How Am I Doing?

As many of you know, I’ve had a few major life experiences in the past few months. I lost my mother to lung cancer in April. I started a new job in May. And in the course of those two events, my husband and I learned we’re expecting a baby in November.

I’ve learned any major life milestone brings with it an alarmingly predictable set of conversations that I find myself repeating almost daily. I know nobody actually wants to hear how I’m doing, so the exchange typically goes like this:

“Hey, how are you doing?”
“Pretty good, lots going on.” [pats tummy]
“When are you due?”
“November 24.”
“Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“It’s a boy.”
“Oh, yay! Are you guys excited?”
“Yeah, we really are.” [pats tummy]
“How’s your new job?”
“It’s good, definitely an adjustment, but everyone’s been really nice.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah.”
“By the way, I’m sorry about your mom.”
“Thanks. It’s been tough, but we’re hanging in there.”
“How’s your dad?”
“He seems good. He has a lot of friends nearby, so that’s good.”
“I bet he’s looking forward to the baby.”
“He is. It’s been great for us all to have something to look forward to.”
“Yeah.”
“But my husband and I have a really long to-do list in the meantime!” [pats tummy because she doesn’t know what else to do with her hands]
“I bet!”
LOLs
“Have a good one!”
“You, too!”

Now, let’s rewind and play that conversation again, this time with my honest answers:

“Hey, how are you doing?”

“OK. The reality of having a baby is starting to set in, and I feel like I only have a few precious weeks left as the person I’ve been all my life. I’m really excited and I know everything’s going to work out, but I’m also pretty scared of how everything’s going to change.”

“When are you due?”

“November 24, which is the Monday before Thanksgiving, and I know that means everything’s going to be even more stressful and emotional. I’m also worried we haven’t done enough planning. I feel like all of my old coworkers who had babies were posting these photos of beautiful nurseries they had designed, and we haven’t even started ours yet.”

“Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”

“It’s a boy, which I was disappointed about at first. But I’m genuinely excited now because I’ve always been a tomboy, so I’ll probably relate better to a boy, honestly. (I don’t know how to braid hair.) Still, I’m worried he’ll feel more connected to his dad than to me.”

“Are you guys excited?”

“Yeah, definitely. But also scared. We’re both having kids sorta later in our lives, and we’re worried about not relating to the younger parents. We’re also pretty comfortable in our lifestyle right now, and we’re nervous about having that disrupted by a baby. People keep telling us we’re going to be sleep-deprived and arguing all the time, which sounds sort of horrible.”

“How’s your new job?”

“All in all, it’s actually been great. My boss seems very smart, and she’s very flexible about schedules. She lets us work from home one day a week, and overall I feel healthier and less stressed than I did in my last job. But I miss my old job. A lot. It’s hard to feel like an outsider there after so many years as a key part of the team. And I feel sort of disappointed that I’m working on healthcare content and not entertainment. Like, am I wasting my potential? Sometimes I still wonder what went wrong, and how I ended up here. I keep having lunches with people from my last company instead of getting to know my new coworkers. It’s partly because I’m liking the separation of work and personal friendships in my new job, since I feel like blurring those lines is part of why I was stagnating in my old one. But it’s also because I still feel like I have one foot in that old office and I hate to acknowledge that in reality, I don’t.”

“By the way, I’m sorry about your mom.”

“Thanks. I was doing OK in the first couple of months after she died, but a friend who also lost her mom warned it might all hit me later. And she was right. These past couple of weeks have been rough. Even though time helps ease the rawness of that loss, it also gives it more weight. Each day that goes by is another day she’s not here. And I realize she’s really gone.

“I’ll be OK during the day, then it’s at night when it sneaks in. As I’m lying in bed to go to sleep, I imagine her lying on the hospital bed in our family room. I feel her helplessness as she looked up at us, unable to move or speak. I picture what she must have seen as my dad, my brother and I stood next to her. I remember telling her I was pregnant and seeing her face smile as much as it could, and I mourn that we were robbed of the jump-up-and-down excitement that moment should have brought with it. Then I flash to that very last moment, when everything about her froze. And I still can’t believe everything we had been through—every experience of her life—had led to that one single second. I ponder what that moment will be like for me someday, and what kind of life I want live before it. Then eventually I stop crying and fall asleep.”

"How’s your dad?”

“He genuinely seems good. We’ve had more than one tear-filled phone call. It’s hard to hear your dad, or anyone you love, in that kind of pain over the phone. I worry about him and how he’s handling it. I know he has friends who are keeping him busy, but it’s a big house for him to be in by himself. And I know everything there reminds him of her.”

“I bet he’s looking forward to the baby.”

“He is. We all are. It really is nice for the family to have something happy to celebrate. But each milestone as we get closer also makes us a little sadder, because we can’t share it with her. And she would have been so excited to see all this. I know it was all she thought about from the day Alan and I got married. She saw all of her friends becoming grandmothers and she couldn’t wait to be one herself. It’s just so fucking unfair. And unfair to my dad, too, because he doesn’t get to share this experience with the woman he raised a family with for almost 40 years. I can’t call her with questions, she won’t be knitting any blankets, there won’t be any newspaper articles or magazine clippings coming in the mail. I already miss her every day, and I know I’m going to miss her 10 times more once the baby’s here.”

"Well, I can’t see your face anymore through all the blotched mascara. Great catching up with you! Bye!”

I know it’s these types of answers and that type of emotional reaction that most people dread provoking when they talk to me. And an office break room is certainly not the place to start pouring my heart out. But it’s not just casual acquaintances who tread lightly. It’s been hard to see people I consider close friends struggle with how to act around me, even though it’s through no fault of their own. People just don’t know what to say. Which is why for my next post, I’m going to try offering some advice on How to Talk to Someone Going Through a Loss. Anyone who’s reading this and can relate to that experience, I welcome your thoughts. I’m happy to keep anything confidential if you prefer.

And thanks to all of you for listening. Overall, I’m doing fine. I’ll make it through. As difficult as these feelings are, I’m trying to acknowledge that there’s no shame in them, which is why I wanted to talk about them here. Whatever it is you’re dealing with, you’ll make it through, too. I’m sure of it.