A Reluctant Charlotte.

It's hard to go back and really think about how upset I was when I first found out I was pregnant, now that she's here, now that I love her so much. But I'm reminded every now and then of those first two weeks. Those terrifying weeks when my whole world was turned upside down. I didn't know what was going to happen with my life, my routine, my self. I didn't know if my health was going to hold up long enough to get a baby out or if it was going to hold up after he or she was here. I walked around those weeks like someone had just threatened my life.

It wasn't until I started telling people--my parents, Jason's parents, my friends--that I started to be okay with the idea. That's how I deal, I guess. A flaw of mine. I had to make sure everyone else was okay with it first.

I just felt so young. I still do. I felt like everyone would think I'd done something wrong, that I'd been irresponsible. And after everyone greeted the news with compassion and excitement--not one lecture--I realized it was really me who felt sort of irresponsible. I felt like a kid. A kid who'd just gotten suspended from school for drinking at the homecoming dance. Because that was me, not eight years ago. (But see! Eight years. That seems like just yesterday.)

For all of the good that's come after The Feminine Mystique, there's a sort of undercurrent of shame that goes along with doing those tasks typically been ascribed to women. Having children. Putting a career on hold to have those children. Doing the dishes and cooking dinner. Especially if you minored in women's studies in college and proudly call yourself a feminist.

I moved to New York after high school because I, like so many girls my age, wanted to be like Carrie from Sex and the City. I wanted to be successful, stylish, fun, smart. I wanted to have the career of my dreams and a closet stuffed with expensive shoes I paid for. Children weren't part of that equation. Because what self-proclaimed feminist wants to be like Charlotte, still hung up on the domestic fairy-tale? Everyone wants to be a Carrie, maybe a Samantha. Maybe even a Miranda. Charlotte's the anti-modern woman, the one we're supposed to juxtapose with her friends and snicker at.

I guess that's one of the many ideas that made pregnancy so terrifying at first. That and the idea of "mom-jeans." No style-obsessed 23-year-old wants to be anything associated with high-rised, pleated pants.

I just don't want to be Charlotte. I don't want to be the one the modern women, the powerful women, are snickering at.

Now everything is different, of course. Now I am a mother. And I quickly realized throughout my pregnancy that mom-jeans are not a requirement, nor is a positive sign on a pregnancy test a death sentence.

I went out for the first time post-baby two weekends ago. My friend Morgan was in town from New York City, here to meet Adelyn. And so I got dressed up, put on my beloved heels and styled myself beyond stretchy pants and a T-shirt and went to dinner with some of my best friends. Afterward, I went with them to a bar. I had a beer. It all so closely resembled my former life, the one before I permanently had a burp cloth over my shoulder. And I had fun, as I always do with my best friends.

But I only stayed for that one drink.

I missed my family, Jason and Adelyn, too much to stay for another.