Surprise yourself 🧶
Some thoughts at the eleventh hour before a major change.
Welcome to Permission Granted, a little corner of the internet carved out to work through what “wellness” means in each of our lives. I want you to feel healthy. I want you to feel free. And I want all of us to think about our place in this world.
Oh hello again. Happy new year.
This one’s a little all over the place! Consider yourself warned!
Tomorrow morning, January 3, 2022, at 8 am, I’m having a baby. On that day I will be 36 weeks and 0 days pregnant. I will be 39 years and a few months old.1 I’ll have been in the hospital for the past 10 nights, which has been unexpected and unpleasant, but fine. The early procedure and hospitalization is the result of a condition called placenta previa which I probably have because I’m older.2 I’m okay. No need to worry, but thank you. Just setting the scene.
That’s one way to start a newsletter after a few months away.
I’m not sharing this because it’s particularly newsworthy and I certainly don’t have anything insightful to add to the narrative around pregnancy or mom stuff. I’m writing this here because to do something I didn’t think I would do, I had to make a series of decisions that felt very far away from who I knew myself to be.
Almost four decades into being Molly, I allowed myself to surprise myself.3
Maybe surprising ourselves is one of our only ways to assert control in a *very* out of control world. We have the chance to remind ourselves that we’re not actually on autopilot. Even a small act of defiance against your self-perception is an incredible thing.
More of the story: a year ago (almost a year into this pandemic), I walked into a fertility clinic office and told the doctor, point-blank to his face, exactly what “type” of person I was. I was curious about the situation with my body and also not set on an outcome. We would be open to running tests and other “non invasive measures” since it had become clear pregnancy was not going to passively happen, but I was absolutely not interested in IVF. “I’m not hellbent on this,” I asserted. “I have many friends who have gone through the process and every one of them has eventually had success (and by that I mean given birth to precious, precocious, adorable children) — Amazing! Science is remarkable! I love these babies! — but that’s not us.” I sat there and said: “I don’t want it that badly.”
Looking back, even that hint of judgement toward myself was bullshit.
You know where this is going.
Less than three weeks later, the first round of shots arrived on my doorstep. I was wrong about myself. I was confronted with a new piece of information4 and I made a decision. It was both that simple and that incomprehensible.
A month (and a failed first egg fertilization process) later, I was wrong again. There were a million places for this to fail, so I had to keep deciding to stay. Through this process, I proved myself wrong by simply looking at the next piece of information and moving through it.
Dead ends rarely exist if you stay open to the options.
I came to places where I thought I knew what decision I would make, and I made the opposite one. I was wrong when I set a boundary about what kind of treatment I would get. I was wrong about my emotions, my ego, my plans. I was wrong about a lot of it.
Maybe surprising ourselves at a dead end is how we heal, and break, and heal again. Maybe it’s how we connect. Maybe it’s how we let go.
I almost wasn’t here. Truth be told, I probably wouldn’t have done it without everything that has changed in the past two years, not the least of which was losing my business. Lots of women have children while running companies, pursuing entrepreneurial efforts, fundraising, managing teams, etc.. It’s challenging. It’s not impossible. I just wasn’t those women. Having a kid was not something I was prioritizing. I was putting every piece of myself into The Assembly while passively letting the window close. I wasn’t ignoring it, but I wasn’t centering the conversation in my life outside the errant “should we?” or “will we be happier staying as we are?” talk once a year or so.
I had already come to terms within myself with the possibility of regret and I was okay with it (truly). Regret about paths not taken is part of life. It’s normal and it’s healthy. I told myself that if we didn’t have a kid, I was prepared for whatever emotions that brought.
And yet, I made the first appointment. I kept showing up and letting all the conflicting feelings exist at the same time. And now I’m here, sitting in a hospital bed with (checking the clock) 16 hours to go until my cesarean section.
Tomorrow starts something that I think will be a grand adventure — magical, challenging, fortifying, funny, weird, painful. And I do think it will open me up to a new version of love. I don’t know what that will look like, but I’m gonna find out.
