Anna and Troy’s Weblog

The obvious, yet still surprising thing about having a baby is that it COMPLETELY changes who you are.

I think that statement deserves a resounding “DUH!” from the crowd.

While I was pregnant, and even before I was pregnant – when I was just contemplating motherhood in a vague and nebulous sort of way – I do not think that I underestimated the enormity of motherhood.  I am a fairly pragmatic girl, and I knew that having a baby was going to be an enormous amount of work and something that radically changed the breadth and perspective of our lives.

What I did not expect; however, was how dramatically and immediately it changed me – the essence of me, the core of my identity, and the foundation of my self perception.  While I understood that I was taking on a huge new job, I really thought that it was something that would be added to what I already was – like, “Hello, my name is Anna.  I am an adopted Korean, college graduate, chocolate chip cookie lover, wife, small business owner, AND a mother.”  I knew that the “and a mother” part was weighty, in all likelihood more weighty than any of my previously donned roles, but I still thought that the central object – the “me” – would stay relatively the same.  It would just have adjusted to its additional new role.

But I was wrong.  Having a child changes the central object.  You are no longer “Anna” who is a wife, a business partner, a goof ball, a dancer – whatever…..  You are now some new incarnation of “Anna the Mother.”  On many days you aren’t Anna at all, you are just “Emerson’s Mom.”

This has been a major topic of self reflection for me and a HUGE adjustment, and I would have to assume that I am not alone.  In fact, I would be so bold as to hypothesize that much of the “baby blues” and postpartum depression that you hear about is at least partially due to women dealing with this exact transition and adjustment.

It is a wildly confusing process because it involves such an intensity and polarity of emotions.  Total selflessness vs. complete selfishness.  Overwhelming heart melting love vs. extreme overwhelming exhaustion and frustration.  Wanting to be with your child 24/7 vs. wanting some time (make that ANY time) of uninterrupted alone-ness.

While the change is fairly immediate, the reconciliation of that change, at least in my case, is a process – an acceptance of the evolution or metamorphosis that parenthood necessitates.  As my family moves past the three month mark, I feel like I am finally starting to wrap my brain and heart around this process, and in doing so, finding a path towards some sort of productive sanity.  I am starting to realize that this new me doesn’t have to completely destroy the old me in order to be effective.  Instead, I must find a way for the old me to evolve into something new and different.  I am working my way towards a place where I can be this new “Anna the Mother” and still find room in the machine for some of the cogs that defined me in my old life (husband, work, dog lover, etc.).

This whole conversation is not to say that the first three months were not full of wonderful, amazing, life-changing moments – moments that brought tears of joy and amazement to my eyes, moments that felt cosmic in their significance to us as a family and to our place in the world.  But the first three months were also months of brutal anarchy.  Night was day.  Up was down.  Some days I could hardly find a coherent sentence, much less recognize myself as the same person I was before parenthood.  And until it actually happened, I didn’t realize how unnerving that lack of recognition would be.

In the first few weeks, one of my friends wrote to me, “Don’t mean to scare you, but your life has changed. But by three months, your sun will shine, no matter what. But it is the longest three months–the most exhausting three months–boot camp has nothing on being a new mom.”

At the time, I read that with hope, but a streak of skepticism born of physical and emotional exhaustion.  But we are officially past three months – and what do you know?  The sun is shining.