Tag Archives: childbirth

Parenting & Motherhood

26 Hours and a Baby Later

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He’s oddly blonde, for now, with grey-green-blue-who-knows eyes that, despite being forced out at his 37th-something week of gestation, look deep into you like they’re thinking more than a newborn ever could think, disecting whatever blur and lines in front of his face into something meaningful and not terrifying. He could somehow still be cooking in the womb for another 1-3 weeks, but instead he’s out in the world with all of the energy I’ll never have again. I’m icing all my bits that helped him slide out into the world. I’m a mom again.

My maternity care and childbirth was free, thanks to an HMO and decent insurance from my empower. I splurged $750 on a virtual doula who turned out to be invaluable support in this particular experience, and may be splurging on a social-distanced family photoshoot which I count as part of my childbirth costs, since I didn’t have to pay anything else to safely deliver this nugget. Even then, I’ve paid far less than most people who have kids in this country.

My childbirth was not the healing one I sought after the one I had two years ago, though it had its positives. Two years ago, after 2 days of labor, one scary deceleration that almost led to an emergency C section (and a horrible moment of being forced to wear an oxygen mask which made it impossible to breathe due to my claustrophobia-induced hyperventilation), and then my son ending up in the NICU with low oxygen saturation for 36 hours, and then my dad dying a week later after a long battle with cancer and a number of other health issues (unrelated), and flying out to the east coast days later to attend his funeral that my mother said wasn’t going to be a funeral and then ended up being a funeral (so I’m glad I went) but dealing with my own blood pressure issues and concerns after the induction for gestational hypertension, well, that whole experience was just bad and I wanted this birth to be different. I knew it would hurt, because that’s what childbirth does, but I wanted it to be more of a “normal” birth. One free of major complications. One closer to what I expected the first time around.

For my first son, my blood pressure approached dangerous territory at 39 weeks, and my doctor said I should induce. When I go to the hospital and they asked if I had a birth plan I said “it was to not induce” so that was out the window. While I had vaguely studied pain relief for a natural birth, I had no idea what was involved in an induction. In my head, I wanted to go into labor naturally. I didn’t understand the risks with my borderline blood pressure, or that making it to 40 weeks was basically already a huge success and induction at that point wasn’t that big of a deal. I pushed back a bit on the induction timeline and spent a night in triage with my blood pressure being read every 15 minutes. While the doctor did not want to let me go home, by morning she was convinced it was safe to let me go as my blood pressure levels were down significantly. But then an amniotic fluid check and finding of low fliud confirmed that I should stay. And the induction began.

All while I was having my blood pressure checked overnight, I was reading about the horror stories of every induction drugs and tactic on the market. One of the worst offenders, it seemed, was a drug called misopropital (cytotec), which is an ulcer drug not approved for use in labor, yet used all the time in labor (I don’t really understand how off label use is allowed when the manufacture is very opposed to it and has warnings saying to not use in pregnancy.) I opted to turn down the cytotec and instead have a foley balloon placed to “ripen” my cervix, which is the first step in an induction. The goal of the cytotec and/or balloon is to get you to about 3cm so they can start you on Pitocin, which is the better-known induction drug. Pitocin makes you have ridiculously hard and frequent contractions which move the baby down the birth canal and help you push the baby out…

While I felt good about refusing cytotec for baby one–and first births are known for being long so it’s impossible to know had I taken it if It would have changed things at all, or for the better–I did end up with a very long induction. I did manage to get an epidural after hours of painful pitocin contractions which had me screaming and moaning. While the epidural needle was not an issue for me, I got the epidural shakes after (which are apparently very common) and they were horrible. After that, it was all a bit of a blur until my son came out after 2.5 hours of pushing and despite crying was blue and taken swiftly to the NICU. All I could think of was the video they showed in our breastfeeding class about how the baby is placed on the mom’s stomach and crawls to the breast to begin to breastfeed, and how I was robbed of that moment they made such a big deal out of (and later I learned that also meant I would have a long and challenging journey to make breastfeeding work, requiring round-the-clock pumping and attempting to feed from the breast for 8 weeks straight.) And then, being paralyzed by the epidural and told I couldn’t go to the NICU to see my baby for hours, left me alone in the delivery room thinking my son was going to die and I couldn’t even be with him.

My son didn’t die. While it was scary to see him hooked up on all sorts of tubes and having low oxygen levels, he was released two days later and we never found out what happened. Apparently he just needed time to adjust to the world. And I spent the next 2.5 years reading all about birth trauma, and found my story wasn’t nearly as bad as most trauma stories. I read about women who were put to sleep for an emergency C-section and woke up to no baby in their arms, or those who were cut into while the numbing drugs weren’t working correctly. I read about some who were not induced when they should have been and were left to birth babies too large or in the wrong positions. Women who had every last symptom of preeclampsia yet who were ignored until it was too late and they had seizures and died on the delivery table, only to be ressuctated and  brought back to life to live another day. I realized my story was barely traumatic–and yet, for me, it was something I didn’t want to relive.

So when I got pregnant with my second, I both feared a worse childbirth, but also felt optimistic about my odds of having a good birth, whatever that means. I even started looking forward to my delivery–what laboring at home would be like. What I would be doing the moment I felt my first contraction. When would baby decide to come on his own? Could I handle natural labor pain better than one induced with pitocoin? Could I get through labor without an epidural (no way!) or, how far could I progress before asking for the epidural (I made it to ~5cm last time, which is pretty good. I made a goal in my head to make it to 6 this time. Maybe that would prevent a NICU stay. Maybe getting the epidural too early slowed down the labor last time? Who knows.)

But a totally natural labor was not to be for this little one either. My blood pressure started creeping up and because I had gestational hypertension with my first, suddenly borderline readings that my doctor ignored with baby one were indicators to induce me super early. My OB looked at two BP readings, including one I took a home during a virtual visit, and said I should be induced at 37 weeks.

37 weeks???

In the back of my mind I figured I might end up induced again at 40, but hoped that I would go into labor naturally before that. With an induction at 37 weeks it was practically a guarantee I wouldn’t go into labor naturally. My hopes and plans for a natural labor were again out the window. With such an early induction, I worried, would this be even worse than my first one? After all, with baby one, at a day before my due date my body hadn’t even dilated 1cm. Would this be a worse experience? Would I end up with one of those horrific emergency C sections I read about? Would I need the oxygen mask on my face for an extended period of time? Would my baby make it out alive? Would I?

