Tag: forgotten trimester

Progress; not perfection.

This has been one of those weeks.  You know the kind I’m talking about—when you’re simultaneously proud of your ability to have a case set for trial (have I mentioned that I’m an attorney?) but still be present for your kids in the evenings, complete the pre-school enrollment forms, remember to buy baby oatmeal so that you can start testing foods with your infant, make it to the dentist, juggle your pumping schedule, complete your mid-year partner review (phew!), take your son to speech therapy before said partner review and before said trial, attend that mom’s group happy hour that only comes around once per month, teach that class that you committed to once per week at the law school, get the laundry done, and make sure there are (semi) nutritious meals for your kids for dinner… but you’re also disappointed in yourself for not making a PowerPoint presentation for the class you’re teaching, not remembering to prepare show-and-tell until you’re rushing your kids out the door, arriving 5 minutes later at your office than you wanted to (even though no one checks on me or cares what time I arrive), snapping at your spouse for something small and insignificant, not getting the kitchen counters cleaned this morning before you left the house or taking the trash out, only practicing your son’s speech therapy exercises with him 4 times this week instead of the recommended 7 times per week, running out of time to make homemade baby food, and for not writing that blog post that you so desperately want to write, because it’s your way of releasing tension?  My list could go on and on…

It’s during weeks like this that I have to remind myself of two things: one, to breathe deeply.  And two, that it’s okay to strive for progress and not perfection. 

So many of us want to be perfect parents (or to be perfect people ourselves, or to have perfect lives, perfectly clean houses, etc.)  It’s easy to lose sight of all of the good we’re doing, and the positive forward progress we’re making. 

For example—last night we forgot to practice the speech therapy exercises with our son at dinner, like we usually do.  We were too stressed and distracted by our baby girl trying solids for the first time, and by me having a meeting that I needed to get to once the kids were in bed.  But you know what happened?  Our son (age 4) reminded us during bath time that we should practice.  And having our son be able to demonstrate this small step toward independence was big—actually, it was huge!  It was progress.

Not having time to make homemade baby food this week?  Our daughter still got to try her first foods, and practice her oral motor skills.  It was progress (and we’ll make the baby food this weekend!)

Not making a PowerPoint for the class I teach once per week?  My students actually engaged in better discussion with each other, and with me, without the PowerPoint.  And, they still grasped the points I was trying to make.  It was progress.

And not getting all of the counters wiped down before I left for work?  At least I got a few of them done.  My kitchen was cleaner when I left it than when I found it.  It was progress.

Juggling a pumping schedule in between being at the courthouse and the office?  It was my perfectly timed 3-hour increment schedule.  But it was progress toward my end goal of nursing/pumping for a year.

Not sitting down to write that lengthy blog post that I’ve been thinking about for days and days?  At least I sat down right now and wrote this post.  It may be fraught with typo’s for all I know. But at least it’s progress.

So sit back and breathe.  Sometimes we need to just cut ourselves some slack in this forgotten trimester, focus less on aiming for perfection, and recognize the progress we’re making in our lives. 

Soak up all of your own progress as parents… and don’t forget to soak up your kids’ progress, too. 

Post-Partum? Or Post-Party? (Damn you, auto-correct.)

In the weeks immediately following the birth of our precious daughter in April, 2019, I got lots of emails.  I mean tons.  Hundreds.  And the fact that I had on an “OOO” (Out-of-office) auto-reply didn’t seem to do me much good (likely my own fault, because I didn’t want to mention “maternity leave” and instead opted to simply state that I was on “a prolonged leave”, out of my own insecurity that potential clients might see those words and run away—a thought that now, in hindsight, seems both baseless and irrelevant.  After all, if someone isn’t okay with me having children and a life beyond the office, then it probably isn’t a good attorney-client match!) 

So, when a potential new client would contact me, and receive my extremely vague out-of-office reply, they would naturally follow-up to ask whether I was okay, and when I might be back.  This inevitably led to me explaining that I was “post-partum,” which in my mind was less stigmatizing than just saying that I was on “maternity leave.”  The problem?  Responding to emails through my iPhone led to the age-old problem of autocorrect.  And, as I learned the hard way, auto-correct plus sleepless nights plus responding to emails while distracted by a new baby can lead to some pretty hilarious mix-ups…

The biggest mix-up, by far, is when I would explain to people via email that I was out because I was “post-partum.”  Auto-correct instantly decided that “post-party” must have been what I meant, and it would change it Every.  Single.  Time.  Being somewhat technologically challenged, I couldn’t figure out how to make it stop!  And being sleep deprived, I didn’t catch the error the first few times it happened, leading to potential clients getting an email from me that read something like this:

“Dear (John):

Thanks for reaching out.  I’m out of the office because I’m actually post-party right now (hence the strange hour of the day you might be receiving this email), and I plan on being out for another several weeks recovering.  I’d be happy to have a phone call, however, and meet you in person when I’m no longer post-party.”

Stupid?  Yes.  Embarrassing?  Double-yes.  Avoidable?  Triple yes.  If I had just gotten over my fear of what stigma may or may not be associated with taking time away to birth a human and heal my body, it never would have happened.  I should have just been honest and straightforward, and said that I was on maternity leave (and deep in the throes of the forgotten trimester).

Although stupid and avoidable, was it also funny?  Yes.  It lightened my own mood when I realized the mistake.  And it actually led to some light-hearted conversations with people who found the typo endearing—which in turn led to some great attorney-client relationships. 

And, lastly, was it also ironic?  YES.  Oh-so-ironic. Because no matter how you give birth, I think we can all agree it is the opposite of a “party.”  And, I would hardly call the “post-partum” period of life a “post-party,” unless referring to the feelings of exhaustion, body soreness, and need for hydration and pain killers—in which case “post-partum” and “post-party” might actually be, on balance, identical.

