Author: Joules

I posted on Facebook last night about my frustration with those relationships where I do 95% of the work. This isn’t something new that descended on my life with the birth of our baby, but something that has been happening slowly over time.

As a “Type A” kinda girl, I usually don’t mind being the one that takes the initiative to make plans. I’ll shoot out an email or call up my peeps* and plan for a dinner or happy hour or whatnot. People show up, we hang out and everyone is happy.  Then, I do it all again. It’s worked for me – I have lots of fun stuff to look forward to on my calendar and I get to see my friends.

But then something happened and I started to get annoyed that I was the one that always had to instigate the plans. Maybe it was the fact that I was getting busier with taking on a large nonprofit project, starting a new job, moving, etc. All that random life stuff that takes up time and brainpower. Maybe I had just reached my threshold of putting up with BS. Either way, I was starting to get annoyed.

But I was busy, so I continued on with life as I knew it. Reaching out and making plans to see everyone before the baby was born.

Then Jack came and I pretty much unplugged from life for a while. Some of my friends and family were so awesome and supportive and all that great stuff.  Others let me know that they were there for me and gave me space to do what I needed to do. All of that was wonderful and dandy.

Those people who were just chilling on the edges of my life waiting for me to make the plans?

Yeah, never heard from any of them. Now, it’s possible that they’re just giving me space and will check in when things are back to normal. Of course, I’m not really sure what my new normal is now. I’m guessing that this up most of the night and staring at my baby each day will be normal for a while.

The difference is that I no longer feel the need to force the friendships to continue. I have an awesome life with an amazing husband, sweet dog, and cute and snuggly baby. I love spending time with my mom, dad, brother and sisters. My husband’s family rocks. I have some incredibly sweet, generous, caring and hilarious friends in my life. My coworkers are also surprisingly great.

And you know what, that’s enough.

I’m not closing and locking the door on those friends that faded out of my life. But I’m certainly not looking longingly out the window waiting for them to arrive either.

So my suggestion to you is the look at the relationships in your life – whether they be friendships or relationships in business. If you have one that is way more “take, take, take” instead of “give, take, give, take” – back off a little. If that makes you feel better, back off a little more.

Aren’t you awesome enough that you should just be surrounded by other awesome people?

*Yum…peeps! Is it Easter yet???

It’s no secret that I was totally in shock at having a baby 8 weeks early with pretty much no warning or preparation.

After my surprise party of labor, leaving our son at the hospital was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Nothing prepares you for going into the hospital with a pregnant belly and then coming out a few days later with no belly and no baby to bring home. It was a bit surreal that I’d had a baby but really had nothing to show for it.

Every day since Jack was born, I’ve been keeping track of every little bit of his progress and hoping for the day he could finally come home. I’ve been worrying about my dwindling time off from work and counting down the days I have at home before I need to go back to the office.

Last week, one of the nurses said that it was possible that Jack could come home this week or next. However, another nurse cautioned me against getting my hopes up because he was still so young. It was possible that they might even keep him in the NICU until his original due date of April 13^th.

So, I kept myself tentatively hopeful. In my head, I thought it would be nice if he could come home this week, but it was more likely to be the end of next week once he reached 36 weeks of gestational age. To pass the time, I’ve been keeping myself busy with house projects and visiting Jack at the hospital every day.

This morning I received a call from the NICU, which of course scared the poo out of me once I saw the number show up on my caller ID. Thank god the news was good – according to our primary nurse, as long as everything continues to go well we will be able to bring Jack home on Thursday.

Thursday. Meaning the day after tomorrow.

Holy crap.

You would have thought that I had no idea that I’d be bringing a baby home at all by the way I ran around the house like a drunk chicken. I still had bottles to sterilize, diapers and formula to buy, a diaper bag to pack, and a car seat to install among so many other things.

But what was most shocking was the fact that my precious baby, who has been hooked up to monitors and watched 24 hours a day by professionals for the past three weeks, would be handed over to me.

They’re going to just hand my baby to me and let me leave with him. As if I have some idea of what the hell I’m doing.

For the first time since even thinking about conceiving a baby, I felt so unqualified to actually have one.

Yes, I know how to change diapers, feed and burp a baby – I had tons of experience with my sisters and brother. Granted, that was 20+ years ago, but I’m still pretty comfortable with the basics.

But this isn’t a sibling that I could hand off to my mom while escaping out the door. This is my kid. I’m the mommy and I’m the big cheese in charge.*

And I’m not too cool to admit that I’m scared I’m going to mess up.

* Except for the daddy of course, he’s also very much in charge. And very strong and manly too. Yeah.