In researching 37 week inductions I found that they were quite common for medical indications. However, while 37 weeks used to be considered full term, it now is concerned early term. Elective inductions are now required to wait until 39 weeks–because baby is still forming in those 37-38 weeks. Kid’s IQ is a bit lower for each week they are unable to bake. While 37 weekers tend to survive well outside the womb, I felt delivering at 37 weeks was taking something away from my kiddo. I felt like a failure to have high blood pressure so early. And while some of it may be my fault due to gaining too much weight again this pregnancy, many thin women also end up with blood pressure issues. If the precursor to preeclampsia, which it could be, then it is related entirely to placenta failure. Every comment from well-meaning friends and family to just reduce my stress in order to bring my blood pressure down reminded me how little is understood about these fairly common diseases of pregnancy–the same ones that make America one of the top developed countries for maternal mortality, often from conditions related to blood pressure.

While I was grateful my OB took my symptoms seriously (I’ve seen many women on my Facebook groups note that with similar blood pressure readings and other issues like headaches, abdominal pain, etc, which signify something more serious happening, they are ignored) I still felt like the actual date I needed to induce was not clear. The 37 week recommendation was based on one study from 2009 of 600 women and it didn’t sort out people who had mild high blood pressure vs those who had very high blood pressure, and it also had diagnostic criteria that were changed since the study and brought down. Some reviews of the study noted the recommendation was for induction at the END of the 37th week, and others noted they were for the beginning. I started to hope that maybe I could make it to week 39, go into labor on my own, ignore my liable blood pressure that was slowly spiking higher and higher at random, and the issue would just go away.

I switched OBs. My new OB agreed with me that my levels at the time were not high enough to merit induction. But then I also started reading about what happens during childbirth if you let your blood pressure get out of control. Things could get bad fast. I joined a preeclampsia group on Facebook and read stories of women who had no blood pressure issues at all one day and were seeing 180/110 levels the next. I read about the infamous magnesium drip that makes you feel warm and like you have the flu during your childbirth and recovery, but minimizes your risk of seizures. I read stories of women who died because their blood pressure readings weren’t taken seriously. I started to chicken out from my plan to put myself on bedrest and stay the course. I made a silent agreement that if my numbers went over 140 or 90 and didn’t immediately come down, I’d go for the induction. My new OB supported my taking readings at appointments after I came in to the doctor’s room and sat for a while. We discussed my anxiety and white coat syndrome, and she agreed that the first reading when I get to the office without time to relax may not be accurate enough for a diagnosis.

I made it past 37 weeks. A huge win. But I also started seeing some high readings at home. Some that probably should have sent me to L&D.  But I’d go into bed, breathe deeply, wait a while, and retake the reading and it would come down. The final weekend before I ended up inducing I was having two friends over for a social-distanced dinner in my backyard when my felt my heart pounding a bit. I went to take my blood pressure just to check I was ok and it came back at 150 over something. I started to panic and throw things in my hospital bag and awkwardly asked my friends to leave. My husband had me get in the bed and calmed me down and my BP came back to normal levels. We decided not to rush to L&D, but to get some sleep and reevaluate in the morning.

Every day I didn’t go to L&D felt like a win in my mind. Another day for my son to grow and get closer to full term. Another chance of hitting 39 weeks and/or going into labor on my own.

Unfortunately, my new OB was scheduled to be on vacation the first week of January, so I had an appointment scheduled with a new doctor at 37+5 (37 weeks, five days.) I knew it was a make-or-break appointment. I expected my blood pressure to be high, but did not expect the readings I got. Or that it didn’t come down on a second read, or when I took it on my home machine that I brought in to the office (which was lower but still too high.) The OB, who was quite nice about things, said I should go to get induced today and put in a call to the hospital to schedule my arrival in two hours. She quickly did a cervical check and membrane sweep, which hurt a bitch, and told me I was 1cm dilated (of 10cm) , 50% effaced (of 100%) and -3 station (you want to be +”3″ to deliver a baby.) In other words, while I was ever-so slightly more ready to pop out a baby compared to my first induction, it wasn’t significant enough of an improvement that I had any faith this forced labor would go smoothly. I felt sad and spent the next two hours mourning the “natural labor” I wanted and wouldn’t get, at least not this time around.

When I checked into the hospital I also synced with my virtual doula–a woman who used to be an RN who also had a lot of experience with evidence backed birth. We discussed options and she encouraged me to take the misoprobital this time. I agreed because at least it was something different. I was a little worried about the reports of it overstimulating the uterus and causing too many contractions which could put the baby in distress and harm the mother (possibly causing her to lose her uterus.) But, it sounded like the worst side effects were still pretty rare, and my nurses at the hospital ensured me it was a common and cautious course — they start you on 50mg, a ‘half dose’, and watch your reaction for 4 hours. If that goes well, they give you 100mg and wait another 4 hours. They do the 100mg up to 5 times. The whole process could take an entire day. I liked that — at that point all I could think about was how to delay my son’s birth so he could cook a little longer in utero. This would buy me an entire day. I was game.

The first dose made me feel a bit flushed, but didn’t seem to do anything else. The following doses similarly did little. I felt a few contractions here and there, but nothing that a doctor would consider active labor. This is normal with the cytotec, apparently, as its job is to ripen the cervix, not to cause contractions. Its side effect is that it can cause contractions. But that’s not its main objective. It always is used as a precursor to pitocin, my archenemies chemical concoction of childbirth. There were stories of, rarely, a woman going into active labor after taking cytotec. I thought–wouldn’t that be great, if I could avoid the pitocin altogether! What if cytotec puts me into a normal active labor? Maybe this could be a good birth after all!

When I finished the 5 doses of cytotec, including 4 hours after the last dose, the midwife on duty at the time met with me and suggested we immediately start pitocin. My cervical check showed I was 3cm–which was actually really good for the cytotec. I wanted to get to 5cm before starting pitocin, and I also decided to get an epidural before starting pitocin this time, so I wouldn’t have to feel those horrible forced contractions. She agreed to give me 2 hours and then we would start the pitocin. The plan was always to just see if I could dilate a little more on my own, get an epidural, start pitocin, have baby when baby was ready to come out.

