Padma’s Pregnant

Jimmy Fallon and Padma Lakshmi were the picture of bubbly baby giddiness on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” last week. Half of me got swept up in Lakshmi’s clear ebullience over being pregnant. I sat in front of the t.v. grinning and nostalgic for my pea-in-the-pod days. Some mothers feel terrible during pregnancy, but I was lucky like Padma: comfortable and happy, calm, yet full of energy.

The other half of me thought: Poor Padma. She doesn’t know what’s about to hit her. Everything’s good now, with all the support and well-wishes that an expectant mother attracts. She’s still mobile, only mildly slowed by her second trimester bump. She’s at the pinnacle of her career as the host of “Top Chef.” Fetes brimming with celebrities and culinary luminaries are commonplace for her.  She dines regularly on manna served up by eager chefs aspiring to forge their version of her dream life.

I’ve read that for years Lakshmi struggled with endometriosis, trying through much heartache and frustration to become pregnant. It’s only right to share her alacrity over the precious chance to become a mother. And beyond that, I wish her support, rest and patience with herself as she faces a life adjustment that none of us are really prepared to make.

Here’s the thing: it’s all that. Parenthood, I mean. It’s wonderful, difficult, exciting, calcifying, freeing and confining.  A mille feuille of agony and ecstasy.

When I see people who are clearly expecting their first child, I feel protective of them—like a parent (surely as other parents must have looked upon me in my pregnant days). So many young families embark on this exciting and challenging journey without local family or other forms of daily support and encouragement. They carry baby gear books around stores—as I did—thinking that if they get everything on the shopping list, they’ll be covered for every contingency. When I was pregnant with my first child, I’d call my Mom, who lives out of state, to give her updates our nursery progress.  She was kind to listen patiently as I rattled off my newborn inventory. Before we’d hang up, she’d gently urge me to take it easy. “Rest now…” she warned. But I had the nesting urge something fierce. My usual whirling dervish personality was turned up to 11.  I could do it all: work, run a home, be pregnant, remodel a room! I went into labor with a DeWalt power drill in my hand.

Now a mother of two, as I watch Lakshmi on t.v., the dialogue continues in my mind. Well, I think, she can hire nannies, night nurses, maids, and work assistants. She’ll be fine. BUT, the other me argues, so did Brooke Shields. And what a time she had.  When I see fellow-moms Tina Fey and Amy Poehler on their shows, I wonder how the physics of their days work without Einstein himself reversing the hands on the clock.

Every woman I know had to embark on some level of self-reinvention when she had a baby. This is not, ultimately, a bad thing. But it can be messy and unpredictable. Not an easy pair of descriptors for the go-getters among us. Is motherhood it worth it? For me, absolutely, hands-down, no question.  Do I love my children to the moon and back and find their every milestone my most rewarding accomplishment? Yes. The parent books were spot-on with that one. But I what I didn’t realize was that I’d have to learn how to compartmentalize my mind and heart in order to function as a mother and a professional. When I’m at work, my mind drifts to my children. And when I’m with my children, I often get distracted by work concerns. So there’s a third me, the disciplinarian, who tries to keep my mind where my body is.

Padma Lakshmi is so smart and beautiful, she just may step into the slipstream and pull it all off. Perhaps she’ll juggle motherhood and her brilliant career in a way that’s eluded me so far. Still, I wonder about those quickfire challenges. How will she continue judging the food if she’s boycotting dairy because her baby’s fussy? Will the camera have to cut away as she raises a bite of panko-coated chevre to her lips? Or will Lakshmi forego nursing because her contract demands she eat every broccoli and bean bomber the contestants cook up? Soon her maternal responsibilities will subject her to the same relentless fatigue and demands that the contestants on Top Chef endure. We watch their confidence falter as the weeks trudge along. Will the same happen to Lakshmi?  If it does, I hope we’ll be able to see a little glimpse on camera. Top Chef is a reality show, after all, and Padma may be just the emissary we need to have a more realistic and compassionate view of new parents.