Discovering Normal
In the last weeks of my pregnancy, I wanted one thing: to find my new normal. It wasn’t about holding my son in my arms and finally seeing if he got my husband’s nose or my own… I couldn’t wait for life to be shaken into the new rhythms and patterns of a family of three, five if you count the dogs.
I’m a work from home entrepreneur – with a business I love. I’m not naïve. I knew that work – that life – would look very different. But I was hungry for the new patterns of work and naps and feedings. I’ve never had a corporate job so I wasn’t missing maternity leave. And the business just isn’t something I could put down, or even automate, and step back into weeks or months later. But I’ve worked from home for years – through all manner of chaos and upheaval – and I know two things are true:
- You’ve got to do whatever it takes to get the job done – nights, early mornings, working from uncomfortable situations like the laptop in a hot closet.
- No amount of chaos lasts forever.
And even in the throws of chaos, a rhythm or pattern will emerge.
Bringing forth my son would be no different. A new normal would be created. I also understood that this normal would be flexible and changeable as he grew from newborn into infant into toddler and as I grew as a wife, mom, and business woman.
I had no illusions of being super mom. My husband cooks most nights (happily and to amazing results), laundry is normally clean but rarely folded, and dishes are done when I run out of tea spoons. I figured Ben would step up for housework (he has) and that we’d all find an acceptable level of house-work-related-chaos together.
In the last weeks of the pregnancy, NORMAL was all I could talk about. Think about.
I’m sure it alarmed some people that I was more interested in the new routine than I was in the baby himself. That wasn’t at all the truth – but I can see how it seemed that way!
(And hotdogs. I spent a lot of time talking about the hotdogs I’d eat after the birth, when deli meats and the worry of a sausage-induced infection were no longer a concern!)