Slowing things down.

Even when I really, really didn't want to.

On Dec. 14, I hit publish on a Substack post. Twelve days later, I found out I was pregnant.

This was welcome news — the perfect way to end 2023. But debilitating symptoms started a couple weeks later and didn’t let up until I gave birth. When I wrote that post, I had no idea I wouldn’t share anything else for nearly a year. 

To call my pregnancy challenging feels like an understatement. For eight months, I could barely get through the day. I met the deadlines I couldn’t miss, but everything else fell on the back burner. I watched my email list stagnate and my Instagram following drop. I looked at my friends doing big, creative things and felt unhealthy levels of jealousy.

The funniest thing is that I landed a book deal this summer — a lifelong dream. But it didn’t help my raging feelings of inadequacy. In some ways, it made it worse. I felt like a fraud. Before I drafted this post, I stared at the blank screen for several minutes, wondering whether I even know how to write anymore. (My parents do say I’ve always had a flair for the dramatic.)

I tried to be patient with myself. You’re growing limbs. Organs! Eyeballs! One study found that pregnancy requires the same endurance as Ironman competitors. At many points throughout, I was throwing up multiple times a day and struggled to keep food down. Still, I felt incompetent* when I looked at everything I wasn’t doing. I set my own hours — but many of those hours were spent sleeping. As drastic as it sounds, it felt like I was barely surviving. This was my third pregnancy and the most difficult one by far.

(*I looked up synonyms for inadequate and then debated which depressing word described me best. TYSM, thesaurus dot com.)

And then there’s the conundrum that pregnancy brings: if you complain too much or too loudly, you’re ungrateful. As someone who has miscarried a much-wanted baby, I don’t ever want to dismiss the fact that many people are desperate to be pregnant. I debated talking about my symptoms publicly because I didn’t want my intentions to be misconstrued — I worried that it’d seem insensitive to whine about how exhausting things were. Still, I wish that I could’ve shouted THIS SUCKS from a mountaintop. Meeting my baby for the first time: fantastic! Everything leading up to that: awful!

Shockingly, this isn’t just a post about how much I dislike pregnancy, although I’d forgive you for thinking so. I was forced to hit pause and let go of many things that had felt really important before. It was both illuminating and discouraging.

When I started freelancing full-time, I worked 60-hour weeks and barely slept some nights. It wasn’t healthy or sustainable for me. Years later, I’ve finally found a productive rhythm that doesn’t require sacrificing my well-being. But that all fell apart very quickly.

I’ve shared before that 2021 was the most successful year of my career. I had what felt like endless brand deals and freelance opportunities. My mental health was improving after a hellish previous year. I’d found a way to balance travel and fun with friends with taking care of my toddler. If that Ayana could see me today, I worry she’d be bummed. This year, I’ve made enough to pay myself a modest salary, but it’s nowhere near the money I saw back then. I turned away freelance offers because I was too sick to take on extra work, and I haven’t had a brand deal in months. I’ve spent most of the year in a mental funk.

I hadn’t realized how much of my self-worth came from achieving until my lack of made me feel painfully mediocre. I wasn’t doing anything impressive (in my mind, gestating a whole human and writing a book did not count). I scrolled social media endlessly and felt even worse about myself. I expected things to improve after I gave birth — but it’s been complicated.

I’m still on maternity leave and have had to stop writing this post multiple times to tend to a crying baby (an adorable one, if I say so myself). At six weeks postpartum, my body is still recovering from the C-section I opted for. And I am very, very tired. 

I am far from an expert in accepting that Things Are Different Now. After all, I just had a baby and am frustrated that I’m not operating at pre-pregnancy levels. But I’ve learned that it won’t be like this forever. And even if it were, maybe that would be okay, too.

Nothing quite compares with the dopamine rush of meeting a goal, and I don’t think it’s terrible to get excited. But on the opposite end, I was almost worryingly sad that I wasn’t doing more. Some days, the only productive thing I managed to do was scroll Twitter looking for additions to my Monday tweet roundup (although some would argue that this was for the greater good). I hated it. I missed feeling accomplished after a long day at my desk. I missed brainstorming on my walking pad. I missed grabbing drinks with friends. I longed for the way things were before.

This isn’t my first time being forced to slow down against my will. After I experienced postpartum psychosis, I fell into a deep depression and could barely get out of bed. Pregnancy is hard, but it also has a firm end date. (This time around, I downloaded a countdown app and checked it daily.) A depressive episode? Not so much. I wondered whether I’d ever feel better; my psychiatrist assured me we’d eventually find the right medication combo. Thankfully, we did.

I wish I could say that I developed an appreciation for a leisurely, unhurried life during these times. In reality, I hated it. But I’ve learned that it won’t last forever, even when it feels like it will. I don’t think I’ll change my Type A, go-go-go personality anytime soon — and I don’t want to. But I want to continue learning to be more gentle with myself. At the end of the day, that’s all we can ask for, right?