Dear Baby

Several moms have asked me what it’s like to leave Everly often for work. It makes me sad to even write the words “I’m getting better at it”.

Traveling was always on the top of my job description want list. I wanted to go places, get to know every major American city and if possible, maybe even a few overseas too. The first few years of my job were heaven. I was in my mid twenties - navigating airports and taxis and city streets all on my own. I felt so grown. Opening the door to a nice hotel room with a beautiful view of downtown skyscrapers never lost its magic.  Better yet, Brent or my girlfriends would sometimes come along and take advantage of the free room & my daily meal per diem.

Traveling for work is what introduced me to San Francisco. It’s how my husband caught my insatiable passion for living there. It built a distinct and immediate love for Chicago, New York, Boston, San Diego, and Seattle.

But as it often does, Motherhood changed the eager anticipation I used to feel before work travel. It replaced it with dread. Weeks in advance I’d feel it begin to creep in, causing me to fight back tears as I sang my baby to sleep at night. I had to leave Everly for the first time when she was three months old. No part of my physical or emotional being was ready for it.

I worked myself up so much that I was on the cusp of a panic attack by the time the cab pulled up to take me to the airport.  I cried the entire first day I was gone. I must have called home every two hours.

Being a nursing mother made it even more difficult. The pressure I put on myself to have a substantial supply before I left - pumping in airport and convention center bathrooms. Hauling pumps and supplies and coolers and ice packs back and forth so that I wouldn’t waste any precious breast milk. It’s was a constant but necessary stress.

These days, I think I’ve adjusted fairly well to my travel schedule. I bring Brent and Everly along when possible and on those trips where I can’t - I feel that dread and ache for her lessen with each trip.  Not because I miss her less, but more because I’m just learning to cope with the absence better. I no longer wake up, alone in my hotel bed at 5am thinking I heard her cry from her crib.  I call home when I wake up and at lunch and again at bedtime.  My work computer isn’t skype enabled, but hearing her baby noises over the phone helps me considerably.  Having a baby has made me so efficient at getting ready and getting things done that I find my “single self” legs pretty quickly and can accomplish so much more than I used to. I still stare longingly at every baby stroller or infant I see.

I do blame my work travel for ending my breastfeeding days a lot sooner than I had hoped. When I travel, I’m usually so busy managing customer events in restaurants, expo halls, and buildings that have very few places to pump. I’d go hours longer than normal without pumping because it just wasn’t possible. My supply dropped considerably, and Everly - who grew accustomed to bottle feedings while I was gone, started refusing to nurse on me. She’d scream and cry frustrated with the slow letdown and just refuse to nurse.  She began to bite me and push me away. Towards the end, the only time I could convince her to nurse was in the middle of the night when she was half asleep.

I loved breastfeeding and desperately wanted to keep going - but with Everly refusing to nurse and the pace of my work making it nearly impossible to pump often enough to keep up with her demand, we started supplementing with formula. I missed the connection with Everly. I loathed my pump and feeling isolated as I sat in a room alone trying to hang on to what was left of my breastfeeding days as best I could.

Enough was enough and I gave it up. Everly has 4 and half months old. I still wonder if I could have done more. Did I give up to soon? Could I somehow have changed the end result? I’ll never know.

So here we are - four and half months later.  My room service breakfast is growing cold on the tray next to me as I write this. Out my window, the sun is beginning to warm the sides of the buildings in downtown Ottawa. I haven’t called home this morning in case Everly is letting Brent sleep in.

I miss the way my husband smells and Everly’s tiny, fat fingers that usually wake me up. I’m thinking about the emails I need to send. The meetings I need to attend. Rescheduling Evie’s pediatrician appointment as it falls on a day that I’ll be in NYC. And Brent’s birthday that I’ve yet to plan a single thing for.

I feel twinges of the same excitement I used to know when I walk out of the hotel and into the brisk fall air here. I wonder what restaurant we’ll explore to night. I hope I’ll have time to tour the parliament building.

but more than anything, I just want to push through the front door on our little house. I want to drop my bag and pick up my daughter. I want to tell her all the ways she’s grown in the few days I’ve been gone. I want to open a little bag and pull out the pretty little red cloche I bought her.  and I really want to  just sit on the couch next to my husband and lean into his warm body..

I’ve been to a lot of cities and have many yet to explore… but I can tell you right now, no where in this whole wide world could possible compete with the way it feels to just be home.

Love,

M