It took me months after the birth of my daughter to figure out how to get back into the groove of “me.”  Until she came along, I would write almost every day.  After she came … well, you can imagine.  Sleepless nights didn’t lend themselves toward creativity.  And when she finally started sleeping through the nights, it was such a relief that I just slept in with her.

Finally, I realized that if I ever wanted to feel like “me” again—the me that was more than housewife and mommy—I had to do something about it.  So I started getting up at six, something this stay-at-homer hadn’t even done in college.  And I would write.  When I put her down for a nap, I would write.  I did the housework while she was up, either strapping her on or letting her play nearby, and I finally found that groove in which I actually existed.

Of course, now baby number two’s on the way, and I’ve fallen out of my comfortable groove again.   If I get up early, I’m too sick to really do much.  And then I have to take a nap, I’m so exhausted.  If I get up later, that leaves me a grand total of two hours of free time during the day, which is barely enough to manage my email.

I know it’s only going to get harder when the new baby arrives.  Still, I’m going to start digging my groove again.  I’m just so much happier when I have those precious moments for me—then I can really enjoy the moments when I’m Mama.

Roseanna M. White is the author of A Stray Drop of Blood (WFP), co-founder and senior reviewer for the Christian Review of Books (www.christianreviewofbooks.com) and a member of ACFW.  She lives with her husband, toddler, and baby-to-be in Maryland.