Embracing Uncertainty

There is so much we can't know or anticipate about the future. We can always make plans, and as a planner, I always do. We can create lists, family goals for how many children we hope to have, financial goals for how much money we hope to make or save or spend on a house, career goals for what we want to do and where we want to live... Plans for how we will raise and educate our children. Plans for what parenting mistakes we will be sure never to make. Plans for where and how our next birth experience will go... The list goes on forever. We all like to plan, and we all like to feel control and autonomy over our future. But the more we plan, the more opportunities we have to learn about what happens when life doesn't go according to our plans.

One Year Later - 6 Ways Having a Baby Changed My Life

A few days ago we celebrated my daughter's first birthday. I cannot believe the way this little girl has changed my life. She is so sweet, so smart, so beautiful. It is an honor and privilege to be her parent.

I look back over the past year, and it has flown by. There have been hard times, many sleepless nights, and so much to do! But the thing that stands out for me is the joy. The smiles, the cuddles, the laughter and delight watching my little girl learn, grow, and do new clever and funny things every day.

Being a parent really does change your life. In some ways (okay, a lot of ways) it makes things more challenging, but it also brings blessings, both expected and unexpected. All those things I have read and heard (think, those listicle Huffington Post articles) about how being a parent changes everything and makes your life harder have elements of truth in them, but they are not the whole picture.

I thought about some of the ways that having a baby changed my life, and here is what I have to say about a few big ones I hear parents mention a lot.

A Stay-at-Home Mom with a College Degree

I didn't go to college so I could get a job. I didn't go to college because everyone goes to college. I didn't go to college because my ultimate dream was to work in my field of study. I went to college because I wanted to. I went to college because there were things I wanted to learn. There were classes I wanted to take, people to meet, things to experience, and an opportunity to learn really important and interesting things about the world and how it works.

How is this relevant? Well, today I am a stay-at-home mom. I don't know what the future will bring, but I know that I would like to be a stay-at-home mom for a while. I know that I want to homeschool my daughter and any future children we are blessed with. So in the immediate future I don't plan to "use" my college degree in a traditional job-related sense. It might be tempting to think of my college education as a "waste," but I don't see it that way.

A Stay-At-Home Mom (With a Job)

I always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. I plan to be a stay-at-home mom. I think about myself as a stay-at-home mom. And I am one, most of the time. After our daughter was born, I took 11 weeks off work. I started doing some work from home after about 8 weeks - just a few hours here and there - and then returned to part-time work at the 11 week mark. Right now I work two afternoons per week in the office and an additional 5-8 hours from home as time allows and as my job dictates. I like to think of myself as a stay-at-home mom, even though technically I work between 13 and 17 hours each week.

Now, we have been very blessed in that we have not needed child care. Jonathan has been able to be home with our little girl on the afternoons when I am at work, which is great. They get quality time together, I don't have a single worry about her, and it is free. I am also blessed with a great job that is very flexible about my hours and supportive of me cutting back to care for my daughter. I realize that I have been very fortunate and that I could have had to make even tougher decisions about jobs and childcare.

To be honest, if I could afford to not work at all, I probably would choose that route.

How Much Does Money Really Matter?

As I was sitting in my living room, looking around my 2 bedroom apartment, contemplating the past 3.5 years of my life the other day (the time since my wedding), I realized something: the amount of money that I have really doesn't matter. At all. Now, the fact that I have some money and can afford what I need to survive, yes, that matters, but beyond that, it really doesn't. This really was a new revelation for me.

I was sitting there, holding my adorable daughter, reminiscing about our first two years of marriage in our first apartment in Wisconsin. That was a cute apartment! It was sunny, bright, had a great closet or two, and the memories that I have from those days are priceless. So many sleepy Saturday mornings, just the two of us, the sun streaming into our living room/dining room/kitchen, enjoying French toast and coffee together. 

Career Crisis

I feel that I am preparing for a life that I never wanted.

Let me sketch for you a picture of the life I have been dreaming of for the past six or more years.  This, to me, is the perfect, ideal life that I wanted for myself.  

I always wanted to fall in love and get married young.  When J and I started dating, we already knew that our relationship was serious and heading toward marriage.  We may have only been 18 and 17, respectively, but neither of us believed in casual dating, and we had strong faith in our friendship and our growing relationship.  I was home schooled through tenth grade, and through my home school groups and my church, I knew many large families with young mothers, or women who had been around 20 when they had their first kid.  I always thought that these families were beautiful, wonderful, and what I wanted my future family to be like.  I feel so much passion about the vocation of parenthood!  More than anything I long to have a large family, to home school my children, and to provide them with a wonderful, joyful, childhood full of all the love, security, and Christian values that made me who I am today.  I do enjoy my career path.  I do love math and teaching.  I can become passionate about many things, but I have always longed to be a mother and take care of a family to a much greater extent than I ever desired a professional career.  

When I got married at the age of 20, it was my expectation that my first child would be born when I was 21. This did not seem young or early to me at all.  It seemed like perfect timing.  Maturity has very little to do with age, and J and I both believe that we are ready to be parents.  We have friends who are our age who have babies or are starting their families now, and even if it is less common today, my grandmothers had their first children when they were 20!  But our eagerness to start a family has nothing to do with when anyone else started or is starting their families.  We both want children now because we feel we are ready.  We share the dream of a large family, and we want that dream to begin yesterday.  

Something that has been hard for me is that while I am longing with everything in me to start the vocation of motherhood, so many of my friends around me are excited about their new careers, and they all assume that I should be too.  Am I glad that I went to college?  Of course!  I think education is incredibly important, and even if I had absolutely no intention of ever working (which is not the case) I would have wanted to study and learn more.  A high school education is just not enough for me, and I always wanted to go to college for its own sake.  But everyone assumes that now that I'm done with college of course all I want to do is find a job in my field and build my career.  I do love my field, and I do think I have talents that I can use there, but it is not what I want for my life right now.  I feel like society is asking me to live a lie by pretending that I desire these things. 

Now that my dreams of starting a family are not being fulfilled in the way I had hoped, I have been pouring all of my efforts into finding a job.  I always planned to work for a few years after college if necessary, and I am okay with doing that.  But I never felt the pressure to select all the right positions, make all the right connections, and maximize my career potential in the way that I would have felt compelled to do if I planned to work for my whole life.  A whole 14 months have passed since we started trying to start our family, and even though I still hope and believe that we will be successful, I feel that the chance that we may not is growing each month.  Now that I recognize that there is a reasonable chance I may not have children, or may not have them for a while, my career takes on a whole new importance and significance.  

And so while I grieve and struggle through infertility, I must also pour all of my efforts into preparing for a life I have never desired and do not want.  This has made this summer incredibly emotional and stressful for me.  For the first time I have started to feel this urgency to be successful after college, because I may not be able to pursue my real dreams.  I am very happy that I have the promise of employment when J and I move to our new home in a few weeks.  But at the same time, I am worried because this job is not in my field, and I want to ensure that my career is successful.  Even while I weight these considerations, the main thought constantly running through my head is I don't care about any of this.  I just want a baby! It sure makes it hard to think clearly! 

I am thankful that God has kept me sane through the past few months.  I am glad that he has blessed me with a job so that I will have something to do.  I know that his plans for me are greater than my plans for myself.  I know that there is a way that he can use this situation to bring glory to him.  I know all the right answers.  And knowing that God loves me does help.  I cannot imagine how lost and hopeless I would feel without God right now.  But that certainly does not mean that this is easy.