Last Chance Saloon

“We started our journey into parenting at a funny place in our relationship,” Christina starts. “We realized, in terms of our age, that it was at best, kind of a Last Chance Saloon.”

Christina and her partner Jon were on the cusp of 40 and fully aware that they could have trouble conceiving. Additionally, the couple didn’t feel one hundred percent about their compatibility as a romantic duo; they were not married, and even after several years of dating, they had yet to live together. Doubts and worries aside, Christina and Jon knew that no matter what, they could and wanted to co-parent the hell out of kid, so they went for it, assuming they would have time to figure it out. Well, you know what the proverbial “they” say about assumptions.

“I hadn’t in my wildest dreams expected at my age to get knocked up RIGHT AWAY. It left us at a very odd juncture of “totally desired and planned” and “completely unprepared.”

At the time Christina and Jon decided to try their lot at parenthood, she was in a one-year graduate program thousands of miles away from Jon. As most couples do when separated for months at a time, you get it in when you can fit it in, which for them, happened during Thanksgiving break. So here was Christina, pregnant, away from friends and family, anxious as hell and feeling like something between dried shit on a stick and fresh shit on a stick.

“A woman’s body changes so drastically, so fast, with pregnancy - and as we largely experience our lives through our bodies, it felt to me like everything changed.”

Prior to pregnancy, Christina was very petite and generally active and fit. With pregnancy hitting her only months within her grad school program, it went something like this:

First trimester: Nauseated and starving ALL THE TIME.

Second trimester: Exhausted and starving ALL THE TIME.

Third trimester: Not as hungry, but swollen, out of breath, achy, and horribly uncomfortable ALL THE TIME.

She felt like an alien in her own body. With the expenses of graduate school, Christina hardly had money to spend on maternity clothes, and she steadily outgrew her wardrobe as her body grew to accommodate the baby inside. She felt a mess. Even sex was no longer enjoyable.

Illustration by Ella Byworth

“I have always had a strong libido and a lot of sexual confidence, and I thought for sure sex during pregnancy would be awesome. NOPE!

“My belly was big and uncomfortable; positioning was difficult, things hurt and besides that I was tired and nauseated a lot. Orgasms, when I managed to have them, were exceptionally strong, but it was so much work and trouble to get there that I lost interest early on. Even masturbating was no fun!”

Damn.

Christina’s anxiety was at an all-time high. Think about it: you’re halfway through a one-year-Masters program, away from friends, family, and the one who got you pregnant, and by the time you’ll be finished, you’ll be seven months pregnant, and completely unsure of where you will live. And a nursery? Who has time to think about that! Christina simply “didn’t have time or the physical or psychological space for any of this.”

Christina had not anticipated becoming pregnant so quickly, and imagined that she would have more time to figure out the basics—to plan better. Hell, to plan at all. She imagined that she experienced pregnancy quite differently than many of her counterparts.

“I feel like I couldn’t have an attitude toward her because I didn’t know her; and my feeling about impending birth and parenthood was, frankly, terror—which I believe is justified! Parenting continues to be terrifying. It is surely a million other things, positive and negative, beyond that. But terrifying is among the many things it is—largely because you simply cannot predict or understand at all, beforehand, what it will be like. It really is like jumping off a cliff and hoping for the best.”

Months later, after Christina returned home from her program, it was time for her baby to arrive. She was relieved to be having a girl, as throughout much of her life she was surrounded by and mostly dated women. The thought of raising a boy intimidated her, but she has no doubt that she “would have fallen in love with my baby no matter what.” 

Christina would be in labor for three days before the birthing team would finally make the call for her to have a caesarean section.

If you didn’t know, caesarean sections are major abdominal surgeries. (More on this later.) So it is no surprise that Christina was full-body aches and pains post-surgery. The drugs and surgery inhibited bowel movements, and as expected, the first passing was scary and painful. Additionally, she had searing back pain, which still lingers to this day—not to mention an area that is partially numb—and she experienced diastasis recti, the separating of the abdominal muscles.

This woman was hurtin’, and she was tired. And it didn’t seem to get much easier as time went on.

 Christina’s baby girl—like many, many children before and after her—rarely slept through the night, and often woke multiple times throughout. Parental sleep deprivation is real, and has significant consequences on the mind and body, especially when it continues for years.

“For those first three years I was a shaking, dysfunctional, anxiety-and-rage-filled disaster most of the time, which as you can imagine made it hard for me to be the kind of parent and partner I dreamed of being. Trying to function normally on almost zero sleep is sort of kin to willing yourself to be sober after downing a few stiff martinis: no amount of willpower or good attitude can change the profound influence sleep deprivation has on your brain/body chemistry.”

She also believes that sleep training is mostly nonsense. Even within families—Christina has noted, that kids sleep patterns can be wildly different. Some kids sleep easily, and others do not, even with the aide of sleep consultants and training methods. That’s just how it is. She feels compelled to speak on the incredible lack of sleep—and the upset it caused in her life “because it really is a central theme in my personal story and that of many others, but it’s painful and dark and I think therefore often left unspoken.”

But is it all bad? Not by a long shot. Christina, like many of the parents interviewed for this project, definitely experience wonder and joy throughout her journey as a parent, but it’s so easy to talk about the good stuff. What about the dark and painful? Those moments, sometimes stretched over months or years, deserve “air time” as well.

“I have discovered a depth of joy, love and growth in my parenthood journey unlike anything else I’ve ever known. My love for my daughter knows no bounds and I wouldn’t trade being a parent for anything. I’m adding this because I don’t want to leave the impression that I hate the path because it’s been hard - nothing could be further from the truth. I’m also adding it because I sort of feel like these two parts of the experience define and depend on one another -- as if it couldn’t be the most joyfully life-changing thing without being the most painfully life-changing thing as well.”

When Christina’s daughter was four years old, she still often woke at least once a night, but Christina was beginning to feel rested—finally—and feel some semblance of her old self.