I am 5 months pregnant with my fifth child, a boy. He is due August 19. This summer is going to be very long, hot, and challenging with four other small kids at home, especially because I haven’t been feeling great. It went from nausea to intense fatigue and constant grating pain, and I just can’t also carry around the guilt of commitment to non-essential tasks. I’ve severely throttled my Facebook and Skype usage, and temporarily placed my ambitions and interests on hold until I can get back on my feet after this baby is born.
That means no client work, blog posts (except a few guest posts), Facebook updates, or work on my book about Czech Genealogy. It also means shorter email responses, delays in updates to the site, postponement of features and posts I want to implement, and probably other things which I haven’t named yet.
It’s not personal. It’s just that family future is taking precedence over family history.
I will complete my CGSI assignments, submit some presentation proposals for the 2019 conference in Lincoln, present a webinar in two weeks (more on that in a bit), continue to slowly plug away at two co-authored book projects with extremely patient and understanding collaborators, and – obviously – I’m going to continue my own personal genealogy research, just at a much diminished capacity and pace without any kind of pressure to present or perform or produce. I don’t actually struggle very much with dropping goals when the only one who knows or cares is me. But this blog isn’t really just for me anymore, and for months I’ve been carrying around a load of incessant guilt over failure to do things the way I want to do them. So it has to go on a temporary vacation. Just like how I went on a Facebook hiatus during the 2016 political campaign. :::Shudder:::
I have vague memories of this kind of thing happening last time I was pregnant in 2014. I remember blogging about non-Czech gen on this very blog, because I had been researching some non-Czechs and really longed to reach out in a normal, familiar way, through writing. I really, really normally enjoy blogging! I also remember that I felt terrified I’d never find it within myself to return to it, or to Czech gen at all.
But I did. And I’ve come really far and learned a TON since I first started blogging in 2013, and even more since picking it up again in 2015. No reason not to expect that in 6 months or so I’ll be back at it again with my typical obnoxious OCD-like overwhelming enthusiasm.
It is very painful for me to admit that this is what I need to do right now to stay sane and moderately happy. It’s also embarrassing to essentially be writing a dramatic breakup post/DTR with my blog and readers. A guy I dated in college thought it would be hilarious to buy me a t-shirt that said, “Nobody cares about your blog.” (He didn’t even end up buying it, by the way. Needless to say, that relationship didn’t last!) Basically, I’m aware that nobody in the world cares about this as much as I do. I’m just trying to pathetically say that *I do care* very much about this, and I deeply dislike the diminished capacity and energy I have right now which is compelling me to take a break. Danny says that now I can feel the motivation and drive of a normal person (you can already tell he is much sweeter than that jerk I fell for! AND he reads my blog, which is worth way more to me than any lousy t-shirt, that’s for sure). My other close friends remind me pregnancy is temporary. And they are right! Thank goodness!!!!!!
Maybe six months from now my feelings will have caught up to the logical side of my brain, and I won’t feel so sad about this temporary goodbye which feels like forever.
But in the meantime, sbohem!