BY: Lauren Peterson
A first pregnancy is a process wholly unique, totally fascinating, and utterly life changing. Your body changes in ways you couldn’t imagine, you feel things you have never felt before, and you get to experience a litany of profound firsts: the first time you hear your baby’s heart beat, the first time you feel him move inside you, the first time you realize that your life is about to change entirely.
When my digital pregnancy test flashed “pregnant” we hadn’t spent months trying to conceive and we hadn’t carefully planned for the impending life shift. In fact, I had spent weeks denying the possibility of my pregnancy. I denied it so much that when I purchased my pregnancy test I got a dual pack; so convinced was I of my non-pregnancy that I figured the other test would come in handy.
I had all of these expectations, you see, about what accomplishments I would have neatly checked off my list before I hung up my career hat and put away my traveling cloak. This vision of my future had grown with me from high school and resembled a sumptuous cake. The base layer constituted a stellar academic career topped by my requisite acceptance to a prestigious post secondary institution; the final tier represented my establishment as a researcher and contributor to the world of biological science. Marriage and children were things that I wanted very much, but being a mother would come after I had worked a while and enjoyed the fruit of my academic labors. When I had published some papers and grown weary of the daily grind I would quit my job, dedicating myself instead to the challenging task of baring and raising my children. I had carefully assembled this cake, each tier a level of accomplishment, decorated with the accolades and respect I would earn along the way.
I followed the path I set with diligence. After my acceptance to a Ph.D. program I decided to opt for a master’s of science degree as I had recently become engaged to a young and exciting tenure track professor at a university hundreds of miles away. With the challenge of graduate school behind me and a radiant feeling of accomplishment and hope I continued on my path. I married my husband and began the job search. As many of you know, the recent job market has not been generous. I settled for a position that didn’t offer much in the way of growth and I felt embarrassed about its banality. I began to live under a threatening cloud of career discontentment and spent my time obsessively perusing career websites.
You see now, how I couldn’t be pregnant. I hadn’t attained my pre-set level of awesomeness. In spite of my denial and yearning for career, I wanted my pregnancy. I had at the time what seemed like an insane hope for a positive outcome when I took my test. I knew that I hadn’t traveled enough, gotten fit enough, gone far enough in my career, but I wanted this baby, this mysterious future. I was ready to nurture and teach, to take pride in the accomplishments of someone else. Thus, the acceptance of my pregnancy was a process of choosing between preserving the carefully constructed and lavishly decorated cake I had idealized for so long, and destroying its lovely façade with a huge shameless bite. This proved difficult as my vision of my future had become opaque with age and I had difficulty seeing through it. I feared a future I didn’t know like an old friend.
The shift came to me one evening after a heated exchange with my husband regarding my job search. I wanted something more fulfilling, something that better matched the ‘career’ that fit into the spot immediately preceding the ‘baby’ section of my future. My husband asked me to explain the goal of the manic job hunt. Had I not committed long ago to taking a full maternity leave and to staying home with my son rather than putting him in daycare to return to work? What could I tell a potential employer regarding my return date? At that moment my cake began to crumble and all the layers came down in a heap. Of course I committed to taking my full maternity leave and I knew in my heart that I wanted to spend all day nurturing my growing child. Not only would I have the maternal drive to stay home with my son, but I knew the nature of my relationship with my husband would change, that my body would change. I realized that my whole life would become something totally new and unforeseeable to me. I sat there with my son kicking about inside me, my husband holding my gaze with his heart-stopping eyes and I knew that I had everything I needed and wanted. I then understood that the future will come to me in time. In front of me existed a beautiful moment that I had only to embrace. I could no longer see the vision of my cake, but instead tasted its delicious flavor on my tongue. So now I look forward not only to a new year and a new baby, but a new life. The job title in my amazing career may now be more along the lines of ‘really good mom’. My horizon is filled with excitement, joy and possibility.
Cake has never tasted so good.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lauren Peterson has lived in various parts of California all her life and presently lives on the central coast with her husband, two dogs and growing belly. She spends her working days as a clinical research coordinator and spends her free time surfing, hiking, biking, swimming, sewing, gardening, getting lost on dirt roads, listening to indie music and punk rock, and nearly all of that with her husband (he doesn’t sew). She looks forward to raising nice children with dirt on their faces, questions in their minds and good ears for music.
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