Maternity

Abstract

Exhaustion. Bone-marrow-sucking, soul-crushing, never-ending exhaustion. No matter how many hours of sleep I stole from the time demanded from me by my baby, my students, my immediate colleagues, and my colleagues further afield, I never felt rested. I could not sleep for more than an hour before I jolted awake in the middle of the night recalling some paper I forgot to grade, some assignment I had not written, some pressing email that remained unanswered, or some letter of recommendation undrafted and now long overdue. There were long days of teaching and advising when I would pick up my daughter from daycare, feed her, bathe her, and then put her in bed in the blur of being on autopilot. I would return downstairs to a partner hoping to share some “couple time,” and fall asleep after the first few sentences were exchanged. I became a single mom not long after that.