Category Archives for postpartum

the acrobatic feat that parenting is


times magazine

Originally uploaded by moyalynne

it is *leanne’s birthday* — and she and i had this exhausting (yet now run-of-the-mill) email exchange about how to manage, in general, our lives:

leanne:

on march 29 …..

you have a dentist appt at 8am

lucy’s due at c5 at 9:30am — which is a bit awkward since she usually goes down for a nap at 9am so maybe we can ask on thursday if we can bring her by at 8:45am or so before she gets nap-fussy.

so i’ll be dropoff person for lucy

i’m going to oakland at 2pm to pickup otivo’s colo servers with elizabeth. lucy is due to be picked up at 3:30

would you like to be pickup person for lucy?

then, next day, march 30, you could do dropoff alone and i’ll do pickup alone?

all of this makes me nervous.

moya:

so far we’ve all done really well.
i think we’ve discussed the rest but here goes with my memory:

monday evening
?see robert and dave?
gather and prepare bottles for tuesday morning; refrigerate

tuesday march 29
i leave by 8am from home for dr N
you pack the milk i pumped monday and a couple more bottles of formula and leave the same time and we walk partway together.
you have the most emotional farewell and good luck. you write that i will be there by three to feed lucy her afternoon meal.
i go immediately from dentist to work (do i drive to dentist?) and i pump at work @ 11a.
—> one of us or both calls to see how it’s going <–
i meet with guido and other guys at 1. i leave by 2. @ around 2:45~3, i drive into the parking garage, arrive @ c5, pick her up and take her and eat at otivo or i feed her there and then take her to otivo. you arrive back from colo at 4 or something at the same time as us; we all sit down and cry together.
@ home – wash and prep bottles for the next day

wednesday march 30
i pack the milk i pumped, plus a coupla bottles. drop lucy off by 830 or so and tell them i will feed lucy for her ~ 11a meal.
i call or they call me? or i show up at 11a, using the parking pass or a meter? lucy dines after hopefully having napped, and i race to work to be able to pump again at 1:30 for an afternoon of meetings.
you pick lucy up ~ 4? 5? and i come back to ?otivo? by 5? to meet you and lucy and for a snack before we take her home and feed solids.

whew; maybe we should just make it up instead of trying to plan.

what to do when i grow up


and green rocker

Originally uploaded by moyalynne

we were asked to speak on a gracenet panel next week on motherhood and work – and i quote:
“Does motherhood need to feel like martyrdom if a woman also wants a career in high tech?”

and i hardly feel i have the time or could concentrate or say anything of value besides “my brain is jello at home and at work” or do anything but just sit there in general dread on the verge of lucy melting down at seven and then experiencing said melting down and then leaving the room without a goodbye (the event starts at 6:30 – actually, tonight she didn’t even make it that long…).

anyway — the woman running it asked for a bio.
i thought as thoughtfully as i could, or so i thought, and i came up with this:
Moya’s been working for 14 years in a number of different ways in the software industry in the Bay Area, most recently creating technical documentation for SAP. In high school, Moya was labeled a “Renaissance Woman” by her English teacher. She guesses that if you’re going to be labeled, you might as well be labeled broadly, but lately she wonders what she wants to do when she grows up. This question burns even more ironically on her mind now that her daughter, Lucy, is here. Together with her wife Leanne, Moya’s weathering postpartum depression and learning the value of her new family.

i guess it wasn’t good enough (she is in PR after all…) and she instead printed this:
Moya Watson and Leanne Wahldal [ sic! ] decided to have a daughter, Lucy, even though besides being designated bottle washer Leanne also is chief scientist and CEO at Otivo, and Moya commutes every day to SAP, where she is a product manager. Lucy likes to keep late hours, so we’ll hear how the mothers manage.

so i think i scared leanne the other day when i told her i was so tired i was hallucinating (bugs crawling across the table, etc) and then launched into how airplanes were landing over my head on 280. this actually wound up making perfect sense; there was a news report; they were flying low. anyway………….. i must be channeling lucy in all things, because lucy tends to want to ‘latch on’ to the knots in the knotty pine kitchen table.