Who The Hell Are You Anyways?

Have you ever had a time in your life where the chaos around you finally settled, for the first time in a long time you could catch your breath and really sit back to rest. Then, once you’ve settled yourself enough to focus you take a look around and you just think, “Wow… what the hell am I doing here?! How did this happen? Where even am I?!”

Well, I have- more times than I care to admit really. I’m actually having one of those moments right now. Despite finishing my Master’s in Clinical Counseling last summer and wrapping up my seventh year working in mental health this March, today I find myself sitting on the floor at my mom’s house, with my son racked out on my chest in his fourth contact nap of the day, intentionally unemployed, writing my first ever blog post. Yep. Not what I saw coming either.

So, before the dissociation from stress and shock sit in let me walk you through how this happened and why I thought that people may want to be a part of the journey while I pick up the pieces from flipping the figurative table of my life.

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First things first, hello I’m Kalsey! I spent the last few years working towards all my wildest career goals. Until my graduation from my Master’s program in August 2022 I hadn’t had a break from school since I entered Kindergarten and I had been working some type of job in my field since my sophomore year of undergrad. When I say I was eating, sleeping and breathing my professional world I am not lying.

But much like life does, mine continued to go on in all areas- but I wasn’t giving at all when it came to work. Vacations… had to buy the on ship wifi on our cruise because I had homework due. Wedding… rescheduled for after finals week. Honeymoon… delayed because of my practicum. Even after we found out we were pregnant in the last semester of my internship we waited to announce it at my graduation party with the whole ultrasound picture on the cap thing (cute but a little cliché I know).

I was so excited to finally be growing our family because that was a challenge in itself (more on that on a different day), but I was hellbent that this baby wasn’t going to change a single thing with my career. I had worked too hard for too long to stop now. Who would I even be if I wasn’t working anyways? No thanks, hard pass.

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Flash forward to December 2022. I was about seven months pregnant & getting ready for the last holiday season before our nugget arrived. Take my crazy work demands around that time out of it, I am also a member of a very active family in a small town. If you’ve never lived that small town life let me fill you in on what that means- you are voluntold to do a lot of things, good things that keep your community going, but still a lot of things. The to-do list was massive & unfortunately I had started to feel really crummy- great right, I totally have time for that right now.

To be safe I went into an urgent care for the COVID, flu, strep and whatever else swab. During my visit they asked the normal questions but then began asking if I had high blood pressure issues. I told them no, I had literally gotten my blood pressure taken that morning at a follow up with my doctor and it had been fine. They basically told me that was great, but it wasn’t fine now. Reluctantly I headed to the OB Triage at our hospital to be checked out. On the way I remember calling first my boss, annoyed, telling her I would see her in the morning but it looked like I was out for the rest of the day and second I called my mom, joking with her that her grandson might want to come for Christmas. I laughed, she didn’t- I guess my Mother’s Intuition hadn’t activated yet but hers was running in full force.

A few hours later in OB triage I got the great news that I didn’t have COVID or the flu or strep or any of that. What I did have was preeclampsia and my new goal was staying pregnant long enough for the steroids to hit his little lungs.

I ended up having my son at 32 weeks and 2 days. He went on to have a 34 day NICU stay before coming home at 37 weeks. I could go in on this experience for days, and probably will in later posts, but today is about me damn it. My sweet boy had just been born, but on that same day a mother was also born. Unfortunately, his confusion about his new world was much more accepted as cute than mine was. I had been dropped into unchartered territory and I had two months of maternity leave left to figure my shit out.

As the days marched on we worked our way through sleep schedules, feeding issues, a slew of preemie problems and more. Our house was no longer organized, the pantry no longer stocked with things for me, the laundry no longer done, my laptop not charged or ready to use. The chaos was unsettling but it also held a warmth that my life never had before. Moving forward quickly through busy days had been my normal for years, but now I was so content accomplishing nothing more than snuggling on the couch and staring at my son. In those moments my mind started to crack into two pieces.

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Everyday my inner dialogue sounded something like, “I miss my coworkers, but I haven’t had this much time with my family in years. Do I still introduce myself as a therapist, or do I introduce myself as a mom now? I have so much work to do when I go back, we can cuddle when I get home. How will I ever put him down and actually get in the car and drive away from him? I worked so hard for my career I can’t leave it. I worked so hard for this baby I can’t leave him.”

Yeah it was ROUGH in that head of mine.

But eventually the day came. I had spent the last week organizing our schedule, taking my Nana shopping for things to keep at her house for babysitting, prepping a printed off schedule of my son’s day for her. It was time. I got dressed for work, loaded his diaper bag, grabbed my work keys off the furthest corner of the counter where they had hidden for months and off we went. I even got through dropping him off better than I imagined I would. On the drive from my Nana’s to work I even listened to a podcast and got in the zone. I walked into work, I said hello to people I hadn’t seen in ages, I sat down at my desk and…. Nope. This wasn’t going to work.

I knew right away. There it was, my Mother’s Intuition had finally found it’s voice and it was screaming. It was screaming that this wasn’t where I was meant to be.

Let me tell you, I tried everything to discredit this voice. “Stop it” I would say, “it’s just mommy guilt, he’s fine, you’ll get used to this, it’ll feel normal eventually.” But I knew as I sat with the feeling everyday through my drive to work, through my work day and until I scooped him into my arms once I got home that this wasn’t something meant to ignore. It would never feel normal, I didn’t want that normal even if it did.

The seed had been planted and damn did it take root. After about two weeks I had explored so many alternatives ranging from doing a private practice at home, contracting with online companies, becoming a spicy accountant (okay maybe a lukewarm accountant I did just have a baby) and more. Eventually the idea settled to enter the world of blogging and coaching. It allowed me the beautiful opportunity to do the things I love without having to sacrifice time in my home. Or at least, it could be an opportunity or it could fail miserably, either way I was ready to take the chance. So away I went.

I put in my notice, I packed up my office, picked up my son and we were done. Sitting on the floor of my living room with him I was surrounded by all the things I had spent years gathering-my framed degree, the files filling my laptops memory, pictures off my desk, and the gold name placard I definitely stole off the wall on my way out. There was a small twinge of grief in that moment, a feeling I know will probably creep up in this new normal I created. However, it all melted away as I focused in on the little wiggly human cradled in my arms.

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So there you go, now you’re all caught up and standing in the what the fuck dust with me. Welcome. I would love to have you continue the journey with me, whether it’s to find your own way as a parent like me or just out a morbid curiosity to see if I totally faceplant in this new endeavor. Either way you will definitely learn some things, feel some things and have plenty of opportunities to laugh at things.