Former High-Powered Professional With a Proven Capability for Creating a New Human Who Cares Neither For Nor About Her Mother’s Career
Current Position: Hooked up to a breast pump while hate-scrolling through the Instagram feed of a beautiful pregnant woman whose nursery has a hashtag. Otherwise in a spit-up-stained glider, nursing while eating freezer-burned lactation cookies I was too impatient to defrost fully.
Education: A few pages from the scary hippie midwife book that I stopped reading at “orgasmic birth,” texts from mom friends, Google images of “hand, foot, and mouth disease.”
Industry: Koan-Making. “You’ll learn exactly what you need to know exactly when you need to know it!” and “It is what it is” are just a few examples of the learnings I’ve recently shared with friends. I’ve even written “Let it unfold” in dry-erase marker on the mirror, which is another example of the kind of wisdom I’m accruing in my new role as a citizen of limbo land, population what-feels-like-one, especially during 2 a.m. feedings.
Also, Lawn Care: I know exactly what shade of green the grass over there is and how I could get mine that way if only the fertilizer wasn’t toxic to infants.
Summary: I’ve been on maternity leave just long enough to feel completely disconnected from the industry I worked for more than a decade to distinguish myself within, yet not so long that I have any sort of rhythm or routine to my days at home. I was very eager for the baby to come, and now I’m eager to get back to work, but the few times I’ve looked at my email I get a pit in my stomach, so maybe I should stay home for longer, but then again I’ve looked at my watch twelve times in the last seventeen minutes, so maybe not!
Experience: Before baby, I held multiple impressive positions at glossy magazines, where I attended events wearing heels and “got stuck in a zillion meetings” and talked to adults all day long, sometimes while eating a salad someone had prepared for me according to my exact specifications.
Postpartum: I’ve held one baby for countless hours, barefoot. I’ve pivoted to new skill sets, including but not limited to: wiping liquid poop off the waving hand of an infant, keeping a smile plastered on my face as spit-up cascades down my shirt in front of company, washing my hair in under three minutes while playing peek-a-boo with a baby perched in a bouncer on the other side of the shower curtain, and facilitating the nourishment of another human being entirely on my own secretions.
Skills: Setting Up Amazon Subscribe & Save diaper deliveries, bouncing on a yoga ball while whisper-singing Shoop.
Interests: Babywearing, poop charts, finding a way to turn every minor decision into a referendum on my worth as a mother, wife, and writer.