The AND stance

Last night, I had some trouble falling asleep. Not particularly surprising, considering our exciting day, and then experiencing the over-stimulation of skimming through several baby books and freaking out about sleep deprivation.

Having the words “we could induce” uttered in connection with this pregnancy was a bit of a wake-up-call to me and Jon. We could really have our baby any day now! And, while I can hardly wait to meet her, I’m really conscious of my inexperience in caring for newborns. So, I keep reading anything I can get my hands on, taking notes, dog-earing pages, and trying to memorize the swaddling diagrams.

While journaling last night, I realized I was feeling pretty worried about a variety of things: never sleeping again, breastfeeding difficulties, not knowing how to soothe our baby’s cries, the possibility of postpartum depression. All of my anxiety could be summed up in one big question: “What if I don’t like it???” It was good to realize that my worries about not liking having a baby were connected with my image of being a “bad mother.” This isn’t true!

Several years ago, I learned one of my favorite sayings from a conflict-resolution book called _Difficult Conversations_. Part of the book talks about how the perception of a person’s own identity can inhibit us from resolving conflict successfully. For example, if I confront my neighbor about their barking dog, that means I am a “mean neighbor.” This is not accurate! You can be a good neighbor AND not like having a barking dog next door. This is the AND stance.

So, I probably won’t enjoy sleep deprivation and hours of crying, AND I can still love my baby girl and enjoy being a mother. This is good news! The trick will be remembering this when I’m feeling like a “bad mother.” Luckily, Jon is good at reminding me about the AND stance. And I try to practice it too.

Like this: I have a pretty healthy diet, AND I just ate a chocolate cheesecake square. :)