I have always been hopelessly geeky. As a small child, when asked what I wanted to do for a living, I actually thought the following. Well, I really want to read books. But no one will pay me for that. But they might pay me to write books. So I said I wanted to be a writer. A few years later, I understood better about the style of life I wanted to become accustomed to, and realized that few writers made enough money to afford what I wanted. I diverted into software instead, a career which looked doable, moderately interesting, and capable of supporting a comfortable middle-class lifestyle. 2 out of 3 ain’t bad, and my overshoot on 3 meant that I can now read. A lot.
The head-in-a-book thing got me through an uncomfortable and somewhat dangerous childhood; unfortunately, it did not prepare me to relate to others in a way that supported my long term physical and emotional well-being. Despite that, my friends helped me get my head rearranged, in the course of which process I wrote an advice book on relationships with the intention of both organizing what I had learned (so that when I inevitably forgot bits, I’d have a reminder) and possibly helping others. It’s possible you have found your way here from that book because you got pregnant in the course of having a lot of fun.
Which is how I got here, too.
Expecting a baby is a bizarre experience filled with hormones, changing body shape and abilities, changing interactions with the people around you (even random strangers) and an awareness of how segregated reproduction is from many other aspects of adult life in the U.S. You may or may not have had friends, coworkers or acquaintances have babies before you. Even so, unless you made a concerted effort, that massive life change for them may have primarily manifested for you as them just not being around much any more, and when they were, they were very, very distracted. If you did make a concerted effort, you may have learned a little – or a lot – about having and raising small children. You probably also developed some decided opinions about what you would do differently if you were in their situation.
Now that you are actually in this situation, it has probably crossed your mind that a little more information, possibly in a more organized form, would help you figure out how to be the person you are used to thinking of yourself, in the middle of all this change. This book is a summary of what I have been learning by collecting information, a set of pointers and suggestions for where you might go look for more and my current ideas about how I plan to use this information in the course of this adventure. With a large amount of luck, I will have a little time someday to update this work with what actually happened, and what I would do differently next time based on my experience as it develops. Knowledge and understanding for me are flexible things. I hope they are for you, too.
Copyright 2005 by Rebecca Allen
Created May 20, 2005 Updated May 23, 2005