Before I became a mother, I was a world-class planner. I poured my mental energy into networking and career building. Parenting, I thought, could be approached in much the same fashion. I had pregnancy and motherhood planned out in my typical anal-retentive fashion, after all, shouldn’t parenting be neatly compartmentalized into digestible bits that can be tackled much like a work project?
I had preconceived notions of what type of mother and wife I would be. I would have my first child at around age thirty (missed that goal by nearly three years). Our home would be impeccably organized (uh, check my overstuffed closets and drawers ... on second thought, don’t, as you might be injured by falling items). I would whip up nutritious and tasty gourmet meals (just ask my husband who does most of the cooking).
When I was pregnant with my oldest daughter, a coworker was telling me how chaotic his home was when he went home in the evenings to his wife, who stayed home with their two-year-old daughter. Their little girl loved to toss all the sofa cushions on the floor for a makeshift obstacle course and she would dismantle their organized video collection. He told me about a family outing to the zoo and how he turned his head for a second from his daughter while his wife went to the restroom, only to find their little girl about to jump in a pond. I was mortified. Surely my children would never slip out of my sight. Surely they would be docile and hold my hand in public places. And surely, if I was home all day with a toddler, I would have constructive play with minimal TV.
But the realities of motherhood would soon deflate my mommy-snob ego like my unrecognizable postpartum belly. You can plan as much as you like, but pregnancy and parenting can swiftly sweep a world-class planner off her aching feet. The two pink lines that signal a positive home pregnancy test happen on their own schedule, sometimes much sooner than expected, sometimes much later.
