We need this baby

My Tuesday morning pre-Russian-texts-and-critics-class routine was well underway as I scrolled through my photo roll, showing my classmates the adorable creature known as my son. Because what else would I talk about with my friends before class? I mean, who can resist this face, right?

Even my professor came over to watch a video of Joseph’s latest skill, commenting that she doesn’t know how I get anything done. (#validated)

As I scrolled to yet another picture to show off my favorite tiny human, one of my friends asked me, “Do you regret having a baby during this school year?”

(Now, let me refer you back to my tiny man’s cuteness and ask if there is any way in the world I could have answered “yes” to her question. Clearly there was not.)

Surprised, and yet trying to play it cool so as to come across as the mom-and-PhD-student-who-has-it-all-together that I like to pretend to be, I replied, “No. It’s completely worth it.” I assured her that, despite the impending slate of PhD comprehensive exams awaiting me this semester, I wouldn’t have changed the timing of this little boy’s advent into the world. Despite my own coursework, teaching responsibilities, looming dissertation, and those nefarious exams, I honestly have never even thought to regret Joseph’s birth.

I mean, look at those eyes.

Because, for all that I feel like I spend the bulk of my life now desperately trying to keep all the pieces of my existence together and not let any important fragments of responsibility slip through my fingers into the ether of the universe, I have never felt happier or more fulfilled. My life has never had more meaning or substance or joy.

Am I prepared for those impending exams that determine if I can continue in the program I’ve already devoted more than two years of my life to? Nope. Have I spent more time and energy in the past six months thinking about how to make an infant sleep than about how to conjugate a Russian verb or analyze literature or understand history? Oh yes. Do I prefer to spend Joseph’s sacred nap time writing my motherly thoughts instead of preparing for class? Obviously.

Needless to say, it hasn’t been easy to balance all the demands on my time and energy. It’s hard to know where to place my focus when I feel like I’m being pulled in seven directions at once. Sometimes the evening hours when Joseph is in bed and I have not yet allowed myself to slip into the precious realm of slumber can be crippling as I think about the many things begging me to finish them—should I spend these free hours grading homework, doing class readings, working on papers, studying for exams, maybe planning a music lesson for the children at church, doing the yoga routine I skipped in the morning for the sake of extra sleep….? The only practical solution to this problem is eating ice cream with my husband and chatting until we’re exhausted. Because sometimes sanity is more important than working. And somehow everything gets done enough and we keep plodding along.

But, in addition to the onset of chronically interrupted sleep cycles and complete loss of control over my schedule, Joseph’s birth has given me a profound shift in my priorities. Suddenly my school responsibilities seem far less daunting, or even important. As ironic as it seems, I know I would be much more stressed about my academics and my exams and my dissertation research this semester if I did not have a baby consuming the majority of my attention. As I walk in to teach Russian or sit in a seminar and try to discuss intellectual things, songs from Fisher Price baby toys running through my head, I feel like a much different grad student than I was a year ago. Motherhood has helped me learn to slow down, to lessen my need for control or constant productivity. It’s taught me that in five, ten, twenty, fifty years, so much of what I am doing right now in my program won’t matter, at least for its own sake. My Russian students may forget my name and every declension I ever taught them. My research papers and conference presentations will sink into oblivion, unheard-of and forgotten. My dissertation will sit on a silent, dusty library shelf, never to be opened after the conclusion of my defense.

These academic pursuits won’t matter.

But for all of eternity, Joseph will be my son.

He matters.

His tiny, grabby hands need to be held.

His little tears need to be dried.

His bright blue eyes need to look into the face of a mother who loves him.

Those are the things that matter, the things that will have a profound and long-term effect, both for him and me.

So, no. No, I do not one single bit regret bringing my little son into the world at exactly this time. 

I feel like the little three-year-old son of some friends who, upon our coming to pick up Joseph from his kind babysitters, asked what we were doing. When we told him we were taking our baby home, the toddler squeezed Joseph and said, "No! Um, we need this baby."

My thoughts exactly. Bryce and I sure do love and need this sweet six-month-old.