On becoming a first time dog mom in my 30s

Me at age 9 with a family friends' dogs

I grew up with cats. My childhood was filled with them, whether they were my grandma's or ours that I had until I was 20. Then, a few years later I adopted Tito just after moving to New York.

Owning a dog was never something I desired or really pictured for my life. There were always kids in my grade school classes begging their parents for silky labradors or hypoallergenic poodle mixes, playing Nitendogs on their DS as proof they could take care of one in real life. Their pencil cases were covered in Lisa Frank style dog stickers and lined notebooks boasted holographic puppies on the front.

I didn't share my peers' obsession. My core memory of a dog was formed around age 8 when I was helping my best friend with her paper route. Sometimes if I slept over from Saturday into Sunday, I would help out. Her mom would drive us door to door in the family minivan and we would hop out, bringing the papers to the porch. 

One morning I went up to a house and a dog startled me. The dog surely could sense my trepidation, and started running towards me. I took off stumbling backwards towards the safety of the minivan, terrified as the dog barked after me. Tripping over my sandals, I fell and scrapped my legs on the driveway. It's one of those memories that is traumatizing from a child's perspective but probably wasn't as dramatic in real life. But it's always stuck with me and influenced the way I saw dogs.

Big personality to match a big pup

When I first started dating C, he introduced me to Benji. At the time, Benji was a year and a half old St. Pyrenees pup, a mixture between a St. Bernard and a Great Pyrenees. He was huge. Already relatively terrified of dogs, having a 100lb tornado of fur jumping at me was startling and off-putting. He was still in his puppy years and naughty, full of rambunctious energy and the stubborn disposition Pyrs are known for. Truthfully, sometimes I dreaded dealing with Benji. He seemed to validate my pre-conceived notions of dogs.

Over the next year and a half as C and I dated long distance, I began to get to know Benji better. I was no longer scared, but I still didn't feel comfortable being around him. When we decided it was time for C and Benji to move to New York, I had so many questions in my heart I was afraid to say out loud. Could I live with a dog? Take care of one? How much harder were things going to be in NYC now with a large breed dog?

Tito and Benji up close & personal during our move. They tolerate each other, at best lol.

We drove C and Benji's things from Ohio to New York in a U-Haul on a hot August Day. Stuck in a tight crate for 8 hours, Benji cried most of the trip (not that I blame him). But a part of me wondered, "was this a mistake?"

When we got to New York, there was an adjustment for all of us. I watched C as he casually held Benji's retractable leash in his hand, the cord swaying easily back and forth. "Do you want to try?" he asked.

I gripped his leash so tight my fingers hurt. I had never walked a dog before. I was terrified he was going to get loose, that maybe I'd drop the leash and we'd lose him forever. My joints ached for days after because I'd held onto him so tightly. Every time a person passed us on a walk, I panicked. I was filled with shame, feeling like they must sense I didn't know what I was doing and judging me.

Warming up to each other those first months after the move

The first few months were hard as I learned to coexist and care for Benji. Having a dog was such foreign territory to me: everything from taking him out, to playing, grooming, training, and feeding.

I was struggling. I was constantly feeling shame about not knowing what I was doing. So, I started reading more on taking care of dogs, particularly his breed, and what their needs were. Slowly over time, my fear started to fade away and I was able to comfortably be with Benji alone. 

Becoming BFFs <3

I started singing him songs in the morning and taking his leash on walks with C. I was able to groom him properly and knew how far he could walk before he started to overheat. I understood his triggers that made him reactive and how to calm him down. I learned his "sweet" spot for scratches that makes his leg twitch and the places that will always be a no-go (Lord help us when we touch his paws).

At 6 months of living with Benji, I really felt like I was getting this dog mom thing down.

Then in February Benji had his first seizure. It was terrifying for C and I to wake up and see him experience a full-body, grand mal seizure for the first time. We cried for hours after getting back from the ER, traumatized by what we'd seen and what Benji had been through. We didn't leave him alone for two weeks, making sure one of us was always at the apartment in case he had another one.

Saying goodbye to Benji for his 24hr stay at the pet ER 

He continued to have seizures more consistently and it broke us. I felt such a helplessness in my heart for Benji, not knowing how to stop them. He started on one seizure medicine and after a terrifying cluster of three seizures within 8 hrs, we added a second medicine. I looked into his deep, big eyes, not understanding how something so awful could happen to this sweet animal.

Spending time together in Ohio. Such a nature boy.

Over the last few months, we've been adjusting to our new normal to control Benji's epilepsy. We give him medicine twice a day and take him in for regular blood draws to monitor his levels. Since May, he's been seizure-free as I write this <3 

Benji & I this August spending time outside, our fave thing to do together.

It has been a journey. One that has brought me infinitely closer to Benji and I feel changed as a person because of him. I am a better person because of Benji. He has taught me how to love and care unconditionally. When I spend time with him or look into his soft eyes, I feel such a beautiful love for him and desire to always make sure he is taken care of. In a sense, I feel like his mother. 