Keep on post-partying, my fellow forgotten trimester tribe.  Try to find the humor in the little things, and always know that you’re not post-partying alone. 

What is the “forgotten trimester?”

Pregnancy.  A phase of life generally divided into three neat and tidy trimesters, each consisting of approximately 13 weeks.  During the first, most women experience morning sickness (though for a lucky few like myself, the sickness is all-day, every-day).  During the second, most women rave about their energy returning, and the baby preparations kick into high gear.  And during the third and final, most women enjoy the baby kicks, while at the same time visiting the bathroom several times per day (or in some cases, per hour), sleeping moderately comfortably at best, and counting down the days until baby’s arrival.  And then… boom.  There is a new baby, and the world rejoices.

But what happens next?  What happens AFTER the new bundle of joy rocks the world of the parents?  What do we call this time of extreme highs and lows, of contentedness and anxiety?  The fourth trimester.  Or in American society particularly, the “forgotten trimester.”  The “trimester” that is actually the longest, and the hardest, during which some American women receive the least amount of support.

In thinking about my own experience, when our son arrived 4 years ago, his entry into the world was magical.  After a pregnancy fraught with hyperemesis, a protracted 20+ hour labor, ending with a semi-emergent caesarian section, the only thing that mattered was that he was finally here—healthy, screaming, kicking, and rocking our world.  What followed for me was a week of difficult recovery, followed by a maternity leave where I constantly felt unsure of myself in this new role of “motherhood,” trying to console a colicky baby.  All of the doctors that had followed me closely during pregnancy were gone.  No one was asking me “how are you feeling?” every hour of every day.  I was no longer going to work, to social outings, etc.  Instead, we lived in a 1 bedroom apartment at the time.  While it had beautiful pre-war charm, it was tiny.  Our son actually lived in a converted walk-in closet (before anyone calls DCFS, rest assured that it was beautiful—it fit a micro-crib, a set of drawers, and even had a painting on the wall).  My wife, my rock and support, was in residency at the time and was working literally 100+ hours per week.  Many of her “working hours” were actually night shifts, meaning that I was on my own during the night, and during the day she desperately needed sleep, so I was tasked with keeping our colicky son relatively quiet in the very small space of our apartment.  There were days where the only “person” I talked to was our son, a teeny tiny human who couldn’t respond, and for a while, couldn’t even give me a smile to encourage me in the dark hours (literally and figuratively).  While I loved him immensely, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit bad for myself.  Thoughts of “maybe this would be easier if we lived in a house with more than 1 bedroom,” and “maybe this would be easier if my wife didn’t work night shifts” often crept into my mind.  I felt isolated because despite living in Chicago, one of the biggest cities in the nation, I rarely left the apartment for fear of our son erupting in public, and me not being able to console him.  We got through my maternity leave, but it was a struggle.  Looking back, I do have fond memories of the bonding time we had—watching Gilmore Girls and The Ellen Show while he slept in my arms (because if I dared put him down, he’d cry immediately!) but I also wondered if there were things I could have done, or things I could have let others do, that would have helped me thrive during my maternity leave instead of just survive. 

Fast forward 4 years later, as we welcomed our youngest—a new baby girl.  This time would be different, I told myself.  For starters, my wife was no longer in residency and was working a “normal” job, so I wouldn’t be alone during the seemingly endless nights.  And, we had also moved.  No more 1 bedroom apartment!  Instead, we were out in the suburbs, with a lovely house wherein everyone had their own room (and no one slept in a closet), a backyard, a porch with a swing on it, etc. 

But was my maternity leave really that different?  Yes and no.  Yes, the extra space in our house proved to be helpful, and having my wife be more available and not working night shifts was amazing.  I got out of the house more.  I tried harder to maintain social contacts and establish “routines,” even if they were simple things like making myself a decaf Nespresso latte and then taking the baby for a long morning stroll.  And, this time we were blessed with a very easy-going, happy baby in comparison to our first two.  (Seriously, on the Richter scale, with 1 being a small tremor that was noticeable, but didn’t really disrupt your life, and 10 being a major earthquake that leveled buildings, created maximum destruction, and seriously impacted the ability to carry on with life, our first was about a 7, and our second was a sold 10.  This baby girl was/remains approximately a level 1.)  At the same time, some of those same struggles from my first maternity leave resurfaced—feelings of isolation, not being confident that I was doing “the mothering thing” the correct way (spoiler alert- after 3 babies we’ve learned that essentially they’re all different, what works for one will undoubtedly not work for the next, and sometimes you just have to take a stab in the dark until you figure it out), and wondering when the “mom-guilt” would ease up.  I constantly felt like I wasn’t doing enough for anyone—for myself, my wife, my two “big kids,” my baby, my friends; you name it, I felt like I was failing.

So what is the fourth trimester?  It’s the forgotten trimester—the weeks/months following a birth when all moms, whether first-time moms or seasoned veterans, need a little extra help.  A little extra love and support.  It’s hard.  Contrary to what one of my colleagues said to me before I left for maternity leave, it’s not “a vacation.”  (To which my response was a simple eye-roll.) 

I firmly believe that all moms struggle, at least a little, on maternity leave— but as moms, so many of us try to keep our superhero capes on and not let anyone know we’re struggling.  Our lives might look picture-perfect for Facebook and Instagram, but there’s always more to it.  The logical side of my brain says that there has to be a better way.  There just has to be more we can do to help moms during this time.  And, there has to be more that we can do to help ourselves!  So now I’ve made it my Mount Everest—it’s time to figure out how to better conquer the forgotten trimester.