At that point I started to feel a few fairly strong but short contractions. My husband and I asked if we could walk the hall and we were given the ok as long as we wore our masks. Over about an hour and a half my contractions went from non-existent to very hard and very consistent. I realize now they weren’t being picked up on the monitors, but because they were so frequent I had my husband track them on my iPhone app. Looking back I see they were coming every 1-2 minutes and were intense for 30-45 seconds. I’m not sure what happened during that 1.5 hours, but my body went from not ready to have a baby at all to…

3:30pm. I get back to the room and I’m telling the nurse things are getting really painful. I suddenly am thinking 4pm, my check in with the midwife, is too far away. I am ready to throw in the towel and get the epidural now. Start the pitcoin. I’m a wimp. This hurts. I’m told that these contractions are my own, that the cytotec is mostly out of my system. The nurse doesn’t seem to believe me I’m having such frequent contractions. We discuss taking a shower to help me make it to 4pm. She knows my goal of dilating to 5cm before the epidural and pitocin. She is trying to help me get there. She sets me up for the shower, wrapping my hep lock in plastic, starting the water…

A minute or so later, I fold over in crippling pain. I almost find the pain funny, as I might have laughed in horror at that moment. I knew something suddenly changed. I felt a slight trickle of water down my legs and I thought (wouldn’t it be funny if that was my water brea…

Then, bam, out came a Hollywood-style pouring of water onto the floor in two giant bursts. I could tell my nurse knew that meant the show was really starting. Meanwhile, I felt my body immediately change. I can’t explain it. I just felt super scared. I didn’t know that I was about to have a baby so soon. I just thought I was going to have to ensure this level of crippling pain for a long time before I could get an epidural. I screamed out. I need fentynl (which I planned to get one dose of before the epidural like last time, to take the edge off), I NEED AN EPIDURAL, I NEED IT NOWWW….

Just as I was beginning to panic, I started to be hit with wave after wave of really fucking painful contractions. I screamed in agony. The nurse scrambled to get the anesthesiologist and drugs. I somehow made it to the bed. It was about 3:45pm at that point. Suddenly a bunch of people were in the room. My eyes were mostly closed. The OB was there, sitting next to me, saying she needs to check me. I didn’t know what was up or down. All I was thinking was how am I going to survive this until I get this epidural?!?! Just as the OB reported out loud that I was 5cm, I informed the room that I needed to both go to the bathroom immediately and vomit and I would be doing both in due time whether they liked it or not. The fentanyl dose was administered about then as well, as everyone said I cannot go to the bathroom on the drug. I was like, well fuck that, I’m going here and no one can stop me. No one seemed to be telling me not to poop the bed, everyone seemed focused on not letting me vomit on myself… they gave my husband a vomit bag and asked him to hold it to my mouth. I pushed it away as it made me feel claustrophobic and I was like fuck this I don’t want a vomit bag on my mouth why can’t I vomit all over myself I’m dying anyway just let me vomit on myself…

At the same time, I started to “poop.” Well, I wasn’t pooping. The midwife said “you’re pushing past your cervix.” I had no idea what that meant but it sounded maybe not good? The next thing I hear is “you’re crowning.” I think at that point I let out an audible “what??” The next phrase out of my midwives mouth was “that’s the head.” Both my husband and I said “huh?” at this point, as she continued “one more push and your baby is out” and at that point I couldn’t not push, so out came baby.

He was put on my stomach and looked ok and seemed to cry a bit but moments later they said he was having trouble breathing and he was taken away to the NICU. Even though I didn’t have an epidural this time, I had flashbacks to my first son’s birth of him being taken away, and I was again told I couldn’t go to be with him. Instead of that happy after-birth moment with my husband and new baby, I was left on the delivery table with the nurse pressing my stomach to get all the blood out and ensure I wouldn’t hemorrhage, and my husband was off to the NICU to be with our son. No breast crawl like the video. No skin to skin (after the initial minute.) No feeling that good feeling you get after you go through something horrible but end up with a healthy baby.

This time, at least, in an hour they brought my son back to me. He actually latched well and breastfed for a long time. We all went to the recovery room together. We had a little time to enjoy together before my son began having respiratory distress again and ended up back in the NICU the next day. He seemed to have a lot of amniotic fluid that wasn’t pushed out of his lungs due to the precipitous labor, but no one really knows what happened. The doctors all said it wasn’t because he was 37 weeks, but I’m not sure I believe any of that. No one seems to really know. I wonder, most of all, if the cytotec caused the precipitous labor, or if that was really all me after it was out of my system. Why weren’t my frequent contractions picked up on the monitor? Was I having overstimulation at that point? Should someone have been administering a drug to slow down my contractions? Was there any damage caused to my son in that labor that wasn’t just due to my own body having a baby really fucking fast?

Well, baby is here now and after a few days of adjusting and sounding like he was drowning due to being filled with fluids, he is doing quite well. Everyone who sees video or picture of him notes that he’s “so alert,” which I guess is a good thing for babies. My pediatrician also said this, and then noted that he’s strong and active, and that he will probably be an athlete. My husband and I frequently note that he doesn’t seem like an early-term baby, especially compared to our 40 weeker first child who came out acting much more like a premie than this guy. He seems healthy now.

After all of that, you might think I’m bat shit crazy (I am) but I want another child. We’re still looking into IVF for gender selection, which I’m partial towards due to also being able to do genetic screening of the embryo, which helps as I’ll be around 39 and my husband will be 40/41 when we try for our third and final child. Even though that’s a bit of a ways off, and maybe will never happen, I’ve got a wish for that delivery… no high blood pressure. No induction. No NICU stay.

It could always go far the other way. But in my heart, I still want that moment. Closure. That “golden hour.” I want to end the trauma that is labor–even in its best form–with the reward that its meant to bring–a sweet, healthy poop machine lying on your chest, ready for the world. Can I at least have that?

Adulting, Career, Mental Illness, Real Estate & Rent

Moving Week. So Long Apartment. Hello House of Holes. (This isn’t a post about porn.)

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Sorry to disappoint, but House of Holes is not the title of the new porno I’m staring in–it’s what the house I’m moving into looks like at the moment.

