prologue

I found these writings from a year ago:

Everything else I have ever done, all the big important decisions, have been reversible. If you choose the wrong college or job, you quit or transfer. You can date a person for years before you decide to marry them. If it doesn’t work out, you can break up. This is different than all of those things. Its officially deciding to change everything about your whole life forever. How can anyone ever firmly decide that?

I said to EH, do you feel like you have to change anything about yourself before we do this? He says no. And I suddenly feel completely alone. I have a lot of things to change.

Get over fear of doctors. Stop drinking coffee and allowing stress to get to me. Have to learn to stop feeling sorry for myself. Have to stop being selfish. Have to sacrifice a flat stomach. Have to pretend I don’t care about sacrificing those things. Shamefully afraid I will loose the thinness i work so hard to keep after having been an overweight teenager.

The book asked what positive things comes to mind. Names. Watching language acquisition. That cool modern baby lounge chair. I only thought of 3 right away. The book said to think of 5.

I wonder if other women have a secret fear that their brain will turn to mush if they have a baby. Months and months of repeating this tight, stressful little cycle over and over day and night. Baby cries, figure out why, fix it, relax, repeat. Never a stretch of time to just sit and think. I desperately troll my little world for research subjects. I spend a whole day with my friend G the international tax lawyer and her 6 week old. I watch. I ask questions. Yeah, she’s still smart. But she’s a tax lawyer! I fear my intelligence is more fragile.

The book says “Eat right. Exercise.” Seriously? That’s all they have for me? No sh*t.