So there’s a reason I have barely written here in the last year: I recently had a baby. When I was in my first trimester, back in the fall, my capacity to produce writing was severely diminished because I felt like shit (due to what is considered normal morning sickness, i.e. feeling exhausted and horribly nauseous every waking minute), plus I had just gone back to teaching in person. I couldn’t finish an urgent work writing project, much less write anything here. It was very strange to feel ill for months for a reason that’s supposed to be “normal,” or even healthy (there’s some correlation between morning sickness and not miscarrying), yet also a reason that is socially controversial to share, especially in professional contexts. I did wind up telling the editor for the urgent project that I was ten weeks pregnant and sick and needed more time to finish the piece, but it felt pretty weird to tell him that at a time when very few people in my life knew. By the end of the fall I felt better, and during my second trimester I finished out the semester, completed the piece I couldn’t work on first trimester, went to some conferences, wrote a paper about repentance, caught my breath a bit, made a registry. And then third trimester my family dealt with some ultimately fine but still very disruptive things — a seriously ill cat, orthopedic surgery for Phil, and moving apartments. Also the fetus was small which meant constant ultrasounds. (The baby is totally healthy, he is just petite.) But more than any specific emergent life event, I just felt like my brain was directed inwards and not outwards, more so towards the end of my pregnancy but really more or less the whole time.
Hang in there, sister.