Despite our hopes to have all construction work done before moving in and before having a baby, in actuality we’re moving into a house with a circuit busted, holes just about everywhere (my favorite is the giant dark gaping hole… into the crawl space of doom where the furnace used to be) and my electric panel to replace the one that apparently self combusts without notice is going to make it in sometime around the second week of January, despite contracting for it back in mid November. Oh, and my bathroom is, well, it looks like the early stages of a home remodeling show at the second. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t take 30 minutes to transform from drab to fab.

My biggest concern about all the work still needing to be done is not the holes or lack of lighting. It’s that now we have to live in a house with people coming in and out in the height of the pandemic. We are setting it up so our bed will be in the living room on one end of the house away from most of the construction and hoping between that and going out on the days people are doing work, we can avoid getting sick.

Speaking of getting sick, my husband’s grandmother, age 96, caught COVID at her nursing home this week. The window visit to see her yesterday was scary and surreal. So far she’s doing “ok” in the sense that she was moved to a larger nursing home and is sitting up and communicating, but she got a positive diagnosis just 4 days ago (her entire group home got sick – ugh!) so at this point, who knows. I thought the window visit would be regulated somehow… I mean, it was probably fine, but after nearly a year of being so careful to avoid humans who might have COVID, it felt strange to walk a path around the nursing home past windows (hopefully all closed) with my husband and son (wearing our masks of course) to a window in the back that they opened for the visit. She sat 6 feet away, supposedly. She seemed happy to see us and my son. We haven’t seen her in nearly a year. The group home where she was went into complete lock down in March, or so we were told. I can’t even imagine what the last months were like for her. We’re not close or anything (she doesn’t talk much and is quite introverted) but still… what a sad life–already a sad life being a widow in your 90s stuck in a small house waiting to die. And then corona comes along and you can’t even see your family. Horrible.

She is 96 which is pretty incredible and I’ve read people over 95 tend to actually fare better with COVID because they have really good genes, so we’re hopeful. We, of course, don’t want to lose great grandma, and certainly not to COVID, but on top of all this–when my husband’s grandmother does pass away, it will set off a domino effect of logistical nightmare for my husband and his mother, as his mother lives in her mother’s house which is filled with half a century or more of thrift store hoarder heaven. Undoubtedly the brother who is managing his mother’s care will be quick to want to sell the house, which means it will need to be emptied and we will need to find a place for my husband’s mother to live. That alone will be a huge stress and mess whenever it happens. If it happens to happen the week my second child is born (which would be perfectly on schedule for my curse, by the way–my grandma died 4 days after my wedding, dad died 7 days after my first son was. born) then, well, it’s going to be what it is but I know my husband, faced with the reality of this situation happening now is having a heart attack every few minutes at the moment, besides being devastated that his grandma caught COVID just weeks before a vaccine availability for people her age.

I was not feeling optimistic about her situation until seeing her yesterday, and now feel a bit more hopeful. We talked to a guy who works at the nursing home (he was wearing a mask and we were outside but he got close to us to take our temperature which I found kind of crazy as if WE had COVID we weren’t going to give it to anyone during a visit where we stood outside, and HE was clearly around COVID patients all day and got, you know, within 3 feet of us to take our forehead temps. I held my breath when he took it but of course my 2 year old son did not know how to do that (he was wearing a mask, but I’m not sure how effective masks are when you’re that close.) So I’m feeling more optimistic about my husband’s grandmother recovering from Coronavirus and less optimistic of me not having Coronavirus when I go into labor. Even if I didn’t go to visit her, my husband was going, and he wanted to take our son, and it was outside (and his grandmother was sitting inside 6 feet away and we were all wearing masks), but I just feel uneasy about that whole situation. California is going to shit when it comes to our Coronavirus numbers, but in this case we chose to go near a facility with known patients. In my 35th week of pregnancy. With a husband who has high blood pressure. And a 2 year old who would probably be fine if he caught Corona unless he had a horrible reaction to it, but who knows what it does to kids over the long term?

So that just adds another layer to everything right now, everything which has so many layers I’m just letting them build up at this point and not attempting to peal them. I can’t. It’s too much. Even my upcoming performance review (which was now moved to January since I’ve opted to work a bit longer after finding out how much money I’ll be losing if I take off the extra 2-3 weeks before my delivery date) is barely registering with me, despite the occasional mental loop about how my boss and my former boss with (possibly) cautiously tell me about my demotion and how I’ll never be a leader and carefully document all of my mistakes last year so they can throw me out as soon as I get back to work after maternity leave and pass whatever HR qualified period is required to not fire a woman who just had a baby. Of course, I’ll do what it takes to be GREAT for as long as I can when I get back (which is difficult when you just had a baby and do not sleep–my first PIP came a week after I got back from maternity leave and I was losing my mind, so who knows what will happen this time.) I don’t know. I have a lot of money on the line right now. And I feel like my new role is actually good for me in that I can get the work done to an acceptable level. Maybe that’s what my former boss is thinking too. She is actually a nice person and seems to like me enough and she knows how much $ I have on the line and if she wanted to she could have fired me last year (I gave her quite the runway between the PIP and announcing that I’m pregnant so she didn’t have to feel like she was stuck with me) and she decided to keep me, or decided to not make it a priority to get rid of me at the time. Because I did do some good work. She even said so. I was doing really well the first half of the year. Then I had 3 bad months. Then I was demoted and told I’ll never be a leader.

Anyway, maybe it’s true. Or maybe I’m just going through a lot in my personal life right now and it’s not the time to lead. I just wish I could have a job where I didn’t have to constantly worry about getting fired. Layoffs happen and can’t be avoided, but I don’t want my performance to ever be part of the equation. I look at my friend who is just so confident and always gets his work done, despite his work not being too complex yet, and how that led to his promotion into my former role. Now, said friend is seemingly really good at strategy for this specific position, and he deserves to move up in his career and have a shot at running the show. Still, I’m unclear how the work I’ve done (and what I’ve put out) is so horrible over what he might do. People just have a negative perception of me because I’m a bad project manager, but all of my contributions have been solid as far as I know. I just missed a few deadlines (which for the most part didn’t even push out project launches, just internal deadlines that were set too aggressively in the first place.)

