A whirlwind of change

 

  There are days when I marvel at the brain’s capacity to compartmentalize what seems like a million unrelated things, hold on to a to-do list a mile long and still keep the body functioning and healthy. In the last few weeks, I pushed my little brain to the max. I was under two stressful deadlines for school and one deadline to complete a post-graduate fellowship application. This, plus school would have been manageable if it was all I had to do. However, the timing also happened to coincide with the weekend that my mom was moving into her new house nearby, the same time that my midwife appointments started being scheduled every two weeks, instead of 1 month, and our birth class started meeting once a week.

The first challenge of the last few weeks was to meet the deadline to submit an application for a two-year, post-graduate fellowship. I had spent the summer brainstorming a project proposal to submit to a competitive non-profit fellowship grant program. If I am accepted, I will be funded to work for two years at a local Sacramento non-profit implementing the project I designed. The gist of the project goal is to aid in dismantling the pipelines that funnel undocumented immigrant juveniles in Sacramento and the Central Valley through a harsh juvenile justice system and into deportation proceedings by providing direct legal services to undocumented youth probationers and education to law enforcement. It would be a real challenge but an honor to be selected to carry out this project. But I won’t know if I am selected until the spring. In the meantime, I still have to pass my classes and try to graduate.

So after I got my grant turned in I had to focus on my school related workload for Moot Court and my Professional Responsibility class. Both the Moot Court competition brief and the PR midterm were on Monday. I loved writing the brief, because I am nerd and love to write, but I wish I had had more time to devote to it. When I am writing briefs, I like to spend time crafting the most persuasive arguments, down to each precise sentence. Even though my partner and I spent probably 48 hours in the library between Thursday and Monday night (no joke, we practically lived in the library), at the end it still felt so rushed to get all the formatting done right. We didn’t have time to make it perfect. Perhaps we didn’t make it perfect, but we did get it done. And somehow in between the writing and editing madness I managed to study for, and probably even pass my PR midterm. It was not the easiest week I have had in law school.

Then, in the midst of all this madness, my mom was making the biggest (and only!) move she has made in the last 17 years. She packed up her house in Santa Cruz and moved up to Sacramento for a new job and a new adventure. Mom always said that when I have kids she wants to be nearby. She values having a close-knit family and wants to be involved with her grandbabies on a regular basis. She had been talking about moving up here since Tim and I came to Sacramento and so, when we told her that we are having a baby in December, she started planning for the move. It has been a hard transition for her to leave her hometown, her job and her friends, so, over the course of the last few weeks, I have tried to make it as easy as I could by helping her move and get settled. Two moving vans full of furniture and boxes and innumerable trips to Target and Home Depot later, she is fully moved in and has her bedroom, kitchen and bathroom mostly unpacked. It is a beautiful house, so cozy and welcoming, and it is only 127 steps away from my house (Tim counted). We are going to have a ton of fun as neighbors!

As if all this weren’t enough, Tim and I have been attending a natural childbirth class once a week for the last five weeks to get ourselves ready for the arrival of baby Tibbs. Although, ‘attending’ isn’t really the right word since we are hosting the class at our house. It actually works out pretty great. Three other couples and the instructor come over on Monday evenings for a few hours and we are enjoying the support group of other expecting couples and learning a ton.

Also, because I am 30 weeks along in the pregnancy, we have had more frequent visits with our midwife. Even in all the hustle and bustle, I love taking time to check in on the baby. When I hear the healthy little heartbeat on the Doppler, I remember why I push myself so hard. It seems crazy, since I don’t even know this little human yet, but I want so much to make a comfortable life full of opportunities for our baby. I want this child to grow up looking up to parents who work hard to make the world a better place in our jobs and take time at home to play, laugh, explore. And I want this baby to be surrounded by family and friends and a community to teach him/her their own skills and lessons. Even though we may have been in a whirlwind these last few weeks, things are starting to fall into place.