Getting Sticky With Alyssa Rara-Luna

Photos by Hannah Sider, Words by Anamaria Glavan

We all love a plan, don’t we? Climb the corporate ladder, plan the dream wedding in Europe, lock in the mat leave. But in this economy, under this political system, certainty is nothing more than a well-packaged myth. And for Alyssa Rara-Luna, that myth unraveled quickly with a layoff that came out of nowhere, pushing her to bet on herself and accept a hard truth: that there’s never a “right time” for anything. Especially not when it comes to expanding a home. 

Below, Alyssa reflects on the false illusion of finding one’s groove. Whether it’s having a birth that wasn’t expected or returning from your Italian wedding to get nixed by HR, at least we can all take comfort in one universal truth—nothing is ever certain. And that’s sort of comforting.

The tick, tick, tick 

All my friends were like, You've been talking about having kids since high school. In my family, I’m the eldest sister, and in my friendships, I’ve always been described as the maternal one. 

I come from a big family. My dad has three sisters, and all of them except for one has kids. So I've always known I wanted kids. My family has a history of loss and infertility. At one point I started getting anxiety about my biological clock ticking. We got married in 2022 and Ramon and I were very much in hustle mode. I had just started my business two years ago. Ramon got this great promotion at work. And then we realized there was never a “good” time and that we both wanted kids, so we may as well start trying. 

Laid off, left field 

Before I got married, I had a really great, high-paying job. The brand was growing quickly and of course, I'm type-A and I like to control everything - I had this plan: I’ll join this company. I'll probably get promoted in a year, we're going to have a baby, I’ll take maternity leave, and I’ll be making x amount of money. 

Two weeks after we got back from our wedding, I got laid off. It was so out of left field. I had all this financial security. I had great benefits. It completely shook my world. 

I thought that was the peak of my career. And not that we were talking about having kids right after we got married, but my grand plans for my maternity leave and this and that - everything was kind of thrown out the window. And mind you, we just threw this big party in Italy. I started applying to jobs but no one was hiring towards the end of the year and I wasn't landing anything, so I began taking on freelance work and that quickly turned into a full-fledged business.

I did all of my research and was horrified to see firsthand the minimal support the US has for working moms in general. And for self-employed moms? Forget it. We don't even exist in this country. But after chatting with so many friends and fellow moms, I was like, we’re going to try and have a kid and I’ll figure out the business piece later. 

“Are my clients going to fire me?”  

Women's health and the support for mothers is so sorely underfunded and ignored. How long must we wait for the government to reflect the reality of the modern woman? She’s working. She could run her own business. She could be out-earning her partner. There are so many things our system has not caught up to yet. 

I knew I wanted at least three months of mat leave, which sounds so ridiculous because it's so short relative to what the rest of the world gets. In order to do that, I had to hire someone to cover for me, and it’s not lost on me what a privilege that is. I had to level set with all of my clients that I was expecting, and that I was going to take maternity leave. They hired me for me—but to truly honor that, I had to choose myself too. So I let someone else take the reins, giving myself the permission to be fully present with my daughter, without losing my entire income. I didn’t check my email once during my entire leave. I’m proud of that. I owed it to my daughter and to myself. It’s one thing to trust someone with your business. It’s another thing to think, Are my clients going to fire me after I have my baby? I felt like I was of less value because I was pregnant.

False labor, different star sign 

I had false labor a few times, but she just wouldn't come out. I always say that that was my first lesson in parenthood because I was so excited that I was going to have a little October baby just like me. Two girlies born in October. We would both be Libras. She was more than a week late and her arrival wasn’t without some drama. I scheduled an induction a few days after my due date but I got cold feet and I wanted to give her the chance to come out on her own.

I did all the things: spicy food, the teas, the curb walking, and the last thing I wanted to do at 39 weeks: sex. And she wouldn't come out. So we scheduled another induction. I’m abbreviating a lot but in the moment, every day feels so long. The emotions are impossibly heavy on your shoulders, the constant question of, Is she going to come? That last week or two felt like an eternity. We went through with the second induction date. We had a beautiful morning. I had a nice breakfast. But the induction was gnarly.

I was in the hospital for two days on all the medications, getting my cervix checked what felt like every other minute. I woke up on the third day, and my water broke but I wasn’t as dilated as they wanted. There was also a ton of meconium - a sign she was in distress from being so overdue. I then took a nap and woke up with a 102-degree fever. It turned out I had a very rare blood infection that was dormant in my body, but flared up because I had just been in labor for so long. 

Again, I’m abbreviating, but it was the most terrifying moment of my life. Her heart rate shot up over 200 beats per minute. Nothing was going as planned and we had to do an emergency C-section. The cord ended up being around her neck so she likely wasn’t going to descend anyway. When they rolled me into the recovery room, Ramon was already holding her. It was one of the sweetest moments of our lives, but for a minute I wished it was me. When she was born, they held her up to my face and I wasn’t able to fully carry her without assistance. To this day, I’m still grieving the birth I thought I would have, and that victorious moment of pushing her out and welcoming her into the world in my arms.

Unloading the group chat burden 

We chose not to have any visitors at the hospital. We also waited to share her sex and name, and because she was born during one of the worst flu seasons in decades, we asked family to hold off on kisses and cuddles too. In my big Filipino family, it’s tradition for everyone to visit right away—but even before she was born, I was clear that it would just be the three of us. I wanted the space to feel calm, sacred. It was important to me that we had those first quiet moments to bond as a new family before welcoming anyone else in.

