Half
In week eighteen of pregnancy, I stop having to pee in the middle of the night. Week nineteen, I have lunch two hours late and there is no crushing penalty. I'm not napping anymore. Electrolyte drinks, while still a good idea, feel optional rather than necessary to combat headaches.
One evening in Sunnyside, my father looked at my just-starting-to-show belly and remarked amazedly, "You're going to be huge."
A month later, I think he's right. I've always been thin, and it's a bit dysmorphic to see my body in the mirror now. Not that it's unwelcome, but I don't look like me. I'm starting to waddle if I'm not paying attention. My back hurts a bit. I finally have the energy to start an exercise routine.
Another interesting identity shift: I've always made my own money. But while I've been in London, with no work visa, no energy, overwhelmed with grad school, I've been covered by my husband's paycheck. I'm deeply grateful this is an option, but it's something that feels strange at an identity level.
My visa, when it comes through, will define me as a dependant. Even as a five-year-old I pushed for self reliance; how am I, at thirty-two, to accept such a label?
It felt more uncomfortable before I got pregnant. Now, it's clear that a down-the-middle split wouldn't be fair either. Only one of us is capable of giving up their body to the cause, and it has brought me to maximum capacity at times. When I'm home, I usually cook: I like to, I want us to eat well, and I'm free to; he's stuck in an office. These aren't obligations, but they are contributions. I'm planning to be primary caregiver to our kids, too.
You can't assign fair value to this kind of split— the irony inherent to Frederici's "Wages for Housework" campaign back in 1972, in part a pushback against the concept of the GDP as a meaningful measure of a country's productivity.
Care work matters; and gets socially undervalued; and, especially due to its repetitive, product-less nature, can be draining even if it is also rewarding (not guaranteed). A paid job is a much more legible transaction: this much money for this much labor. Often, people's jobs are performed with little regard to the outcomes of the work itself; the purpose has more to do with what the money can buy— supporting a family's cost of living, for example.
How can you assign a comparable number to unpaid care work, when it is so often performed for emotional and values-based reasons? Sure, you can find a number for some of these as paid services, but you'll forgive me if I don't trust the free market to accurately assess matters of social priority. It's the wrong kind of math.
And there's opportunity cost: I could be advancing my career, but that doesn't square well with over a month of nausea; I've never worked somewhere with that many sick days. There are physical differences between pregnant people and people who will never be pregnant that have permanent impacts on earning capacity. Biology isn't fair.
We're a team, and that is a trite but necessary formulation. There is no such thing as half. The only way to be fair is to be kind, generous, and trusting of one another. We've set up financial rules around income sharing and what is separate versus shared in a way that makes us both feel safe. But safe is not the same as equitable; we're entangled. In the long term, how fair it feels depends on how happy we are to continue to share our resources and burdens with each other.
Maybe it's like dishes and taking out the trash: less important that the labor is equally distributed than that someone who isn't you is doing it some of the time.
It's interesting timing. Before Rob came along, I was already in a career change. I was burned out from doing full time work plus a volunteer directorship for an activist org plus grad school plus teaching a cocurricular at my alma mater (plus self insemination and accompanying emotions, rocky relationship, tough living situation). (I make my own foolish choices.)
When considering my next career move, I was reaching for something that would feel more natural day to day. I want a vocation that causes me to engage deeply with the world, to be fascinated often.
In February, one of Robert's friends asked what I did, and I said I had been writing poetry.
"Oh, you're a poet," he nodded, accepting this.
"Yeah," I said, nodding. Sure, I'll take it. I’ve been published once or twice when I’ve submitted to magazines, but I’ve never attempted to make it define a working life.
And there's my art. In an internship I can hardly believe existed, I painted watercolors forty paid hours a week in my own little office last summer. But that's a job I was lucky to get for a few months. Art as paid work in general is much more daunting.
Until now, me working hasn't been a viable option. But now that it's legal for the foreseeable future and my body seems more capable, I'm thinking about it again.
Between visa applications, flights across the ocean, and out of pocket healthcare (more on that in a future blog post)— not to mention London rent— we're not saving much money lately. And here I am with strong experience in tech, management, environmental nonprofits, and a fresh data science grad degree— probably, I could find something flexible and lucrative.
It's an interesting crossroads. I could get a full-time job in my field. I could get a more chill job, like the counter of a climbing gym. But both of those might be more energy than I have.
I could do gig work online: technical piecework, for instance. It's probably a good match for money with changing energy levels. I could push into my arts careers, at risk of converting a delight into an obligation— potentially with no payoff. Both of these choices might be lonely; I'm already socially isolated in a foreign country.
Ultimately, I'll probably pursue some mix and continue to ponder what's best. But it's tricky: reward tends to follow commitment.
I've heard procrastion defined as a symptom for fear of failure. It can be hard to distinguish between low energy and just putting off the hard thing. After the trials of the first trimester, I'm concerned to the point of counterproductivity with basic needs: if I start something that requires focus, will I remember how urgent it is to eat?
Saturday marks twenty weeks pregnant: halfway through. It has been scary not to know how long the symptoms would last; they feel interminable. So their lightening brings not just physical relief, but the lifting of a huge emotional burden. I think I'm going to be okay.
I'm still waking up at five some mornings, too hungry to go back to sleep. It's good writing time. My little black cat keeps me company, chirruping purrs, dancing between my bedspread and the windowsill.
None of these choices are permanent. It's easy to forget, in the immediacy of life, what a gift it is not to be fully tasked. I've had nearly normal energy for two whole days, and I'm already self-flagellating over how to spend it.
I never stay un-busy for long; always, some opportunity appears, and I am glad to have the time. Or the energy will fade, and I will be glad not to have overcommitted.
At the moment, I write this blog, and make about nine cents a month for it. I could monetize it more, but I don't. Writing just because I want to feels like a purer thing. And yet— how lovely it would be, to do good work and get paid.