AND, I believe fully and truly that the life I could have had — the life I *almost* picked — also consisted of endless opportunities for magic, for challenges, for surprise, pain, and unimaginable love. It meant being a present aunt to children that matter to me. It meant having more resources and energy to show up for my people. It meant being in control of my own little iconoclast narrative. It was what I knew. There are still moments I feel sad to be leaving that life and choosing another. Sometimes, I feel closer to that other me than this current one. I whisper to her that she’s still there, too.
Becoming a mom is not the answer to everything. It’s one way the story can go. The narrative about it being the only way to feel life’s biggest love has always made me uneasy, not because I doubt the experience of so many women as they become mothers. But, who am I to tell another person, another woman, of the love they feel? Of what brings them fulfillment? Of what their hearts hold? There is no way to compare love, so why do we try? And dear god, why do we do this knowing it makes others feel small in the process? I can only speak for myself. You can only speak for yourself.
There are powerful, fascinating women with earth-shattering intellect, wit, and passion that are mothers. There are just as many who are not. I keep examples of both tucked inside my heart, because half of my life I have been one of those things. And half of my life I will be the other. I cherish both.
You have endless capacity to feel anything you are open to. There are so many opportunities to expand in every direction, just as long as you get out of your own way and let the surprise in sometimes.
So find her, that surprising self. Find her in quitting something. Find her in making an appointment to see how it feels. Find her in walking out of that appointment and saying nope, not for me. Find her in risk without reward. Find her in saying fuck it to who you and the world think that you are. Find her, find her, find her. Because from where I sit, looking out at a little patch of gray sky, why the hell not?
I took a moment today to write a little letter to my future daughter. Part of it was the story of me before her. It breaks my heart that she won’t get to see The Assembly and this community the way that it was. I would have been so proud to bring her there. But even if she and it don’t exist at the same time, they’re still both a part of me. I do hope that’s enough.
This is a snapshot of me, today. I know this subject is a little less universal, but I wanted to share in case it resonated with you. It’s a feeling that has me on the brink of tears at any moment (hormones are fun?). It’s also calming in it’s own quiet way. I hope you feel peace. I hope you also leave yourself open to what comes.
I still have some surprises left in me. I’m betting you do too.
Until we speak again, take care. Take care. Take care. As always, I’m here for your thoughts, feelings, reactions — molly@assemblysf.com.
xo,
Molly
Some things:
The climate crisis loomed large in my mind while thinking about the decision to have a child. I found this conversation in the Gen Dread Newsletter (and the resources linked within) to be helpful, especially the sections about evaluating the life experiences of someone growing up at a different time and the collective responsibility of kinship.
Cribbage is a great game. I grew up playing it and have been back at it while in the hospital this week. If you’ve never played, I highly recommend learning (also kids don’t have to be particularly old to get the hang of it). There are lots of beautiful boards (and weird) boards out there.
It should come as no surprise that I haven’t bought much by way of clothing over the past few months, but I have gotten two of these colorful and delicate bracelets for myself (and a necklace as a gift) and they are just lovely.
This body oil is light (as advertised!) and smells very good.
I’m probably not watching anything you’re not watching, but the final season of PEN15, the series Station Eleven on HBOMax, and the last season (and episode) of Insecure are all very good.
We got a puppy and I love her a whole lot. And, no, I don’t run her instagram account.
I included my age here for any of you that are curious. Throughout this pregnancy I’ve found myself mildly obsessed with figuring this out about other people/celebrities (for NO good reason). While I know that in cities like SF, having children later is not out of the norm, it can still really feel that way. So in case this is on your mind, let me be an example for you so when YOU are looking for examples of women who have their first baby at almost 40, you can think of me! No need to do further research.
If you have specific questions, please reach out! Happy to answer what I can.
Author’s note: this is about my experience. My wonderful husband Kjell was active in all of this, but this isn’t his story today. Ask him how he feels!
This information was that my Fallopian tubes are closed! Another conversation I’m happy to have if you have questions!