Meet Our New Contributor: MK Resk

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I’ve played many mom-like roles in life: teacher, overbearing older sister, Girls on the Run coach, babysitter, mom on stage… but I was never sure I’d be an actual, real-life mom. I was okay with this, too. Or so I thought for thirty-five years.

It was important to me to have children in my life in some way, but I wasn’t sure this meant as a mom. When my husband and I first married, we assumed kids would come in time. But then we enjoyed nearly a decade of married life together and the freedom that came with it. Diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome as a pre-teen, I’d never taken for granted that I could biologically have children.

MK and her bundle of energy
MK and her bundle of energy

But I knew I’d regret not TRYING. So we agreed to try for a year. When that uneventful year was just about up, surprise, I got pregnant! If we were guilty of anything in that process, it was underestimating that pregnancy might just happen. Now two years (and a quarter) into this wacky new gig, I’m loving it, questioning it, marveling it, screaming at it, and everything in between, sometimes all in one day.

New motherhood can really wreak havoc on a mom’s identity, especially if you’ve lived almost forty years as an independent person and then suddenly you have a little one tethered to you nearly around the clock. It’s amazing and wonderful and gushy and life-changing and all of the other super superlatives suggested since time began, but it’s a lot of other things, too. It can also be tough and boring and frustrating and isolating, especially if you move to a new place in the midst of it all, as I did.

I’m here to help share my honest experience of transitioning to motherhood. I hope that sharing candidly will help normalize this tough transition because I don’t think I’m unique. I was woefully underprepared for this new journey. In this modern world where there is more often than not only a tiny or nonexistent village to help raise the child, I’m hoping my perspective can maybe help support and makes things easier for others’ journeys, too.

I’m also here to explore this wonderful city and share a fresh perspective with you. To be exact, I’m kind of a newbie-again here. Way back in a former life I went to college in this fair town. I loved Portland and forced myself to move away to have some other adventures, sure I’d be back one day. Portland has grown up a lot in the ensuing fifteen years and so have I, but I love getting reacquainted with this great new-old place in a brand new chapter of my life with husband and toddler in tow.

E is a bit unsure about the new local scenery.

I live within blocks of where I lived back in college, but I’m discovering playgrounds and parks I never knew existed then. I’m here to help uncover the magical spots of SW PDX and beyond, to share my older new mom vantage point, and to help us all navigate the occasionally turbulent, sometimes smooth, and everything in between waters of early parenting. For too long I’ve heard only the best or only the worst, and I’d like to help temper it all and distill the facts, with enough of a humor chaser to make that reality go down a little more easily.

I’ve had some amazing adventures in life: I’ve taught all ages from preschool to adults, worked as a freelance writer, run a marathon, hiked the Inca Trail, made a pilgrimage to Tibet, lived abroad. All of those pretty much pale in comparison to this. Parenting truly is the greatest adventure of all.