Listen, we all need to be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that sometimes life just gets in the way. Acknowledge this without guilt, frustration, or regret. That’s really the only way we can move forward once life has loosened its grip on us.

For about a year there, I was on a role with my writing. Not only was I regularly posting here, but I was also heavily engaged in online writing communities and had written a book. But then, the husband and I decided to start a family, not really knowing how much doing so would get in the way of the writing career I had slowly been building.

After becoming pregnant in March of last year, everything came to a screeching halt, despite my best efforts. Turns out, pregnancy isn’t all sunshine and roses like they want you to believe in movies. Being constantly sick and having a high-risk pregnancy (a topic for a later post, maybe), while also working full-time to afford staying home with baby the first year, left me in no state to continue on with my writing career.

Since the book I wrote is intended to be the first book in a trilogy or series, I had a lot of false starts over the past year for book two. But other than that, my writing went completely out the window. My terrible pregnancy ended with an induction due to health concerns for the baby on December 16th (my birthday), and while my baby arrived healthy and, quite frankly, perfect, I had then entered into the newborn phase of parenthood.

No one tells you this, but the newborn stage is quite horrific, no matter how much you love your baby. In the past two months, the longest stretch of sleep I’ve had is three hours, three glorious hours. My body and mind have been a complete wreak due to labor, which takes weeks to heal from, and having my entire life change in an instant. Exclusively breastfeeding, I am always locked into baby, who until recently had to eat every hour or so, and my mind had little capacity for much else. Trying to keep a completely dependent, little bean of a human alive is no easy task, my friends, especially when you are constantly being told the myriad of ways baby’s can suddenly die.

But at almost ten weeks postpartum, things are starting to get better. I’m fully healed, breastfeeding is no longer a stressful chore, the baby is smiling and cooing more than she is crying (though her cries are still quite frequent and LOUD), and I’m able to get more stuff done in my day. At this very moment, my little one is sound asleep in a carrier on my chest, leaving my arms free to type. It’s still a lot, and I’m dying to get longer stretches of sleep at night, but I’m starting to see the rays of sun peaking through the fog.

Thinking back on how my writing career slipped away during pregnancy and over the past couple of months, I felt regret for letting it happen. But over the past few days, as I’ve started to lift myself out of the bog of the newborn stage (and quite possibly a minor case of postpartum depression), I realized that there are times when you just have to accept that life gets in the way and move on.

Were there things I could have done to maintain my writing? Sure, at least during the first couple trimesters of pregnancy. But looking back at it objectively, I don’t think that would have been good for me, and deep down, I think I understood my limitations at that time. And quite honestly, I’m glad for it. If I had tried to push myself, I could have completely burned myself out and created a negative association with my writing, putting the final nail in the coffin. At least now, I can happily build myself back up.

Having a baby who isn’t even three months old yet, I’m not completely out of the woods. Much of my time is still going to be spent breastfeeding, contact napping, and trying to soothe a baby that has the lung strength to rupture my eardrums. But in the moments like I have now, I can start regaining that part of my life back bit by bit.

Uh oh, she’s stirring. Time for the precious little monster to feed before she completes her transformation into full banshee mode. Until next time!