Where I really failed was in not focusing on a strategy that tied to my boss’s plans close enough. But even that was pretty difficult to do as those plans changed and there was no strategic guidance. So I came up with a plan based on whatever it was I picked up on working remote from the various teams and people seemed happy with it at the time. I tried to execute on that plan and I did execute on it, but not in the way I should have. I should have made things simple, delegated work to lots of people, and lead in making other people do things so things got done and everyone was aligned and excited and motivated and everyone was like, damn gurrrrlll, you are the best leader ever. Instead I came up with a plan (collaboratively, mind you) and then tried to get the work done by reaching out to people across the organization vs mostly on my team. Stuff was pretty complicated and I wanted to make sure I put out things that were accurate so it took me too long. I set unrealistic deadlines, but for me deadlines are always unrealistic because I have a mental flaw where I can’t actually focus on work until the last minute, and then somehow the brain block opens and suddenly I am doing work that would take someone 2 weeks in one night. And no one knows the difference. Except when I’m so anxious about the situation that I can’t even get that one night. Or a bunch of people review the work and change their minds after they told me one thing, so I have to change it again. And I don’t know how to say “this is done” because I want to make everyone happy.

Anyway, wasn’t this a house about those dark holes in my house? The point was, I’m just not super focused on my job situation right now in that I have little time to dwell on it outside of hoping that whatever this review is, I’m given some sort of opportunity to take the rest of the next year to do my new job and am not given an actual demotion yet. Even if my title drops to the next tier, if I can keep the same pay and vesting schedule I would lose out only on a percentage of my bonus next year. Which would be sad but not the end of the world. I don’t know if they can take back any stock grants at this point, even with a demotion, so hopefully I can hold on to that.

Maybe after I’ve moved to my new house, set up an actual office (vs working for the past year FROM MY BED in my ONE BEDROOM APARTMENT) and have gotten past the first few sleepless months of having a baby, I can actually do a decent job. Decent meaning I unlock the mystery of making plans for a project that everyone is aligned with, from starting ideation to launch and beyond, and every single project I manage is so perfectly executed that no one can say a  negative word about me. There is absolutely nothing I can do to move up in this organization again, but that is not my goal. I have 15 months of survival, and then I can evaluate where I’m at. In 15 months, I hope to have this job, a healthy baby (in addition to my healthy toddler), a healthy husband, a vaccinated family, a house that hasn’t burnt down (and hopefully is free of holes outside of the purposeful ones in the plumbing and entryways), and then I can stop and figure out the rest of life. Do we stay a few more years? Do we move? Do I get a new job? Do I keep this one if I’m actually good at it (despite no room for advancement?) I can figure that all out then. Right now, this is a month-by-month, week-by-week, day-by-day survival game.

The current level involves figuring out how to hire a GOOD handyman to fill in the 3×3 hole into the vortex of doom in my closet (not to mention a matching portal into the attic), and how to fix the electric circuit that my bathroom remodelers say they didn’t break (they probably did but they claim the HVAC people did this, despite us knowing it was working the night of the HVAC work being complete), and all the other things that will undoubtedly go wrong once we move in. I’m trying to just embrace this all as the sitcom of my life, because when you just accept that you’re living in a comedy, even the most tragic can be spun up with hilarity to get you through it. I’ve found no amount of money can protect you from the chaos that is life. Or maybe, with some ridiculous amount you can cushion yourself from it a bit (at some point you can have an electrician living with you in your contractor’s quarters) but generally speaking, life is shit for everyone. It’s good it is, I guess. It’s more shit for some people but everyone suffers at some point, $100M in the bank or not. So I embrace my varying levels of suffering, from my first world problems of a hole-ly house to those that are a bit more substantially shitty, such as when my father died a week after my son was born in a rehab facility that I’m still convinced was negligent/not where he should have been in his condition.

Right now, I don’t know how many more bad things I can take. Birth is scary as fuck and so many things can go wrong. We don’t hear about them because we’re told as long as mom and baby are healthy/alive, then things went well. That’s not really true. Lots of things can go wrong and mom/baby survive. My first birth was not horrific compared to ones I’ve read about since having my son (you know, compared to woman who had emergency C sections where the numbing meds didn’t work AND THEY FELT EVERYTHING) or those who hemorrhaged and blacked out after giving birth and aren’t sure how they’re alive) so I’m a bit terrified of what could happen… but for the most part births are pretty standard and women have their babies come out one way or another and either way is fairly safe and babies don’t typically come out not breathing and have to go to the NICU like my son and even if they do they eventually adapt to the world and thrive like my son is doing now.

But it’s hard not to worry, especially 5 weeks (or much less) until I do this all over again. I’m both oddly looking forward to it (a redemption birth, a glorious smooth birth where baby comes out and is placed on my chest and crawls to my breast and latches with no problem and we just have that beautiful, peaceful moment I hear so much about) and terrified out of my mind about all the things that could go wrong. And then just thinking through the logistics of how to make sure my son is safe while we go to the hospital… we have somewhat of a plan but it isn’t perfect. If I’m induced, it would be a bit more controlled (pick up my MIL, bring her to our house, set her and my son up for a few days of safe living) but if I go into spontaneous labor (which is the hope) then it will look more like driving 30 minutes to the hospital while I’m screaming in pain, dropping me off, either picking her up after and driving her back to my house (another 45 minutes) then driving back to the hospital and parking (another 45 minutes) until my husband gets back to be with me (leaving me alone for a good 2 hours+ while in active labor) or he drops my son off at her house which is fine for a day but not safe for an overnight, which is going to happen if it seems like I’m about to pop (I think that’s more realistic… we book it up to her house, drop my son off and continue on to the hospital together. It would be about 45 minutes from home to the hospital at that point, with the stop.) Then once I’m in recovery and given the all clear, my husband can head out and drive my son and his mother to our house, and then at some point come back to be with me and baby at the hospital. Or if I’m doing exceptionally well he can stay home with my son and his mom and get some rest while I manage baby at the hospital overnight, and then get picked up to go home in a day or two and come home to a husband who isn’t out-of-his-mind exhausted (this may be the best scenario.)

