Feeling Ready to Have a Kid
Basically everyone we've told about my pregnancy has been congratulatory. A couple of people have asked if it was planned, wanting to get a read on our feelings about the situation before they offered congratulations.
When I told some of my friends from high school, one of them asked if we were nervous about becoming parents. I'm really glad she asked that because I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the answer was no.
E and I have been together for 13 years and married for almost 4 years. Throughout that time, we've talked a lot about when and if we wanted to have a kid. We were lucky and I got pregnant after just two months of trying, but we'd been talking seriously about our timeline for a year leading up to that. I got my IUD out in July 2020 (it was good for 5 years and that's how long I'd had it) and we used condoms for a year with the plan that if one broke and I accidentally got pregnant, we would be having a baby. So, that was us deciding we felt ready to accidentally have a kid.
In May 2021, after we got our first dose of COVID vaccine, we decided we would stop using condoms once we were fully vaccinated. And that's exactly what we did.
Over the past couple of years, E and I have talked about the pandemic and climate change and racial injustice and about how bringing a child into this world feels like an act of hope. We've talked about if we feel hopeful enough to have a kid... and I think 'enough' is probably the keyword there.
We've had less existential conversations about having a kid, too. E has a degree in child development and we both have multiple years worth of experience working with young children. We know that we like kids and we probably have more knowledge of how kids learn and grow than a lot of new parents do. We've also talked about our own experiences growing up - what we liked and didn't like about how we were parented, what we want to emulate and what we want to do differently.
I know parenting is going to be hard, but I think we're ready for the challenge. I'm grateful that we spent so many years thinking and talking and getting to this point. I'm grateful that I don't feel nervous about becoming a parent.
Of course, I don't assume I'll always feel good about this decision. I can imagine super pregnant third trimester days where I don't recognize my body and I wonder what we were thinking. I can imagine sleep deprived 'fourth' trimester days where I still don't recognize my body and the baby won't stop crying and I wonder what we were thinking. Maybe I'll look back on this newsletter and chuckle at naïve pre-kid Emma thinking she was "ready."
I'm pretty empathetic toward my past selves, though, so I bet I'll still feel grateful that we waited until we felt ready and made the decisions we did.
Alright, that's 10 issues since On / Off last cycled 'on,' which means it's time for a break from writing this newsletter. I'll be back with issue #53(!) on February 8th. Thanks, as always, for reading!