Trading one dream for another. But maybe only temporarily.

With every milestone I find myself looking back, usually wondering HOW did we ever get HERE. B is FIVE already? Holy moly, as he would say. What happened? Wasn't he just born? Weren't we just nuzzled together on the couch, settled in for one of his marathon nursing sessions?

Nope. It's been five years. And two more kids. And I'm nursing again, but there's not a whole lot of nuzzling this time. More like refereeing from the sidelines, breaking up fights between B and S while trying to get a meal in for E. (As I watch the basketball playoffs I find myself wishing I could call fouls on the kids. Make them go to the bench.)

B was conceived days after I returned from my first (and only) semester of a master's degree program in creative writing. After two failed attempts at different graduate programs and finally admitting to myself what it was I really wanted to do, I got myself into a great fiction writing program. And a few weeks after I'd completed my first semester, I found out I was pregnant. I was thrilled. I had always wanted kids. Always pictured myself as a mother.

I had every intention of continuing the program. It was a distance program, after all. I would need to be away for only two 10-day sessions per year. The rest of the program was done from home, online. Perfect. And yet, I found myself with a few things to learn about pregnancy. Within days of learning I was pregnant and fretting about how to tell J, I developed classic hyperemesis gravidarum. Not familiar? Basically, it's the worst "morning sickness" you can imagine. Go ahead, google it. You wouldn't wish this on your worst enemy. I spent weeks throwing up. Constantly. I spent days in the hospital, being rehydrated and sleeping. I spent a little time at work. I spent no time working toward my degree.

No problem, I thought, when I was out of that phase of the pregnancy. I'll just skip the next semester and get back on track next year. Fast forward to the next year: pregnant again. More HG. Then two kids. Two jobs. A lot of juggling. No writing.

And now there are three. And I am tired. And we are financially struggling. And I would absolutely love to get back into the program. But those two 10-day sessions seem impossible now. Paying for them. Leaving my family for that long. Now I wish there were a more traditional program nearby. One that offered classes, maybe in the evenings. Now I look back and see how simple it was to make decisions before kids. And how simple it was to make mistakes, too. I was the only one who had to live with the outcomes, the consequences. The failed attempts at grad school, for instance. It was such a selfish life. In motherhood I can't afford to be selfish, even though most days I crave some "alone time," as S calls it. Time just for me. Time to do whatever I want with. But that is not to be right now. I am five years in, and it already has gone too fast. I can't say if I will get back to school or when, but I can keep writing. And for now, this is it. It's more than I've been doing for years, and it feels good to be in the practice again. I find myself headed in another direction, yet again, this time by motherhood (and sisterhood), and if I have learned anything since becoming a parent, it's to appreciate the now and to be flexible and optimistic. By becoming a mother I have realized the dream I most wanted. I have to believe that someday I'll have the opportunity, the energy and the motivation to dust off my half-finished novel, submerge myself in it and see it to its completion. And I'm hoping that the practice of raising kids will help me to reach that milestone.