I’m having a baby

And the many other crazy things this period has brought about

Dear friends and readers,

By absorbing the title of this Substack, you may feel like I’m already hitting you with a big loud slap of oversharing, and indeed I am. No excuses there. What I truly loved about Instagram as a platform, before it became what it is today, a money making, data sucking, attention span destroying vampire, was that I was able to play between the boundaries of a multimedia personal diary and the sharing and caring of an online community.

Substack , luckily, still feels like this, and as much as I enjoy producing short content videos for my own creativity, I do not find the same liberation as I do when I write.

Hence why Life with Fran was born on here.

A open and public personal diary of thoughts on how I am trying to navigate the many scary - and exciting! - life related events. I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel. I’m not trying to niche down or find an audience to make money. I just love writing and this medium allows me to connect with some of you, without reducing my multifaceted being to someone I don’t recognise in real life.

So here we go, anyways! I bet you’re all dying to know whether I’ve done the classic click bait type title and then all I’m going to be saying is that I’m pregnant with wonderful big ideas or that I’m having a work baby….but no the real, human, alive and well (for now at least 😊) tiny bouncing creature in my belly is the baby I’m talking about.

It feels like such a big pivot, from the somewhat free and ‘not tied down’ life I was living before. Just last year, my partner and I were getting ready to go on our big 3 months trip to southern Europe, having just one job to support us and living out a jam packed car and and air BnB around Italy and France. We even slept in a made up tarp shelter one night, as it snowed on us!!!

I am an adventurer through and through, I have always been and hopefully always will be a curious kid exploring the world with big wide eyes. And this feeling, this thought has been feeling at times contradictory to what my next life era is about to bring.

So why, I have wondered, and you may have too! Have we committed to become parents and start one of the most committing journeys of our lives?

Life is short

This year, I was faced with the fact that the people you love may not hang around as long as you think they will. From a close friend being diagnosed with cancer (thank god this has been spotted on time!!!), to both of my grandmothers passing away in a short period of time, it truly felt like the fear and the grief of losing them was only justified in the presence of the many life moments I have shared with them.

All of the pain and loss I felt alongside my family was made bittersweet by the many memories and photos I was rediscovering of me as a little kid in their arms. This made me rediscover such a profound and utmost subconscious value of mine which is family. Family is so important to me. I have grown up in a disconnected family, with little excitement for spending time together, but I saw the capacity of love whenever I thought about my grandparents. They weren’t perfect. They were annoying and very strict at times, and they tied my hair up in ways I hated, but they poured themselves into my upbringing with every ounce of their being and that is the purest form of love I’ve known.

Having a baby means to me I get to choose to have a similar role in their life. I get to pour myself into a tiny little cup, no return expected, and watch them grow into their own humanness. How exciting. And terrifying. But like I said, I’m an explorer and I’m ready to take this journey this time.

My partner was destined to be a dad

This is probably going to be the cheesiest of sub chapters but I gotta admit, before knowing Leon I wasn’t really sure I even wanted to have kids. I was terrified at the idea of having to do it alone, and on the other hand I’ve never met a human being that inspired so much calm confidence and so I was constantly reminding myself I would have preferred a life of travelling over anything else. Since we’ve been together we’ve had our fair shares of difficulties but the one thing that never faded away was his commitment to us as a couple and his pure interest in caring for me. I couldn’t think of two better qualities that would make him a great dad. The thought of having kids all of sudden started to feel not only possible but a great shared experience. One in which we’ve got our backs, and we’re able to catch each other if we slip, and have a laugh about it. So in full honesty, I look forward to this because I know I’m not alone and I’m immensely grateful for that.

There’s never a good time for it, so any time is good

The world in which we are living in right now is scarred by wars and natural catastrophes. It is teetering on verge of societal collapse and the governments’ interest has never been so detached from the population’s wellbeing and health. What a frigging place to bring an extremely fragile creature into. I battled for a long time between the longing need of wanting a child and the pressing thought of potentially bringing a life into a dying world.

It’s hard to stay positive, I think, when we’re constantly surrounded by terrible media news and get fed videos and photos of dead children on our social media platforms. You feel like this could have been you. And that it was just a matter of luck that it wasn’t. A randomly assigned place of birth of a child can be the make or break of their whole future and fortune. This hurts. And it sucks. But it is even more of a reason to go through with things we really want. To hold onto what makes us happy and follow through with our dreams no matter how scary they can be. To acknowledge the ugly the bad and the difficult without letting them govern your whole life. I think this is the highest testament to a life worth living. Hope, faith and longing are some of the strongest human qualities that exist. I want to hold them tight and I’m pledging my choices to them.

We’re not big earners, we’re not home owners, we’re just two people with a lot of love to give

The financial stress is not none. We’re definitely not in the comfiest position of our life, but we’re also not homeless. We have found a balance that works for us and we’re potentially considering to buy our first home this year. I won’t say it hasn’t come to my mind as a point of concern at times, as I truly don’t wish a life of poverty on anyone, never mind my own child. But I have a lot of faith that we’re on the right track and we have an incredibly amount of support around us. So I’m going to trust the process and hope we find a lovely little home for our soon to be family next year. That would truly be THE BEST feeling. The nomad life has had its perks but as we’ve grown older we have absolutely craved that feeling of comfort and belonging that a home can provide for us. (I wouldn’t even be that dismissive of renting, but with the high rates of eviction and high renting prices, it just doesn’t seem to make sense to me to do that now).

Finally, everyone’s journey is different.

I didn’t share this piece today to campaign for child birth or convince you that your way of doing things is not the one. On the contrary, I think way too often I’ve let myself be swayed away from my own needs and longings because I have taken other people’s opinions into too much consideration. Life is so damn gorgeous and that’s mainly because it’s incredibly diverse. I wish you the best whether you’re about to quit your job and go travelling, commit to a new relationship or decide to only have pets as family. All of it is entitled. And there’s no right or wrong way of doing this. And the reason why I’m expressing this so obviously is that I felt almost guilty for not having followed the usual steps:

1- cohabit with a partner

2- buy a home

3- get a dog

4- get married

5- have kids

This is the timeline that was ingrained in me by society. I sometimes still feel on shaky grounds when I think of the fact that we’ve gone from 1 to 5 with no in between.

-I mean we did get engaged this year but at this point the wedding planning couldn’t be any further from the present! -

But everyday I wake up and I’m so excited for what’s to come, I even forget I don’t have a dog yet (which I’ve wanted for 6 years now!)

That’s all for now, folks!

Thank you, as always, for reading and supporting. It means a lot!