By Cheryl Bac
E-mail Cheryl Bac
About this blog: I'm a wife, stay-at-home mom, home cook, marathon runner, and PhD. I recently moved to the Silicon Valley after completing my PhD in Social Psychology and becoming a mother one month apart. Before that, I ran seven marathons incl...
(More)About this blog: I'm a wife, stay-at-home mom, home cook, marathon runner, and PhD. I recently moved to the Silicon Valley after completing my PhD in Social Psychology and becoming a mother one month apart. Before that, I ran seven marathons including Chicago and Boston. Exercise is an integral part of my life. I hope to one day go back to long distance running and tackle the New York City Marathon. Right now I run after my one year old son. Although I am a stay-at-home mom, we are rarely "at home." My mom also stayed at home with my brother and me. She warned me that, although rewarding, it can be isolating. So, with her help, I learned the importance of getting out into the community and meeting other mothers. On the rare occasion when I am at home and have a hand or two free, I squeeze in time to scrapbook. As a new mom, many challenges are thrown my way. I hope my opinions, triumphs, and struggles help experienced parents reminisce, new parents cope, and parents-to-be get an honest glimpse of what the first years of motherhood can entail.
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When our first born was about 4 weeks old, I decided to check out my first new parents group. When I walked in I was surprised, and quite disappointed, to find out that I was the only new parent there that particular day. Thankfully the nurse who ran the group welcomed me with open arms and spent some time talking with me about my joys and concerns as a new mother. She also reassured me that other new parents do attend these meetings, it was just a very slow day.
The second new parents group I checked out also had very low attendance, just myself and one other mom. Luckily, that mom was eager to meet other new parents and we quickly became friends. We met up for bagels and frozen yogurt and emailed each other about different local events we planned to check out. We went to baby massage classes, yoga classes, doula events, play groups, LLL, library events and anything else that sounded baby friendly. After a couple of months I was part of a wonderful group of new moms who were excited to hang out often and chat about parenthood.
When we moved to the Bay Area I was sad to leave this group and I was unsure how challenging it would be to form another support network. Luckily the first new parent group I checked out was well attended and I quickly learned that the Bay Area is filled with new parents. As long as I went to parenting groups, classes, parks, library events, etc it wouldn't take long to meet people and make friends. I feel very lucky to have formed friendships that are still going strong.
Many people are curious whether it is more challenging to go from 0 to 1, 1 to 2, 2 to 3 kids, etc. For me, the biggest challenge was going from 0 to 1 kid partly because it took a few months to build up a support network (and, since we moved across the country, I built it up twice). When we decided to have our second and third, I already had a strong support network to lean on if I needed to. Having a relative in town to watch our kids while I was in labor, having a friend watch my little ones while I went to my postpartum doctor appointment, and having friends offer to pick our son up from school while I have a newborn at home has made the initial transition from two to three kids easier than I had expected.
