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.

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Telling your boss you're pregnant

After a lot of anxiety and worry and unnecessary freak-outs and soul searching, I finally told my boss(es) that I'm pregnant.

I told the first one toward the end of my overnight shift. She's the executive producer of the morning news, so my boss during those hours although not the boss (or the decision-maker) of the entire organization. She's engaged, as well, and every now and then, between the never-ending list of things you have to do in 30 seconds or less to produce a three-hour newscast, we talk about our impending nuptials.

"So how goes the wedding planning?" I ask her, both of us still typing away, our backs to each other.

"It's good," she says. "I realized yesterday I hadn't actually picked flowers or a cake or a DJ yet, and there's only four months to go, so I scheduled all of them at once."

(Oh, the days when my wedding was my main source of worry and planning and not how I'm somehow going to manage to care for an infant that was in no way expected or scheduled.)

"Well, it must be nice to be all done," I respond.

And then, in the clumsy way I've become accustomed to telling people, I blurt it out.

"My wedding's been postponed a month, because I'm pregnant and due in February."

The typing stops, and for a moment the only sound filling the newsroom is the dozen or so police scanners all screaming about a suspect on the loose or a suspicious man in a white T-shirt and jeans roaming the streets.

She turns toward me and puts her hands on my knees.

"Congratulations, Sarah!" she says wholeheartedly. "I can't believe you've been working this shift the whole time; I can't even imagine!"

Her answer's not completely shocking or anything, but this is a woman who is always in work-mode (you really can't be any other way in this business). She's seems nice, but never exceedingly warm or compassionate.

I tell her about my fears of staying at this job, of pushing myself too hard. She tells me what I needed to hear, that my life and health are more important, that it's my right to take time off for a child.

Later, I get up the nerve to tell my other boss, the executive producer over the whole shebang. We go into her office, where I presume she thinks we're going to talk about me taking on some shows by myself as a producer.

The second the door closes, I blurt it out again, this time with arguably even less tact.

"I'm pregnant," I say.

This woman is a mother of three. When she hired me, she told me she'd worked there for eight years and had taken off two when her third was born. I worried the most about telling her, since she was the one who hired me, interviewed me, promoted me, had the authority to fire me or grant me the leave I want or deny it. But I hoped she would be understanding. She'd taken off two years, after all.

But the look on her face is nothing but pure compassion. She knows about my Crohn's and that I've been working frequent 12 hour overnight shifts.

And she tells me the same thing.

"Sarah, when it comes to this job," she says, "your personal life is always more important. When it comes to your life, screw this place."

She says I can leave whenever I want (granted I give plenty of notice). I tell her I plan to leave in November or December, and to (hopefully) come back two months or so after giving birth.

"Whatever you need," she says.

And I'm not even kidding.

From the second I saw the result on my home pregnancy test, I've been convinced the world wouldn't approve. In this age of Bristol Palin and 16 and Pregnant and Britney Spears' public parenting tactics and Judd Apatow's take on procreating and drive-through Plan B pills, being pregnant hardly feels like a good thing.

With my parents, my sister, my friends, the world, even myself, I was terrified each time I admitted it. I sweat and nearly hyperventilate each time I plan to say the words.

"I'm pregnant."

To be pregnant at my age, before I've gotten married, before I obviously planned it, feels like admitting failure. I didn't use condoms and birth control, and I easily could have, so, therefore, I failed.

But each time I've let the secret slip, I've been presently surprised. Everyone's been exceedingly supportive.

I left work that day, for the first time in ages, feeling genuinely okay about my job and what this baby might mean for my career.

I haven't told the number one guy in the office--guy being the operative word. But I don't really care. He's a man, and although he has children of his own, he's never had to push one of them out. I have female support behind me, and that's plenty. Even if he vetoes the whole thing and kicks me to the curb altogether, at least then I'll know it's just because he doesn't--and can't--understand, not because I did something wrong.

It's all gonna be just fine, I think.

Maybe even better than it would've been otherwise, if everything had gone to plan.

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15 and Pregnant.

So, I look about 10 years younger than I am. And when you're 23, that's not a good thing.

I've been told I look 12 (once, when buying cigarettes), not a day older than 16 (about 2029947474 times, when buying alcohol), and just plain too young to be doing the things I'm doing (two-TWO-people at my work stopped me just to ask if my engagement ring was actually an engagement ring, because I "just look way too young to be getting married"). That's what you get for being 5'1" and small and not wearing suits and heels to the office because I work overnight and just plain don't feel like it.

It's something that's irked me since I was in middle school, and something I'm sure will for decades to come.

And being pregnant sure isn't going to help my looking-my-age fixation.

Yesterday, my mom took me to get a hot stone massage. At the very last minute, I told the masseuse I was pregnant (just in case that would bar her from throwing scorching stones on my stomach), and she informed me that company policy doesn't allow her to massage anyone under 15 weeks. So no relaxation for me. And, on top of that, I then had to--for the first time--face the glares and scrutiny and plan judgey stares from strangers finding out I'm pregnant.

She escorted me to the lobby, where she told the receptionists what had happened (they each shot me "oh, you poor knocked up 12-year-old" looks).

Because my paranoia really is that bad, I informed all of them that it was okay, because I brought my own car, and I could just go shop all by myself while I waited for my mom (whose presence there I'm sure didn't help my cause). I was tempted to throw in that I might just go to the bar and drink some alcohol, because I legally can and do you wanna see my ID? except that might not have gone down so well with the whole them knowing I'm pregnant thing.

So I left, with no massage, no feeling of calm and relaxation, and three sets of eyes feeling sorry for me.

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Pregnancy perfection and the woman I'll never be.

I'm sure I'm joining a huge club of expectant mothers who have an unhealthy obsession to TLC's A Baby Story.

It's really the only show on that, A) airs essentially 24/7 and, B) doesn't make it seem that pregnancy equates to an automatic death wish.

So, I'm terrified, I need answers, and accordingly I spend at least an hour every day watching TiVo-ed episodes.

And I've now come to the conclusion that this--this sole show that actually details the, you know, pushing a baby out of your vagina part, is part of what has been making me feel inadequate.

The women are all, well, old. They're all married. They all have a plan. They all scream for ten (albeit, edited) minutes and then talk about how it's the best thing that's ever happened to them.

We have two choices within the pop culture zeitgeist to watch a pregnancy unfold. And it's either this, or 16 and Pregnant, which is the complete opposite and makes me feel completely adequate and prepared (only because I have a college degree and doubt my life after pregnancy will entail any screaming at my mom for not letting me extend my curfew).

Where's the middle ground? Where's the voice for those of us in between? Those of who don't have 80's mullets and a white picket fence or a total lack of a life plan? Those of us in throes of the prospect of raising a child, all while navigating through what society says we're supposed to do in our early 20s?

I think I will be a good mom. I know my fiance will be a great dad. I think I'll figure out what I want to do with my life, and I don't know if it will look anything like what I thought it would when I was in college and my main concern was how to ace this test while simultaneously battling a monstrous hangover.

I suppose that's why so many mothers have turned to blogging, and within those women I have found a voice and a message I wouldn't be able to find anywhere else. But of my two favorite mommy bloggers, Rebecca at GirlsGoneChild.net and Heather at Dooce.com, both still have something I don't. A little bit of time. A little bit of an established career. A wedding ring. A plan. And, still, without them, even only at 8-weeks-pregnant, I think my hormones would've already gotten the best of me.

I don't think I'll ever be completely comfortable in my 23-year-old skin as a mother.

But unlike my virtual friends on A Baby Story, at least I don't have a perm. Or a mullet. Or a camera in my face whilst crowning.

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