I can’t believe it’s five weeks away (and there is a chance my doctor won’t let me go beyond 39 weeks which, good ol math tells us is FOUR weeks away.) FOUR WEEKS until I knock on wood have ANOTHER kid. Life is so strange. I have definitely adjusted to being mom to one. My son is awesome.  I don’t see him as a little kid. I mean, I do in that he’s just innocent and honest and has those moments of pure joy that only someone without a grasp on the hours of the world can have. But he’s also just this little person with his own ideas and opinions and needs. And I love him to pieces…

And I don’t know how I’m going to love another kid but I’m told you just do. I think I can. I’m crazy and want 3 kids. I feel like at the end of the day, what matters to me most is family. I grew up with such a big extended family and now it’s really just us. My husband has some cousins nearby with older kids, but we don’t see them often (even pre COVID.) I wish I could be more social with them but they’re just rather adult and normal and I don’t know how to connect with adult and normal people. I mean now we can talk about kids, which is something to talk about, but I just feel like a teenager around them and they’re all such grown ups. I may be 37 but I get along with people who are mentally 16, which is the problem. They are super nice, but if I went to dinner or drinks alone with them (esp the two women who are in their early 40s who are both super nice but just superrrr normal) it would just be awkward. Not that I really connect with my extended family, but they’re at least east coast types who have big personalities and I feel a bit more comfortable around them. Anyway, I want to build my own family. And I can… I have. And to me, 2 kids is great and 3 is even better. Sure, there’s no guarantee my future kids will not be little demons but… I don’t know… my heart wants a fairly big family. Not huge. But 3 seems like the right number. It always has to me. I’ll get through #2 and see if I still feel this way. I’ll be 38 before I can start trying for #3, and I’m throwing around the idea of doing IVF both to minimize risk of defects at that age and also sex selection. Which is horrible in my politically correct mind where one should not care about the sex of their children but then I also really want to have a girl and I think I’d be sad if I didn’t at least try to make that happen. IVF will be expensive, so I’m saving up for it, but at 38/39 even if I didn’t want to do it for sex selection I still might need it. So that’s possibly in my future. But for now, I want to have a healthy birth and a healthy baby and get to know my new kiddo.

My heart is so ready to see my son meet his sibling. He’s 2.5 years old and seems to sort of get that a baby is coming. He knows I’m growing a baby and we watch YouTube videos of funny babies so he understands what a baby is. I tell him baby is coming in January and he says “NO! FEBRUARY!” and he often points to my stomach and says “BABY!!” I hope he does well with all the change coming up… the move next week (we’ve been bringing him to the house often and he definitely is comfortable being there, but I don’t know how he’ll feel when we no longer can come back to the apartment) and then they’ll be a new kid living with us! But in February grandpa will be moving in and that will be great for him since grandpa is his best friend. Grandpa has a fall and hasn’t been to the doctor as he apparently didn’t enroll in Medicare Part B (eventually I’ll write another post re: my learnings of Medicare’s insanity) and he also wants to avoid doctor due to COVID concerns (which I understand) so grandpa who is living with us to help with our son when we have our new baby will be less able to help and also prevent us from hiring help until vaccines come out since we can’t risk exposing him to the virus, so there’s that. At least grandma loves to watch our son as well and she never uses her time off so she can spend some time with us and  our son too, even if she doesn’t live with us. It will all work somehow. I don’t know how people do this without any help. I just want us all to survive.

I’m so ready for 2021. And filling the holes in my house and those in my heart opened during my last birth. It’s been a rough 2.5 years. Through all of it, I’ve held down a job, increased by net worth substantially, and have set my family up for a clear path to $2.5M in net worth by the end of 2021 or early 2022. We should clear $2M in the next week, once the rest of my stock vests, even after all the taxes I owe for this year. I don’t know how that doesn’t feel like an accomplishment… not long ago I was looking at $1M like… that’s never going to happen, and here we are, $2M with 1.5 kids and a mortgage and so many crawl space and attic entrances!

Things are really good, despite being also not so good. I want to see my mom again soon (even though she’s a narcissist, I still miss her), and I want to see my sister and my extended family and I want life to go back to normal. I want my husband’s grandmother to kick COVID’s ass (this woman will live to 110) and I want to have one of those childbirths that starts with contractions at home and ends with a birth at the hospital where baby comes out screaming in a good way. I can’t plan for 5 years from now or 3 years from now at this point. It is now until April 1, 2022. That is all that matters. We get through this, I keep my job, we don’t get sick, we pay our mortgage on time, we fill those house holes (maybe with the play doh we’re giving our son for Christmas), and we learn how to be adults. Maybe we too can become normal adults and I can go to dinner with my husband’s cousins (or invite them over) and discuss such things as my son’s school and how to maintain a backyard and house hole filing. Or whatever normal adults talk about.

What’s clear is that this now is life and I’m going to live it the best I can. Accept the holes as part of what makes it interesting. And survive until April 1, 2022, with 15 months of potential life-changing net worth growth ahead, I’m in such a good place to set my family up for many years of relative stability (even if we stay in a HCOL area), and for once I feel really good about making it. Not forever. But 15 months. I got this. Maybe even the holes will be filled in by then.

Depression, Parenting & Motherhood

So I’m Having Another Baby in, Like, 6 to 9 Weeks.

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Every once in a while I get a jolting alien kick from within, or a glance in the mirror at my humungous belly, that reminds me I’m quite pregnant at the moment. It’s easy to forget (well not that easy given how sore my butt is from the weight of carrying an adorable little parasite again.) In less than 10 weeks, my world is going to change. I’m going to have a baby, again. A baby! Only 2.5 years ago (not even) I had one of those. Now he’s curious, rambunctious, alphabet-addicted toddler who likes to draw on the walls when no one is looking.

How am I going to handle two of these? And why do I want another one? Haha.

I love being a mom. Truly. I didn’t know if I would. I know I’m not the perfect mom. But being a mom has changed me. Maybe I get sad a lot still, but when I see my son and his adorable little innocence and excitement around learning new things (“I wrote a W! Good job!” he exclaimed to himself the other day) how can I really be depressed? As long as my son (and future kid) have their health and safety, then I feel all the warmth in my heart to carry me through the dark times when my mind’s chemicals tell me I ought to exit stage left a bit early.

Nonetheless, I’m scared shitless of having another one. Every new baby is different. Last time I was a mess, with my long induction, son’s brief NICU stay, father dying a week after my son was born, inability to get my son to latch immediately and round-the-clock pumping, etc. And with all that, I actually got more sleep in that first two week period than I might get this time around. The NICU stay was terrifying, but it also meant that for the first 36 hours of my son’s life the nurses took care of him round the clock, and I got to dose off in the NICU chair as much as I needed. Then, when I went to my father’s funeral on the east coast a week later, for a few days I had a bed to myself and no baby crying (though I did pump on and off all night each day and managed to keep my supply up), and my husband had a series of wonderful friends and family come in to help him overnight so he could get some sleep too.

