic Thursday afternoon at my marketing job, I sat in my ergonomic swivel chair, barking corporate jargon into a phone headset so hot from overuse that my left ear was actually burning. I was leading a project so convoluted and mind-numbing that I was having nightmares about it almost every night. The call ended with me committing to an impossible deadline, as usual, and I began to prep myself for another long evening.

As I stretched my arms and guzzled the last of my extra-large coffee, I could hear my phone buzzing in my purse. It had been going off repeatedly for the last 30 minutes, but up to this point, I had successfully ignored it.  But, like a hungry baby, my iPhone would not be ignored. It buzzed so persistently that I was finally forced to acknowledge it. Then, I saw the notification that no parent wants to see – three missed calls from my daughter’s school.

Dozens of very rational scenarios raced through my head: Scarlett fever! No, Jihadi insurgents! No, a freak winter snow tornado! As I flipped through my mental rolodex of neurosis, the phone rang again. I picked it up on the first ring and yelled into the receiver: “THIS IS RACHEL, IS THIS EVA’S SCHOOL?”  I am not cool in a crisis.  “Hi, this is Eva’s school. Today was early dismissal and no one was there to get her at the bus stop. She is here in the office waiting to be picked up. But don’t worry, everything’s okay.”

“LIAR!” I wanted to scream. Everything was NOT okay. While I was busy committing to work I couldn’t deliver on, my little 7-year-old daughter was sitting alone on an office bench, wondering why everyone forgot about her. I was failing, like those stone cold working mom caricatures on TV. You know the ones – running around Manhattan in kitten heels, wheeling and dealing while Little Timmy sings a sad solo at the Christmas pageant.  

And then, something happened. I started to cry. And I don’t mean soft, delicate tears. I’m talking ugly, snot-nosed, donkey-in-a-steel-trap sobs. It came on embarrassingly strong, without warning. A male colleague peered curiously at me as he casually strolled by, wearing a Bluetooth earpiece and holding a cup of microwavable ramen. “GET BENT!” I wanted to yell at his dumb face and his dumb soup. His delicious, warm, savory soup. Dammit, not only had I forgotten my daughter, I had forgotten to eat lunch.  The sobs deepened.

Ramen

And then, another thing happened. I peed myself. Not only had I forgotten my daughter and my lunch break, I had also forgotten to go to the bathroom all day. And, after two babies, one episiotomy, and zero Kegel exercises, my entire pelvic region is basically a big, broken water balloon. I was crying so hard I was peeing, and as a result I found myself standing in the middle of an office I had worked so hard for, soaked in urine, wet mascara, and crippling guilt.

water balloon

For a moment, I considered whether Sheryl Sandberg’s kids were ever deserted at the bus stop. Of course not. Sheryl Sandberg’s kids don’t even take public transportation! They travel by way of Google-powered space unicorns or something. Eventually I composed myself, arranged for my husband to pick her up, and I headed home. As I sat in traffic, ready for a glass of wine and a change of clothes, my mind was flooded with every think piece about working moms that had ever been written:

“They’re only young once, you can pick up your career later.”

And

“Don’t take your foot off the gas! If you take a break from work, you’ll never get that momentum back.”

And

“Don’t cry in the office, it makes you look emotionally volatile.”

And

“Don’t pee on yourself in public.”

But most of all, I thought about my daughter. I envisioned her crestfallen face as she pulled up to the corner and saw nobody there. Was it just a harmless mistake? Or something worse that I won’t realize until she’s 25 and in therapy?

As I pulled into the driveway, I saw her silhouette dancing around in the living room. As I came through the front door, she smothered me with hugs. I crouched down and said “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you this afternoon.” Our eyes locked and I searched for signs of repressed trauma and resentment. Instead, they brightened as she wrapped her arms around my neck.

“That’s okay, Mommy. You’re here now.”

In my bag, I heard my work phone buzzing. But this time, I happily ignored its call. Everything I needed to know at that moment had already been said.  

Eva Rachel dismissal

Not for a Million Trips to Rome

Childbirth, Mother's Day, Motherhood, Parenthood

When I was a kid, I didn’t dream about being a mom. I didn’t reject the idea, but I didn’t fantasize about it either. Instead, around the age of 4, once the concept of motherhood was introduced to me as a biological inevitability, I decided that I would have a girl named Karen. She would have curly chestnut hair and cause me to sigh with exasperation regularly, just like my mom did with me, and her mom probably did with her. Once I was satisfied with these basic requirements, I pushed the idea of motherhood to the deep recesses of my mind, and never really explored it again until my 7th grade class watched that graphic Miracle of Life video. Man, Karen better thank me every day for going through that for her, I thought to myself. Though I wasn’t fantasizing about motherhood in and of itself, maternal guilt always kind of worked for me.

I always thought I’d have kids well into my 30s, after climbing the ranks to middle management and purchasing a Volvo. I plotted out adulthood in accordance with the 21st Century WASP Handbook, which stresses that any proper American Yuppie should have later-in-life babies, swaddled in the colors of their mom’s post-graduate alma mater, nestled in a $900 stroller, sucking on a cheeky mustache pacifier. This was how I was going to do it, and it was going to be perfect.

Then 2008 happened. I had my daughter Eva (sorry, Karen) four days before my 25th birthday. I was an account coordinator at a marketing agency and the only management experience I had was managing not to have a nervous breakdown when I got critical feedback on my mid-year review. Sheryl Sandberg had not yet written Lean In, so we Millennial women didn’t know how to wield our hormones for good yet. After the delivery, I came home to a tiny little apartment stacked high with baby gifts and diapers. The floor was littered with congratulatory cards, all reminding me of what a blessing this baby was – but my own insecurities interpreted these well-wishes as “Yeesh! God gave you a human. This is really important, Rachel. Try not to screw up.”  The first night home from the hospital, I sat on the floor with my little girl and bawled my eyes out, overwhelmed by this task. My breasts, a precious commodity in the Year of Joan Holloway, had suddenly become painfully engorged mammary glands in dire need of a tire pressure gauge.  I felt like a barrel of tar had been dumped on my head and I couldn’t find my way up for air.

I looked down at my newborn child, who up to that point had been reclining peacefully in my arms, and noticed her little lips start to curl, her eyebrows furrowing. She began to cry, her little whimpers matching the rhythmic shakes of my distressed body. Oh no, I was upsetting her! I stopped crying and started to rock her, soothing her with gentle shushing that sounded so foreign to my ears. I, the girl with the lifelong aversion to hugs and tender words, was cooing. And it was working. Her tiny little fingers squeezed my finger as she let out a soft gurgle and fell back asleep. Old Rachel would have written off that finger squeeze as an involuntary reflex. New Rachel, who was born that night on the floor of that little double flat apartment, knew it was an ethereal validation of those congratulatory cards. She was a blessing. She was from God. And I better not screw it up.

For a while after she was born, I went through the typical pangs of social separation. My circle of friends shrunk as my to-do list inflated. I romanticized the lives of my childfree friends. I often recall the scene in When Harry Met Sally in which Sally talks about how lucky she thought she and her boyfriend Joe were compared to their married friends with kids – they could have sex on the kitchen floor without fear of the kids walking in, and could fly off to Rome on a moment’s notice. “But, the thing is, we never do fly off to Rome on a moment’s notice,” Sally says. And they never once had sex on the kitchen floor – “very cold, hard Mexican ceramic tile.” I knew that most of my friends were not actually flying off to Europe and were probably not having kitchen sex. But at least they had the option. And those options they seemingly had – that I didn’t – stirred up deep resentment that took me a long time to shed.

But then Eva started to blossom into this amazing little girl with a strong opinion, a penchant for impromptu dance parties, and Saturday afternoon shopping sprees with her doting mom.  We started to enjoy trips to Trader Joes, have endearing conversations in the car while sitting in traffic, and routinely belted out Annie tunes during bath time. I still occasionally craved happy hour at Sushi Samba, but came to terms with the fact that it just wasn’t in the cards for me anymore. They don’t do enough Broadway sing-alongs anyway.

There is the elusive work-life balance I still have to contend with. I have always been very career-driven, and because of that, many days I feel overextended. If I’m not filling every hour of my day with some sort of deliverable, whether it’s a corporate project or a personal writing assignment, I feel like I’m not hitting the mark. But it is Eva, not some cliché, jargon-filled LinkedIn post, who really teaches me about the right balance. I will struggle with an impossible work deadline, slamming my laptop around at night with frustration, and she’ll pat me on the back and say things like “You know what would make this better, Mommy? If you would buy me some ice cream.” Those earnest little eyes melt away the frustration and put a lot of my adult hang-ups into perspective. Guess what? Buying a little girl ice cream on a balmy Tuesday night DOES actually make things better. The next morning at the office, that previous night’s fire drill would be less urgent for some bureaucratic reason, and I’ll be so glad I chose to go buy an ice cream cone instead of hitting send on the angry, ill-advised reply all email I had drafted.

Having Eva never hurt my career –it has actually helped it. I’ve been so hell-bent on teaching her the tenants of female empowerment: setting boundaries, being confident and unapologetic.  I knew I’d be a fraud if I didn’t put those principals into practice in my own life, so every day at my desk, I look at her photo and attempt to be the woman I want her to admire and emulate as she grows up.

A few years after I had Eva, I dusted off the old WASP Handbook and saw that any proper American Yuppie should ensure their bloodline has both a girl and a boy – one to birth more WASP babies, and the other to carry on the family name. So, in 2013, I gave birth to our son, Ike. When we came home from the hospital, I was in a much better place. I had all the supplies I needed, my breasts were already a lost cause, and I knew for a fact that most of my now-married friends were peeing on ovulation strips as foreplay, so overall, the resentment factor was low. But it was still hard.

Ike is a wild child – a stunt devil who likes to nosedive off the side of the couch and drag his unsuspecting sister with him on the way down. He doesn’t nap. He has a passion for running into traffic. Unlike Eva, who was a master at diffusing my stress, he likes to ramp it up for the fun of it. But he’s also keen on attaching himself to me like a baby koala, stroking my hair in the dark as I rock him to sleep. He’ll throw a bowl of Cheerios on the floor and maniacally stomp the pieces into oblivion, but then, like Oliver Twist, he’ll sweetly hold up his bowl and say, “Mama. Mo’?” and my anger dissolves. You just can’t get mad at a kid with a speech impediment, so that’s how life goes now.

At the end of the day, despite what you might assume from the never ending online battle of the mommy martyrs (who has it worse – working moms? Stay-at-home moms? Armless, colorblind moms living in twig huts in the remote Alps?), I think a lot of moms wouldn’t change a thing. If I got rid of the exhaustion, the stress, and the Cheerios crumbs, then I’d also have to let go of the bear hugs, the joyful “watch me, Mommy!” exclamations, the nighttime ice cream runs, and the Annie sing-alongs. While it’s not the life I could have ever planned, it’s also not the life I’d ever trade. Not for a million spontaneous trips to Rome.

Mom Eva Ike

This Baby Has a Pencil for a Head

Childbirth, Parenthood

The day my daughter was born was a surreal one. I was admitted to labor and delivery at 6 cm dilated, which, for those unfamiliar with the mechanics of the cervix, is too large to not be horrifying, but also way too small to accommodate a child’s shoulders (also horrifying). Actually, the cervix is almost always an alarming discussion point. Unless it’s enlarging or there’s something wrong with it, it’s an unmentionable.

I, like every other woman ready to push forth the miracle of life, was placed in a rolling bed and a very ugly hospital gown. It had just the right amount of floral print to say “I am a lovely lady” but also just enough easy-access ties in the front and back to say “I’ve lost ownership of my dignity, so by all means, bring in all of your resident obstetric students to collaboratively insert that catheter into my urethra under the blinding light of these overhead lamps.” This is why you see so many middle aged mom types brazenly walking around naked in the YMCA locker rooms. It’s not because of those Dove body-acceptance commercials. It’s because they’ve already sat spread eagle in a hospital room, f-bombing their way through vaginal birth, all grunty, sweaty, and double chinned, chomping on ice chips like a cow in heat.

I lost count of the hours between my initial admission to the labor unit and the actual birth, but I would guess about 10 hours. Ten hours of talking to my family, friends, and random medical professionals between waves of pain and pressure, gracefully easing into this now chapter of my life with poignant observations like “MY VAGINA IS GOING TO BREAK, ISN’T IT?!” and “IS THIS GOING TO HURT SO BAD, IT IS ISN’T IT, YOU CAN TELL ME THE TRUTH, IT’S GOING TO BE OKAY, RIGHT?” and “WHAT IN GOD’S NAME HAVE I DONE.” I think the nurses were glad when the anesthesiologist came in with the premium drugs, thinking I’d shut up once I was drugged up. Well, clearly none of them had ever done whiskey shots with me or they’d know that Rachel Under the Influence can’t get enough of the sound of her own voice and prefers words with a three-syllable minimum. There’s nothing more fun than being forced to hang around a partially dilated know-it-all who is slurring big words like “bowel obstruction” and “rectal floor pressure.”