More recently, I've been spending a lot more one-on-one time with Benji while C is at work and it has given me an even deeper connection to him. I see his unique moods and personality quirks that make him so, so special. While there are moments of irritation still (why do we have to sniff every single thing on the block?), I never thought I'd say this, but...I love being a dog mom.

Has having a pet changed your life and perspective? I'd love to hear!

With much love, 

Lauren

Do we ever really feel ready for anything?

"You should start considering egg retrieval and freezing if you don't plan to start a family in the next few years. You know, this is the best your eggs will ever be"

I was laying on my back, spread eagle, while my gynecologist performed my yearly women's exam in the back of his stuffy office in Chelsea. He was a friendly man in his mid-50s who I'd been seeing the last few years, always throughout, yet gentle, with my exams. A few years back he'd inserted a copper IUD that was one of the most unexpectedly excruciating pains I've yet to experience (why did no one warn me..?). The IUD was good for five years and I was only 28. I would be 33 when it was time for a new one. Surely, I would know by then more than I knew now. I would have it figured out. 

At 31 now, I can confidently say I do not have it any more "figured out." I turned 31 on August 1st. My birthday has long been a day I dread, strange for a Leo, but then again I never felt connected to my sun sign. As I jokingly say with my therapist, I do believe in some woo woo shit to an extent, and finding out I'm a Pisces ascent made things finally click. I've always been emotional, sensitive and empathetic to a fault. I've never liked to make my birthday a big deal, typically opting for a quiet day spent alone. 

Who likes to be alone on their birthday? I found out through many disappointing birthdays that I do, I guess. There is a need to honor within me all of the complex emotions my birthday brings to the surface. My birthday is a reminder of the passing of time and passing stages of my life. Which truthfully, this stage feels as though it's slipping out of my grasp year after year. 

There is promise of your 30s being far more enjoyable and less tumultuous than your 20s and at 31, it's hard to say quite yet. While there is some much appreciated consistency and stability I've found in this new decade, I can't help but feel more confused about life now than I ever did in my 20s.

How do you ever know? Do we ever really feel ready for anything? Is there a moment when  the adult milestones you see as a child become less daunting? I think of my mother getting married, freshly having turned 20 just days prior. Buying her first house by the time by 25 and having me at 27. 

At 27 I was still going through heartbreaks with nonchalant boys, old enough to know better.

--

The choice to have children is a deeply personal and intimate decision for every woman. 

For a long time, I was unsure if I wanted children. After losing my grandmother two years ago, I reflected during that time on familial generations and carrying on memories of our loved ones. I knew then I wanted her to always be remembered through me and beyond me. I want my mother to meet her grandchildren and for her to see me cradling a small being swaddled in a blanket, becoming a mother for the first time myself.

And at the same time, I feel so distant from this reality that so many people my age, and often younger, inhabit. It never occurred to me when I moved to NYC at 22 how different a path I would take. For those first few years, the lives of my peers didn't feel so different from my own. And then year after year as everyone grew up, I felt like a child left behind at the after school pick up line. Waiting for an adult to show up.

I would never change the last 8 years of post-grad. I feel happy with my life. I look around at what I built, how I've grown and nurtured my truest self here, and I am proud. At the same time I wonder "what's next?" 

Timelines keep me awake at night. I do the calculations in my mind next to a soundly sleeping C as the horns and voices from the street below drift into our apartment. If I'm married by 33 I can have a house by 34 and then still get pregnant before 35. Am I on track? What if things get derailed, what is the timelines change? They can't change. There's no time. I'm too late already, I'm behind. I--

-

One foot is planted in my past. One foot is planted in my future. I want them both, selfishly for myself. I desire to hang on to everything I have because I feel myself falling behind. Life has changed slowly for the last decade, then all at once. My parents moving out of my childhood home of 25 years. Learning to be an adult child. Fostering a long-term relationship with a partner. Saving for a house. Reflecting on reality of my fertility window. Contemplating my career. Trying to discover what truly feels right for me and not just for now. 

-

"Does anyone ever feel ready for anything," I asked my therapist this week. It was the last ten minutes of our session and we were tying up the loose ends of our bi-weekly conversation.

She paused a moment on the zoom call, contemplating a response. "You know, I would say there are some people who know. The fog clears and they cross that decision line pretty confidently. But, a majority of people? They might feel 80-90% ready for something, but they'll never feel 100%. They take a leap into the decision and know that they'll figure it out as they go along, with the help of those around them."

I guess there isn't a right way to "do life." Many of the people whose paths I admire have probably not felt confident in their decisions when making them, whether it was buying a house, getting married, having a baby, moving to new city, starting a new job, entering a new relationship or whatever life may bring. 

This quote sums it up:

Everything has been figured out, except how to live. - Jean-Paul Sartre

With much love,

Lauren