This time, we at least know what to expect (sort of ) but we’re on our own (sort of) and with another kid we have to keep alive. I know people do it (and do it with many more kids) but I’m still scared.

The worst of it is that because of COVID we’re in a bit of a pickle. My father-in-law will be living with us in his own space with his own entrance, but at 76 we cannot be near him for two weeks when coming home from the hospital as we’ll have to quarantine. My husband has told me that we can’t hire help either, because if we do that we’ll just have to continue to quarantine plus we’re risking more exposure to our newborn. So we’re on our own for two weeks for the. most part (it’s possible his father can occasionally watch our son from a distance in the backyard if we need a momentary break, but he can’t actually go near him.)

We’ll survive it, but it’s going to be really hard. And that’s IF everything goes well.

What if my new baby ends up in NICU again? For longer? What if something happens to me in delivery and I get stuck in the hospital and my family can’t visit? It’s quite scary right now. I knew going into this that COVID was not going away but this January and, knowing I’d be 37 when I deliver and wanting possibly a third kid, I made the choice to move forward to start trying to get pregnant anyway (it worked on the first try you guys… I did not expect that after basic fertility treatments for my first!) I thought maybe I’d be pregnant in a few months and I’d deliver in March, or April, or sometime in late spring/summer. I knew it was possible as with the beginning of the pandemic I began a daily walking route, started eating healthy, and dropped 8lbs in a month. My body was just ready, clearly. And on Mother’s Day I took at test and got my answer. Pregnant.

So here I am. Pregnant in a pandemic. Woohoo. Oh, I’m terrified. I’m also remodeling my bathroom. And going to showrooms during the weekdays wearing a mask and trying to social distance and hoping we don’t catch this thing. Cases are going up everywhere. My good friend who just had a baby got COVID a few weeks ago (in another state) and she ended up fine. I don’t know if I would. I’ve gained too much weight this pregnancy. I’m still about 25lbs down from my delivery weight from kid 1, but I wanted to gain max of 20lbs this time around and I’m double that now. I think it’s just a mix of my body craving carbs and the depression that kicks in around second trimester that makes me move towards a donut-only diet. Ok, I’m not that bad. But I have had a few too many donuts, despite telling myself that would not happen.

Anyway. Here’s to hoping that I–and no one in my family–will end up with COVID. That I’ll have a completely boring and uneventful labor, unlike last time, and have an opportunity to have my baby brought to me and put on my chest and left there to latch vs taken away in an instant because he’s not breathing. Here’s to hoping my mother, who lives in Florida, doesn’t catch a horrible case of COVID right when I’m due, as I seem to have this curse where family members die immediately after important events in my life (wedding — mom’s mother died three days later. Son’s birth — dad, a week later. Please, G_d, no death this time. Let’s make this one about life!)

Aging, Mental Illness, Parenting & Motherhood

It’s the End of My Second First Trimester

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Kid #2. There is less joy in this pregnancy. More practicality. I don’t think it’s the COVID situation but I’m sure that has something to do with it. My pregnancy is not one for celebration. It is one for survival to build the family I want. I haven’t post to social media to announce the news — nor to I plan to. No need for jokes about a making a “Covidia” or outpouring of concern. Yes, this baby was planned. You can’t really plan when you have a baby. But we planned to start trying in March and, well, bam, preggo.

I am excited. Excited when I watch my nearly 2 year old develop his own hilarious personality and wonder what this new kiddo will be like. Excited that one day, even if we live in a pandemic-ridden society forever, my son will have another kid to play with vs having to spend all his time with boring adults. It will take a while for that to really be a thing, given baby isn’t due until January and then it’s, well, a baby for at least 8 months or so, but eventually… he will have a live-in friend. Or enemy.  At least some age-appropriate entertainment outside of Sesame Place and turning his Little Tykes slide upside down and jumping on it.

I’m trying to embrace that things are going WELL for a change, but my anxiety is THROUGH THE ROOF. Well in that I’m actually doing a good job at work. I don’t think I’m doing a GREAT job, but I’m doing a REALLY GOOD job. It’s rare for me to say that. I can focus on what matters at home and because I get tired so often I can take breaks and no one cares. As long as I get my work done. It’s wonderful.

But I’m also extremely unhealthy. I’m not moving enough. I live in this 800 square foot 1br apartment and spend most of my day working from my bed. I know that’s horrible especially being pregnant. I need to force myself to move more. But then the days just disappear and I’m like well I guess I’ll get out tomorrow.

January will be rough. I don’t know how to imagine it. My husband and I with a toddler and an infant and probably no childcare and no sleep. If we’re lucky we buy a house where his dad can live and his dad watches our toddler while we go through the delirium that is the first few months child rearing.

I’m sad I won’t get to go to the prenatal fitness classes I loved so much in my first pregnancy, or go to the mom meetups after I give birth and heal enough to go outside. With my first born I took a child development class. I didn’t really stay friends with the moms because I suck at socialization but it was nice to be around other people going through the same thing. I took part in a PPD group at my therapy office and that was nice also, though I’m not sure I want to do that again anyway as I think I have heard the gamut of sad mom stories and at this point I need the strength to do this on my own.

I am nervous about telling my boss I’m pregnant. I’ll be in my second trimester in 2 weeks or so. I could tell her then. I kind of want to wait. She would be happier, I’m sure, if I give her plenty of warning. But things are going so well and I just want to show I can kick ass without her suddenly having to think on how to replace me next year when I’m gone for 5-6 months. It also is awkward to bring up on our zoom 1x1s that are usually so tactical and productive. We don’t small talk much. I will probably just email here before a 1×1 in a few weeks. Very matter of fact. I’m pregnant and I am due on X date and I plan to be out these dates and that’s that. Then if she wants to discuss beyond a quick “congrats” she can. Or we can just bookmark it and she can start shopping for my replacement even though I’m coming back but we all know when you go on maternity leave you lose your step in the career ladder.

