“Meag” or “Mom?”

 When a woman finds out she’s pregnant, there is no limit to the number of different feelings that she can experience.  They run the gamut from excitement to panic. I hate to admit this but when I first found out I was pregnant, one of my first emotions was actually sadness.  I was sad because honestly, I didn’t really want my life to change.  Andy and I had a great life! Andy and I had met in 2003, moved in together in 2004 and got married in 2007.  By 2012, we had “us” figured out.  And it was awesome.

Me and Andy in Salzburg Dec 2011

"Pre-Tess"

The realization that we were going to have a baby meant everything was going to change.  Of course we would continue to love each other, but now we were not only going to be “Meag and Andy” but “Mom and Dad.” Our social lives and bank accounts would be vastly different. I had only finished my PhD the year before, was (and am still) mostly clueless about what I wanted to do with my degree and hadn’t even had a chance to start building a career for myself yet.  I wasn’t sure if I was ready to say goodbye to our lives as we knew them.  

Eventually, my excitement about being pregnant really made a lot of those thoughts get pushed to the back of my mind, and then actually having Tess here has been so fun and incredible I couldn’t be happier.  As much as I was scared to lose my old life, I couldn’t be more excited about my new life.  Looking at Tess’ sweet face as she nurses, hearing her little “coo” sounds, seeing her smile, watching her little hands learn to make a fist and grip your finger, watching her learn and develop at this insanely rapid pace… I never realized how amazing those things would be.  I never thought I could love being a mom SO much.

Me and my girl.

I love being a mom, but I have also loved being Meag for 30 years.  I want to maintain my identity and simply add this new role to who I have always been.  I do not want Andy and I to forget our old selves or our old life. It’s difficult, especially in these early days.  When we first brought Tess home we brought her out with us a bit, to grab a beer or to meet a group of friends, and that felt great.  OK our pub visits involved having 1 beer - maybe 2 – rather than the marathon all night sessions we used to have, but we were maintaining a social life despite having a newborn! 

Our girl was quite the bar fly in her early days!

Then Brian Williams and George Stephanopolous started making me feel like it was 1918 with their talk of the flu epidemic all over the news, and I panicked. We went on lockdown and stopped taking Tess out. When we had to take her to the pediatrician for a weight check, I refused to even sit in the “well patient” waiting room. I insisted Andy wait inside while I sat in the car with her until we were called. We were also invited to a neighbor’s house for brunch with some other friends – since there were going to be a couple of other kiddos there we had to turn down the invite.  It sucked! I know, I’m totally crazy and paranoid.  But I just can’t take the chance of her getting the flu at this age! We like to go out for walks, weather permitting, but otherwise we are being hermits until March.

Tess looooves being in the Baby Bjorn for a walk.

This is SUPER hard for us since we are both very social people.  I went to a baby shower a couple weeks back that was the most exciting thing to happen to my social calendar this season! There was a time not so long ago when a baby shower would have not have been my cup of tea, but now I love babies and baby stuff and talking babies so damn much, it was awesome. But since we can’t go out with Tess, and we don’t have babysitters to help us out with date nights, we were struggling to find a way to keep any semblance of our old life going at all. 

The thing we have started trying to do then is cook dinner for ourselves every night. Andy and I LOVE to cook and have always enjoyed putting together elaborate meals.  For my birthday 2 years ago, for example, we cooked a 10 course meal for 14 of our closest friends.  It was insane and awesome.  Cooking and enjoying good food has always been an important part of our marriage.  In fact, before meeting Andy I could barely boil an egg.  He taught me how to cook, and now its probably my favorite thing to do.

Table settings for 16.

One of the courses. Lobster ravioli.

 

Palate cleanser - lemon sorbet. 

We even made that ourselves from fresh squeezed lemon.

Our peeps enjoying their meal.

And, yes, Andy is wearing tails. We fancy!

At first it was impossible for me to try to figure out how to take care of Tess and make dinner, but we were lucky enough to have some incredible friends who brought us dinner every night right after Tess was born. That was amazing!  Since then, we have had to figure out how to do that for ourselves again.  I am following the recommendations of this book “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby” where they recommend at least one nap in the morning, one in the afternoon and an early bedtime.  When Tess is taking her naps, I go in the kitchen and whip something up for dinner.  The key to making this work is doing a slow cook meal.  Having a meal I can start when I have a free moment and let cook until 6 or 7 or whenever we want to eat is crucial.  The crockpot is getting used a lot, curries are also on the menu at least once a week.  Anything I can leave in the oven, on the stove or best of all – in the crockpot.

One night's dinner. 

Soup - mushrooms, kale, orange bell peppers, chicken.

It might seem silly that something as simple as sitting down to a home cooked meal is so important to us, but it really is.  We knew we needed to figure something out after a couple nights of Andy leaving work at 7 or later and stopping to pick up Chinese and another night even… WENDY’S! ACK! I hate to even admit it… But I would go crazy and never drop the last of my pregnancy weight if we continued to do that shit.  So I started thinking ahead, and that has made all the difference in putting together nightly meals.

"Enough with the photos, mom!"

Of course, cooking some of the meals I used to spend hours preparing while we chatted and drank wine is largely a thing of the past, at least for now.  Although, Saturday I did make pasta from scratch since Andy was here - NOT writing a grant - and was hanging with Tess.  During the week I have maybe an hour to put something together while Tess is having a nap.  But it is still possible to have a delicious healthy home cooked meal even with an 8 week old!  It just requires a bit more planning, and it doesn’t have to take much time at all. 

Pasta!

Peacefully napping in her swing while I cook.

We now put Tess to sleep at 7pm and eat with our video monitor going so we can keep an eye on her.  If we want to eat earlier, we’ll just stick her in the baby swing while we eat.  We are enjoying it so much - it is so important for our state of mind and our marriage.  Maybe cooking isn’t your thing, but whatever is… I think its important to try to keep doing it whenever you can once you have a baby so you can remember who you were pre-parent!  It is for me at least.

Tess playing with her toys.