Intro

Hi, I am simply writing this blog to deal with my own anxiety and need to obsess over my own pregnancy. Everything I say here I've said to my poor husband several times. He says he doesn't mind, but how could that be true? I'm saying the same things over and over. It actually makes me feel like I'm wasting his brain. And I'm feeling a little like I'm wasting my brain. So I thought I'd work on a blog. At least then I can imagine I'm helping other women, cuz all I want to feel is solidarity, and the internet can give us this. Prepare yourself though. I really don't want to whine to much in real life, so this is my chance to be brutally honest, and maybe a little whiny. I'll do my best, but this is an obsessive blog. It is my therapy and I'm gonna whine if I need to goddammit! :)
To introduce myself, I'm a 31 year old PhD student from the US. I got married a year ago and we instantly packed our bags and moved to the UK. I didn't particularly like the University town we were living in before, but I had no idea what a crazy transition it was going to be to move even further from home. My husband works as a professor and I am supposedly working on my fieldwork proposal. Supposedly. I am years behind other students in my cohort (and ahead of a few) and feeling really unmotivated. The only motivation I've been feeling is a drive to procreate. My husband and I both want it really bad. We are ready for children, ready to be parents. My problem is that I might be ready for babies, but I'm worried that without a career I am not ready for children/post-babies. I am not a housewife type. I SOOO envy the housewife types. My sister is, and I am always measuring myself up to her and coming up short. It's funny because she does the same and sees me as an educated adventurer carving my own path. I travel a lot, and lead a unique lifestyle (kinda), but I'm feeling less and less like an adventurer lately. I don't want to settle down and move to the suburbs, but I have some new interests. Like, I wouldn't mind being a tidier person. Or somebody who has matching curtains. Or maybe somebody who rents apartments for the size of the kitchen rather than the price/distance from the city center. I guess I'm changing. I still think overconsumption of commercial products is a major problem in our society, but I really want to be able to afford a Moby Wrap and pretty new bras. I am not driven to buying my future child all the best things in the world, and I'm not researching preschools before s/he is born, but I really want to get my hair done pretty and have nice maternity wear and a new jacket. It is just a real time of transition for me and it kind of scares me because I've never been so close to the edge of what I used to call "selling out" and I really want to keep my head on and find a healthy balance. Luckily my husband is invested in the same values I am, to a degree (he likes sports and used to be in the military so he is very different from my hippie upbringing, but that is a different story). Anyways, the only other part of the introduction I want to include is that I found out I was pregnant two weeks ago, after trying for about half a year. So this blog is intended to follow this pregnancy. Also, I've realized in the past two weeks that I knew a lot more about pregnancy than I thought I did. I remember my mother's final pregnancy, and I followed several friends and acquaintances pregnancies pretty closely. I'm surprised by this knowledge and find it comforting. The down side is that now that I'm in a new country, many of the things I know about doctors visits and deliveries are different. This upsets me more than I expected. For example, I won't really be seeing a doctor, I'll be seeing a midwife, and there is no guarantee it will be the same midwife at every appointment, and it certainly won't be the same one at delivery. I'm trying to wrap my head around it and remember that the different ideas about pregnancy and delivery aren't better or worse than each other, they are just different. I mean, it is amazing how inexpensive this pregnancy will be thanks to the NHS, which is the public health system here. I should be comforted by that. It's funny the drive towards the familiar whenever things get even slightly stressful. And that leads to the final issue. I am not sure what the familiar is when it comes to mothering. My mom was great when I was a kid, but she was mentally ill. It was fun as a child, we went to every museum and cemetery in California (where I grew up) when she was manic, and I never noticed the lows. But that changed when I hit about 12 and she eventually killed herself about five years ago. I missed her at my wedding, but I miss her even more now. It's funny, if she were alive she could help me with my desire to have an alternative hippie pregnancy. She was good at that. Of course, she would also be calling me crying on a regular basis, or yelling at me what a piece of shit I was, or I wouldn't hear from her at all and worry she was either wandering around confused on the street or had died, so it is a mixed bag. Sometimes it is nice to know where she is, and sometimes I really wish I could call her. Okay, I think that was enough of an intro for now. <3