Do I care? Not sure. Kind of? I’m not a lifer but I certainly plan to stay a while. And things are finally going well and it is just a shame that I have to pause everything and start over again. But maybe that’s ok. I can use a “break” even though having a kid is NOT a break but it at least is a mental break from my job with another job that is not sleeping and changing poop and having my nipples ripped off by an itty bitty cute baby mouth.

it feels like I’m about to take this massive step to adulthood–home ownership. Second child. Yadayada. I don’t feel like an adult. I just feel tired. I guess that is what being an adult is supposed to feel like, huh?

Pregnancy

Money and Fetuses: The (Optional) Costs of Pregnancy

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Prenatal yoga and exercise classes. Specialized massages. A pillow that, as my husband notes, looks like a “squid.” Fetal doppler. Maternity clothes. Classes to learn how to breathe and how to not have a panic attack when a human being is taking his or her own jolly time squeezing out of your hoo-ha. Maternity photography. Birth photography. Fresh 48 photography. Doulas. Elective ultrasounds (in 3D, no less.) The opportunities to spend money before you have a baby are endless.

But babies are expensive, and the rational self would avoid spending money on anything right now. The “I’m pregnant” self says “I want to spend a little more money to prepare myself for this insanity that is about to happen to my body, and possibly document it in a meaningful way.”

So far, the most I’ve spent on this pregnancy is on maternity clothes. I don’t think I have even bought that much (and I never have anything to wear), but it adds up. I’ve also taken two (free trial) prenatal exercise classes, and one prenatal yoga class for $20. I have yet to invest in any sort of photography or specialized ultrasounds.

Fortunately, my insurance is amazing and maternity care as well as childbirth (as long as I keep my job, knock on wood) is practically free. That is amazing. Any other insurance I’ve had in life and that same process would be $10k or more. So, there’s that. Can’t I spend a little bit on this process? Or, given that we’ll need $300k-$400k for a downpayment on a monthly mortgage of $7k per month, I better just save every penny I have until the day I’m old and wrinkly and can maybe buy a house for my family?

I’m really struggling with how to spend money at this stage in my life. It’s a complete first world problem, and one I am well aware I’m lucky to have. That doesn’t change having it. I’m at a smidge under $600k in net worth right now, and I feel proud of this accomplishment (which is well over my goal of having $500k in the bank before I have my first child.) Still, the more I have, the less I feel comfortable spending. I also acknowledge the older I get, the less valuable my money becomes (less time to compound) and in my 30s I’m still in an era where every dollar saved is likely $4-$17 in 30 years. So, even though inflation makes this slightly less attractive, I look at everything I buy now — an $80 exercise package for the month, for instance, and figure I’m spending $360 of retirement money, if not more. And, despite the goal of buying a $1.5M home (small home here) and having $2M in my retirement accounts seeming like a pipe dream, I still have this drive to get there, which means – no yoga, no doula, no extras.

And, for women across the world, this is totally normal. People give birth and don’t spend an arm and a leg on all this other stuff. They may spend money to furnish a nursery (another area I’m saving money in, since we have a one bedroom apartment and no nursery – just room for a crib!) I mean, it’s also easy to spend a small fortune on preparing for baby — when they aren’t going to remember anything you provided them as long as they are safe and comfortable in the basics. However, I will remember my maternity. Shouldn’t I invest a little in some comfort and the excitement?

The big expenditure I’m deciding on is the photography. I think it would be amazing to document the birth process (even though I’m sure at the moment I will feel absolutely horrified a photographer is there) — and, especially capturing that first moment when I hold my child. My husband can surely snap a photo on the iPhone, but then he won’t be in the picture, and we won’t have anyone else with us for the delivery.

There are some photographers that double as doulas, which I’m interested in only because I know I’m going to have massive panic attacks while giving birth and it would be nice to have someone there who understands what’s normal and isn’t. I haven’t yet decided if I’m going to get an epidural — theoretically, I will because I hate pain… but, if there’s anything I hate as much as pain, it’s anything getting near my spine. The fear of being paralyzed via epidural (even though i realize that’s a rare side effect) is enough to possibly have me feel a big ol ring of fire. Maybe.

I guess I’m also really — interested — in the natural pain of childbirth. I won’t be, you know, in five months when my vagina looks like the scene of a mass knifing…. but, at 34, this may be my only child and only opportunity to experience this thing that we as humans have been doing since, well, the beginning of humanity. As painful as it is, I’m curious how the human body performs in this moment of pushing a 10 pound create out of an orifice that also, at other moments of life, is supposedly described by the adjective “tight.”

If I do go to the natural route, it seems having a doula is a good idea. My hospital has a bunch of midwifes, so maybe that’s enough. And, as reality and the pain set in, I’m not going to avoid getting an epidural just because I thought I wanted to experience this pain. I’m going to decide in the moment and be open to  all options. I’d like to prepare for a natural childbirth, just in case I feel up for it. And, maybe I should hire someone to help me prepare?

It doesn’t matter how much I spend or don’t spend on this child and my pregnancy – I’ll be happy to have a healthy child. I’m still in that surreal moment of pregnancy where I don’t feel anything yet other than getting fat. I’ve seen baby inside of me via ultrasound a few times, and I know the miracle of life is rapidly forming right in my belly. It’s a bizarre thing to know. I do feel like it’s a person, not just a fetus right now at 20 weeks, in the sense that I’ve seen its hands and nose and eye sockets and it has stared us down in the ultrasound. It’s my baby in there, and I hope to the world that s/he is ok and will be happy with the life we can provide for her/him. I know I won’t be able to provide the same kind of life I had growing up–but then again my parents are born-again assholes so maybe that’s a good thing. I hope it is.

Anxiety, Children & Parenting, Parenting & Motherhood, Parents

Babies on the Brain – Preparing for My (“Our”) Future

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The majority of my friends are popping out their first children or well on their way to their second child by now. My Facebook feed, filled with folks I went to school with, mostly lesser educated yet clearly happy people, showcases families now of three or four kids. At nearly 33, I remain childless. I don’t FEEL old, yet it terms of childbearing years I’m getting up there. If I can get pregnant easily (which is unlikely) then I would have my first child before 35 – which is fine. However, I don’t want my second child to feel rushed as I know how much work having one child is, and I want time to enjoy being a mother of one before rushing on to try for my second.

Although I’ve thought a lot about the logistics of getting pregnant and childbirth before, the reality of the situation has never felt quite so pressing. