About

About me:
I can never remember a time when I wanted children. I think children are loud, sticky, and generally not something I wanted to live with 24/7. I love my friends' kids and my younger cousins. I can hand them back when I'm done with them. I don't have to wake up in the middle of the night and take care of feeding or dirty diapers or anything like that. My partner agreed with me. No kids for us. Cats are so much more self-sufficient.

I hit 35 and lots of my friends had really cute babies and toddlers, but I had the perfect job.

To be completely honest, I also had a little bit of a personal emotional crisis. I had been living in Salem, MA (cute town!) and working in Boston, as a librarian at a high school, at what should have been my dream job. I loved my job. I really did. I didn't mind my over-an-hour commute most days. I loved my co-workers. I loved the students I worked with.

My first year, I was asked to do the yearbook. Fun! I had one really good senior who helped with it. It wasn't a lot of additional work and time, so I managed just fine.

My second year, I was asked to co-teach an English class. OK, no problem. I can handle that. 18 kids, experienced co-teacher, cool. Except she had a heavy work load, so I did all the grading and staying on the kids to hand things in. It also meant that I couldn't help any other of these English classes during that block. Still, it wasn't bad. I still enjoyed my job.

The next year, I was informed that the technology department was being eliminated and all the technological responsibilities will become part of the library team's work. Uhh... ok. I didn't have to co-teach a class, so that was something. I had fantastic assistants and I was able to hire a work-study student who I already knew. He honestly saved me that year. I could not have done everything without him. Of course, being in charge of technology also meant that I had to manage all the technology for the standardized testing. I hate standardized testing.

During that third year, there was discussion, and finally a decision, that the school would be rebuilt. I was able to sketch out The Perfect High School Library. The rebuilding process would take three years. Then it was said five years. But the library of my dreams! I visited the temporary space. The building the school was moving into had a library space, but that was going to be arts classrooms. I was ok with this. I understood the need for good lighting for art. The library space was going to be ... the former nurse's office and part of the hallway. It had no windows. I tried to imagine it. I tried to trouble-shoot. I tried to see the bright side. I couldn't.

During the last half of that third school year, I fell into a romantic relationship with a couple (D & C) who had always been dear friends of mine. They were the people I called when I needed saving. If I fell in the mosh pit at the club we visited during our early 20s, C was there to make sure I was OK. When we first moved to Boston for grad school, D drove us and they helped us move in. My partner and I were in a car crash coming home from a wedding one night; I called them and they were there for us, even at 3 am.

They saved me again.

My partner and I packed up our Salem apartment, I quit my job (with lots of tears and goodbyes), and we moved back to Philadelphia. We moved into the "doll-house" with them; their 1000 sq ft row home.

In early 2019, after some discussion, I had my IUD removed.

By July, I was pregnant.

We know we're going to have a very nontraditional family. My partner still doesn't want kids of his own, but he's 100% embraced the idea of being an uncle to this incoming child.

C is terrified, but happy to finally become a dad.

D is embracing her role as a stay-at-home mom, especially since she lost her job around the same time discussions were happening.

I'm freaking out, because I still don't feel like a "mom." I work full time. I don't really take care of myself. I just started eating well since moving back to Philly (C is a good cook). I don't know if or when I will ever feel like a mom. I was proudly child-free for my whole life. Even when I was little, my dolls we never my "babies," they were my siblings or my friends. I've been reading the How Baby? comic and a lot of what she says there hits me hard (especially this one): And then here I was: the ex-riot grrl with the dyed hair and the facial piercings; the one who drew fan art; the one everyone thought would end up with a wife, not a husband; she who proudly proclaimed her choice to be childfree. There wasn’t a space for me. I wasn’t like my mom, and I wasn’t like Internet Mom.

Anyway... I figured a blog would be a good place to express myself and share a little of this insane journey with whomever wants to read along.