City Life Magazine: March Column

As some of you know, I write for a local monthly publication called City Life. Sometimes I miss my old job and writing regularly, so writing a column for City Life is a great outlet for me. I know some of you don't live near me, so I wanted to start sharing those columns with you here, too. This was my column for March.

Just after Thanksgiving, my husband, Ty, and I discovered our family would soon be changing, and we would welcome our first child in August. Whether you are “trying” or not, nothing can prepare you for the moment you first realize you’re going to bring a new life into this world. It’s a speechless excitement unlike anything I’ve experienced.


That lasted five minutes or less.

Next, I began the list of all the things we need to do before a baby arrives. I sat in the bathroom rattling off a laundry list to Ty.

“We’ve got to rip up and replace that carpet in the guest room. I’d also like to replace the carpet in the office because that will be a nice play room for the baby when I’m in the kitchen. We’ll need to call the painter because there are some spots in the guest room that need resurfacing, and maybe while he’s here he could strip and replace the wallpaper in the laundry room. We need to get electrical socket covers for the entire house. I wonder how much a pool cover costs. …”

My husband knows this is my process. My first stage: acceptance and excitement. My second stage: the game plan.

That was a couple of months ago, and since then, I’ve slowed down, taken a deep breath, endured a few weeks of nausea, taken lots of naps, eaten more hamburgers than usual and found so much joy in this experience. Part of that has been realizing our baby doesn’t care what the wallpaper in the laundry room looks like, and I need to let go of some things.

There have been several doctor’s appointments. Seeing the flutter and listening to the rhythm of such a small heartbeat is like witnessing a miracle. And by the time you read this, we’ll know whether Baby Jordan is a boy or a girl.

Around the Christmas holiday, we were able to share the news with family and friends. To see my dad’s eyes well with tears and his face light up with excitement was one of the best moments of this experience for me. To attend our church’s Christmas Eve service, and in the glow of candlelight, hear voices echoing “Silent Night” resonated within my soul like never before.

This is the greatest gift I’ve ever been given.

There are still moments when I hear a song, and I’m filled with emotion. That can be partially blamed on my out-of-sync hormones, but the enormity of it all is more than I have the capability to digest. Clearly, I realize that I’m not the first person to have a baby, but I feel like up until this point, without even knowing it, I’d been left out on one of life’s great gifts.

There are so many things I wonder about our baby. Will it be a boy or a girl? Will its hair be curly or straight? What color will its eyes be? Will it love to swim or play golf, like either mine or Ty’s families? Where will it go to school one day and what will it accomplish in life?

One day, I’ll get to see how it plays out as a proud mom. That’s the greater game plan, more important than carpet and pool covers.

I would like to say that I’m always this zen about the change that is soon to come, but that would make me some type of super human. I can easily become overwhelmed by everything from picking the right car seat to paying for college tuition. My goal is to process it one day at a time because, thankfully, I don’t have to pay for college for several more years.

Ty and I went to look at a crib last weekend. It wasn’t what I imagined, and Ty could sense I was a little disappointed, “Don’t worry about it. We still have plenty of time to find a crib. That’s the good thing about you being such a planner, I don’t worry about things being taken care of because I know you’ll keep everything on track.”

I’ve yet to wrap my head around all the responsibility that comes with motherhood, but maybe this is my first step, being the crazy planner who keeps our family on track.