Speaking of rectal floor pressure, when it was time to push, I sobered up pretty quickly. That’s a pro tip for all you bar flies who need a quick way to sober up at closing time: imagine the effect that a triple dose of Imodium would have on a seven pound pork roast lodged in your nether regions. You’ll be the designated driver in no time.

The act of pushing out a baby is highly calculated activity. You can’t just clench your pelvis all willy-nilly – you have to “bear down” at the right point during any single contraction. For people like me who experience stifling anxiety related to precision – e.g. Jack in the Box popping up on that one specific note of “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush,” runners pushing off the block exactly when the gun goes off, knowing my “Pick 2” combination exactly when the Panera Bread cashier calls me to the counter – getting the exact push time down was extremely nerve-racking.

DOCTOR: Okay, Rachel. We’re going start the pushing in a minute.

RACHEL: Now?

DOCTOR: No, not yet. As soon as the contraction starts.

RACHEL: Now?

DOCTOR: No, not yet. Wait for the contraction.

RACHEL: Now?

DOCTOR: Not yet…

RACHEL: (exhales) Okay.

DOCTOR: Now! Go! PUSH PUSH PUSH!

RACHEL: WAIT, WHAT? HOLD ON!

DOCTOR: Okay, you missed it.

RACHEL: (sobs)

This process went on for about two hours before my daughter started to “crown.” When you go to Lamaze class, birth education insiders like to call this phase the “Ring of Fire.” Because that aforementioned cervix? It didn’t get much bigger than it was 10 hours prior, but it’s still expected to do the job of three cervices. And man, does it burn, burn, burn. So as I’m lying there, pushing a turkey through a garden hose, I look at my husband, who looks like he’s on that psychedelic boat ride in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, surrounded by flashing images of millipedes and birds pecking at road kill. I’ve never seen someone look so horrified.

And that’s when the kindly nurse asks me if I want a mirror positioned at the foot of my bed and “watch it all happen.” You know, so I can also jump on the freaky Willy Wonka boat ride too. Take it from me, ladies. You do not want that mirror. DON’T OPT FOR THE MIRROR. There’s a reason OB-GYNs make millions of dollars (probably). Therapy dollars.

So what has amounted to a painful ten hour acid trip is now the moment of truth: “Here she comes!” Twenty five years of my life, culminating to what feels like 600 tons of metric pressure collecting in my lady parts. Twenty five years of living for myself, of freedom and flexibility and naps and quiet evenings reading magazines at Barnes & Noble, all about to flutter away into the night’s sky with ONE. MORE. PUSH.

Out she flew, like a glorious, screaming trout being yanked out of the murky depths. And just like in the movies, the scene turned to black and white, Loggins and Messina’s “Danny’s Song” started to play, and together we embraced our soft little Gerber Baby, tears of gratitude streaming down our cheeks.

OR,

“Her head is shaped like a pencil!” my husband cried out. (Turkeys that are pushed through garden hoses tend to have temporarily cone-shaped skulls.)

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“She has no thumbs!” my husband cried out, but only in his head this time, thank God. (She was clenching her fists. She had both thumbs.)

“You cut what?!” I cried out as my doctor stitched me up. Episiotomy. Look it up if you want to hate yourself.

The first night after you deliver your baby is confusing. You fall into deep, deep sleep and temporarily forget that you’re now a mom. I would drift into my normal dreams, weaving through lucid, baby-less plot lines. And then nurse would enter that dark room at 2 AM, holding a little baby that needed my body for sustenance and I’d jolt awake, so confused every single time. It’s a bizarre new chapter, and those first few nights really threw me for a loop.

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Still, the quiet calm of the maternity unit was so comforting. The rhythmic beeps of the monitors, the hushed voices of the attendants who would bring me breakfast in bed and tell me that I was glowing (it’s called sweating ten pints of residual fluid, but okay). Watching my husband sleep uncomfortably on a bedside cot, paying the price for impregnating me and ultimately being the reason I got an episiotomy. It was a rare moment of peace in the chaotic new reality of parenthood. If I could get all drugged up and get bedside eggs without having to deal with the vaginal stuff, I’d do this gig every year.

And that, kids, is why booze, breakfast in bed, and no sex is now a Mother’s Day tradition.

Illustrations by Kelly Riker