1st Trimester: Visualizing the Future and Facing the Present

To recap from last week: I found out I was pregnant on the last day of Wizard of Oz rehearsal. Shaking and crying, I told my husband as he rushed off to a work meeting. I then set off to a morning of new teacher training at the high school I had just been hired to work for before rushing out of that to attend the Wizard of Oz understudy rehearsal. Because everything has to happen at the same time. 

Did I mention we had moved into a new apartment the day prior? And I had spent half of that day at the emergency vet because our miniature dachshund, Lucy, decided to eat a whole bag of chocolate covered espresso beans?

Needless to say, I had determined that this month’s ahem, attempt, wouldn’t stick, I was simply too stressed out for my body to create ideal circumstances for life. Turns out, my husband and I actually created a stubborn little zygote determined to make its way into the world right when I was embarking on a season defined by newness. New home, two new jobs, newly minted MFA, and now: new baby!

Survival

First photo of our little gummy bear!

I was also lucky to have a relatively uneventful first trimester. No major morning sickness or food aversions (except I hated every air freshener I encountered with a fiery passion.) I actually didn’t realize how fatigued I was until I hit 14 weeks, more on that later. The most difficult thing I encountered physically was how freaking overheated I got every time I walked outside. Here in Texas, we don’t get “nice” weather until like November, so walking across parking lots to get to my car was absolutely brutal. Sitting in the car on I-35 was brutal. Sometimes even cuddling with my dog was impossible. This is one symptom that still has not gone away (if I hear one more person tell me “at least you don’t have to be pregnant in the heat of the summer” I swear I’m going to sign them up for the next mission to the moon. It’s 85 degrees outside, Karen, I’m fking hot!) 

Visualizing the Future

It's cute that I thought this was a baby bump.

Mentally, I spent most of the first trimester struggling to visualize what my “season” during pregnancy and beyond birth would look like. My baby is due April 29, and at the time I was contracted to direct a play that rehearsed in May and went up in June. I also had an offer to assistant direct another show at the ZACH in January. But I was also in a place where I wasn’t quite ready to share my news with anyone beyond our family. So I spent many weeks putting people off before committing to jobs because I literally didn’t know what to tell them.

Eventually, I hit week 12 and called the artistic director of the theatre I was contracted for to tell him my news. In a weird twist of fate, they actually had to reschedule the show for the next season, so I was able to bow out and leave them plenty of time to find a replacement. I hated telling them no, but I literally could not picture how my life would be 12 months from our phone call. 

At the ZACH, I had a stronger relationship with the director who wanted to work with me. I determined that assistant directing was within my wheelhouse, and the contract would be finished right before my third trimester began, so I took that job. Jenny was very congratulatory, and immediately understood my delay in sharing the news. Yay for supportive colleagues!

Facing the Present

Rehearsing The Odyssey with pool noodles instead of swords

So there I was, starting two new jobs at the same time. One as a theatre teacher at a private high school and another as an adjunct professor at a small university. I only taught in the afternoons, so I had flexible mornings when I could lesson plan, run errands, work out, and apply for full-time jobs.

For the first 14ish weeks, I hit a wall at around 1pm every day, right when I needed to load myself in the car to go and teach. Everything would arrive at once, fatigue, upset stomach, the unbearable weight of the future, and just enough bloating to make my clothes uncomfortable. I found that if I could just get myself to campus, the energy of my students would carry me through to the end of my shift, and then I could drag myself home and lie in bed until it was cool enough to take Lucy on a walk. 

Another complication was a 10-minute play festival with a small theatre company I had been lobbying hard to direct with for months. Because the company is so small, directors were in charge of casting, coordinating scenic and costume elements, and arranging rehearsals. These extra tasks were almost too much for me to handle. I was able to cast two recently graduated Texas State Students, who are both so sweet and were so tolerant of my state of extreme exhaustion. I also was assigned to work with a playwright that I had gone to college with, and I was so happy to work with her again. 

Despite this very, very solid team, I know I was not working at 100% capacity during this process. I hold myself to a very high standard when I’m directing, and I feel like I did the bare minimum on this show. Looking back, I’m not sure what I should have done differently, but I’m disappointed that this project I lobbied so hard for was so affected by hormonal exhaustion. Mia, Olivia, and Connor - thanks for bearing with me!

The light at the end of the tunnel did arrive, just in time for the fall show at the high school to go up. I swear I woke up one morning feeling totally refreshed and energized, and it was then that I realized I had spent the prior three months in a fetus-induced haze. 

Lessons I Learned:

• Slowing down is okay.  

• Always pack a snack.

• Drink water.  

• Relationships first, timelines second.

• Lean on your support team. I made the choice to tell my co-teacher at the high school very early and it was so helpful to know that someone else had my back.