It was difficult for my family to understand. I got so many questions and opinions and even got into arguments about the way we went about things. It was different from what all of the other women in my family did, but that was the beginning of standing firm on what I felt was best for me and my daughter. Looking back, I wouldn't change a thing. I wasn’t ready to share her with the world yet. I don’t know if that’s strange, but even though we waited a week and only had immediate family visit, it still felt fast to me. To them, I’m sure it felt like an eternity - and with all those rules! It was tough. I wasn't welcoming everyone with open arms the way I thought I would.

What was helpful was Ramon handling that communication. I naturally take on that role, but removing that load off of me was important. A lot of partners don't realize all of the invisible load that women have because it's just that: invisible. I told him, I don’t want to be in the group text, I don’t want to hear details. I don't want to hear responses. I don't want anything to do with it. I just want to focus on the baby and my recovery.

As much as I made the conscious decision to keep our little bubble more isolated than my family wanted, I found myself struggling with these dual feelings. I chose isolation, but at the same time, I felt isolated. I didn’t want to feel lonely. It was so hard wanting both because I am a people person. I love my family and my friends. Eventually, when we did start opening up our home to more visitors, I expected to feel more connected—but instead, I sometimes still felt unseen. Everyone was excited about the baby, as they should be. But quietly, I was wondering… what about me? What about the person who just went through labor, who’s still bleeding, who hasn’t slept, who’s figuring out how to feed a whole human with her body? I didn’t want a parade. I didn’t need balloons. But I did crave someone looking me in the eyes and recognizing that I’d just been born too. 

No such thing as a “groove”  

I’m 100% certain I have some level of postpartum anxiety and depression, but the only “legitimate” indicator is that quiz on a piece of paper they hand you at your baby’s check-ups. No one has ever followed up after the few I took.

Every week, every day, every new month feels like a fresh learning curve. Just yesterday, we had her four-month checkup—and now there are concerns about her weight gain. I thought breastfeeding was going fine. I never got the cracked, bloody nipples everyone talks about. Her latch is deep. She seems satisfied. But now we’re seeing a lactation consultant for the first time. I spent the whole day sobbing. Feeding was one of the only things I thought I had a handle on. As soon as I felt like I was finding my groove, it slipped again.

Checking my ego at the door in order to show up fully for her has been one of the biggest lessons for me. Motherhood has a way of constantly humbling you. I’m now learning the “groove” isn’t something you arrive at and stay in—it’s something you keep finding and re-finding, in new forms, over and over again.

Learn to speak nicely about yourself  

What I’m really trying to learn is to give myself grace. I do have the ability to be flexible. I've had a really straightforward life. I'm not going to sit here and lie and say I've had a ton of curveballs thrown at me. I married my high school sweetheart and skipped the whole dating thing. When we decided that we wanted to get pregnant, we were lucky and got pregnant on the first real try. My corporate career has been relatively straightforward.

But the curveballs I’ve gotten since my daughter was born, I’ve handled with grace. This is me speaking  nicely about myself because I’m trying to learn to not be so self-deprecating all the time. My daughter will observe and understand me soon. It’s so easy to say, Motherhood is draining me and I’m just not cut out for this. But I do really believe in the power of self-talk, of talking to yourself like you would to a  friend. And I'm starting to practice that more now that I have this little human that I’m responsible for. It's going to take me years of practice. So I'm starting now.. 

On Mat leave 

Mentally, I think I’m doing a little better now that I’m back at work. I keep saying I wish I had taken more time off, but there are so many conflicting feelings. I always seem to hold two emotions at once. On one hand, I feel better because I have more structure in my day—I’m doing something for myself, even if it’s work. That feels good. But at the same time, I just want to cuddle my daughter all the time. I don’t know which feeling is stronger. I feel both at the same time.

Every day brings a new emotion. One day I feel fine, the next, I’m having a breakdown over something completely unexpected. It’s the first time in my life that I don’t have control over everything, and it feels so foreign. She’s been teaching me lessons since before she was born. Like, First of all, I’m not going to be born in October like you wanted. Second, I’m going to be born on Election Day. She was born in the morning and then as the results started rolling in, I literally was whispering, I'm so sorry. I like to believe she chose that day to remind me of my voice. To never be quiet when it comes to women’s rights and the support we’re owed - especially now as I raise a daughter who will grow into her own womanhood.

Please, not another stuffed animal 

The mom community is so supportive. At least from what I've come across. I take Belly to a baby-and-me yoga class, and the other day, a mom came in late, completely frazzled, and was like, Oh my god, does anyone have a size two diaper? And within seconds, five moms jumped up to check in their bags. Ramon was my anchor in postpartum—steady, grounding, always there. My mom and my circle of mom friends were the propellers, gently pushing me forward when I felt like I couldn’t move. Together, they kept me afloat in the most tender, uncertain season of my life.

For me, there’s been this constant feeling of responsibility to educate everyone around me who isn’t a mother. I don’t want to be the one always bringing up the maternal health crisis, or the broken parental leave system, or the fact that Americans spend 25% of their income on childcare. I mean, I’m glad I know these stats—but I wish the people around me who aren’t moms knew them too. It shouldn’t just be our burden to carry and explain.

I have sent a number of text messages to mom friends saying, I wish I had been there for you. So here’s a note to everyone: Please invite your mom friend. She might not even want to go, but she definitely wants to be invited. So please include her. We just want to feel seen and heard. Drop off food without the expectation of seeing her or the baby. Don't ask, What can I do? Just do it. My daughter has a million stuffed animals. We don't need another stuffed animal. But I definitely need a massage.