Top 10 List to Get Ready for Baby; Part 2

This post is continued from Top 10 List to Get Ready for Baby; Part 1.

09.05.16 - at the beach with Blue the day I went into labor 

6. Boundaries - set them now. 

One of the nice things about having a baby is that if you have not been good about setting boundaries in your life before this (ahem, self, I am looking at you), the child necessitates boundary setting for you. You quickly learn where lines have to be drawn. 

Best tip I heard: Set basic priority levels, and align what you do every day with these. Don't do a single thing if it's not on your priority list.

If you prioritize your schedule, you'll run around a slave to what's important to others. Other people's priorities end up filling your calendar. 

Instead, decide your priorities and only let something wind up on your agenda if it is one of your top priorities. 

How to do this? Don't let another minute go by without setting your everyday basic priorities. 

Didn't take me long to identify my priorities: 

1. My baby and my husband

2. Work (this includes volunteer work, charity giving, and revenue-generating work).

3. Self care

4. Friends and family who reciprocate a relationship (more on that in another post). 

Yes, friends and family are last. This is brand new unchartered territory for me. Since childhood I have focused on being a good friend, sister, daughter. But I wasn't always good to myself; to my own goals and plans. 

When I became a mom, I realized that the people who still want to be a part of my life in the limited time I have available for them after taking care of myself, those people are my tribe. 

Letting the others go has been hard, but my husband is really practical and helpful in that regard. He gets it, and me. He sees how full my plate is and doesn't want me to struggle with people who aren't right for me. When it comes to friendships, he keeps a pretty tight circle. Lessons have been learned in that concept from him! 

Finally, if you struggle with boundaries, as I have, and with saying no - this book by Henry Cloud helped me say no more in 2016. It was recommended to me by a pastor, and I wish I had read it sooner.  

7. After care 

My midwife asked me at this every visit after my second trimester: Who is caring for you after pregnancy? I drew a blank. This forced me to make a plan - because I didn't realize I needed to be cared for, I had not set one. 

About 6 months along, I arranged for my mom to help after my husband went back to work at two weeks post-partum. I also arranged for lactation support in the early days after baby came, took a breastfeeding tutorial with a doula, and saw a doctor about what to do if post-partum depression became an issue. 

8. Back up after care

Whoops. My aftercare plan fell through. My mom did not help after Andy went back to work because she was in an accident and was injured. 

I was less than two weeks post partum, had serious recovery to do and brand new baby, and no support. You can imagine how that went.  

Moral of the story: Set back-up support in case your main support falls through. 

9. Work it girl

This concept deserves it's own post, and I will give it one eventually. Right now, I will summarize point #9: You are a badass mom, and you should be treated as such. What you allow is what will be. 

My story is this: I worked for a smaller technology company of about 2,500 people. When I announced to my boss I was pregnant, I was 4.5 months along. This was about a month earlier than many people I knew had announced their pregnancy, but I wanted to be courteous and give extra time to plan for my leave. I read a few articles and mentally prepared for the conversation, but assumed the talk with my boss would go well. It's 2016. 

But no. The initial conversation was a giant red flag, and everything went downhill from there. My boss called it a "big issue", and said he was going to need to "speak to HR about this." He began to reduce my job functions. I lost all my staff members as he moved them under other people. I was removed from conferences and national meetings. I watched in horror as I slowly realized over the course of a month that my job was being eliminated.... 

Why? I had made it clear I was coming back after maternity leave. I was over-performing all goals. And I'd been with the company over three years. Why was this happening? 

Stunned as I was (my mom was a glass ceiling breaker of the 1970's - 1990's who saw no limits in having five kids and a full time career - I expected nothing less from today's workplaces), I went into full on fix-it mode. 

The remaining prenatal-work-timeline went like this: 

• 5 months pregnant - began a full-on job search, something I had not done for about 12 years;
• 6 months pregnant - first interview. No job acquired, but good confidence booster in my value in the workplace, despite pregnancy;
• 7.5 months pregnant - interview at an ideal company; verbal job offer on the spot;
• 8.5 months pregnant - started new job, waddled on into the office for orientation;
• 9.5 months pregnant - had baby;
• Seven weeks later - returned to my new supportive work environment, one where being a mom was not a "human resource issue."  

This drama was not what I expected for my pregnancy. I've worked my ass off to ensure I was in a good position to have both a career and a family. The last thing I expected was to be almost jobless right before having a baby, and unsure I would return to a job after maternity leave. 

It was demoralizing. Had I been naive about having a baby and working in 2016? Was the technology industry one that shunned working moms? Was my career now doomed? 

But I killed those thoughts and moved on. I was determined. 

One of my mentors told me, "...Laura, pack your bags and walk into that interview knowing the value you are bringing with you. If your pregnancy is a problem, you're in the wrong place." 

That was enough encouragement to get my head up, my fat pregnant feet moving, and to present everything I had; expecting that others saw the value I could bring to the working environment. Expecting that they'd see this especially and not in spite of the fact I'm a new mom. 

10. Your partner and you

From three of my closest friends (Cherie, Gloria, Gabrielle), in their 30's, 40's and 50's respectively, who have had eight kids between them, I gleaned this advice-  do these things with your partner before baby: 

• Take a bath together with the baby bump (not too hot!), swim, or get in the water - the experience of being in the water with your bump is a great bonding time for dads. 
• Go on a babymoon - just the two of you at a hotel, someplace local is fine. We went camping at the beach at Westport, WA., and to Las Vegas (vegas is fun with a bump!). 
• These were chances to get away from the grind and our household to-do list, and focus on each other. Much needed. 
• Have as much sex as you can. Pregnancy gives you some fun hormones which make sex interesting! Take advantage.... :) 
• Get a relationship tune up. We never felt the need for premarital counseling and have never been to a counselor prior to this. But becoming parents was a bit different. We were both overwhelmed, and found ourselves bickering over small things, which we never had before. 
• We found our communication style was degenerating and going downhill as the pressure of new jobs for each of us, new baby, small house, and little time to see one another all built up. We went to two sessions with an incredible counselor, who himself has six children and similar outlook on life to us. These sessions re-grounded us, and prepped us for this next phase of life. 
• Because we were honest about the problems we were experiencing, getting help communicating to each other became the obvious solution and we are much happier for it.
• Write a list of the top 20 reasons you chose your partner as the parent for your child, and exchange these lists on your due date. 
• This exercise can be done over the courses of the pregnancy, together. It helped us, because as the months went by, we were constantly thinking - what can I put on this list?/what is he putting on his list about me?
• It made us focus on the positive. Even when I was frustrated, I still had my running list going of why I chose this goofball in the first place. :) 

Let me know what made your top list for getting ready for your first baby, and what you think of mine!  - xo - Laura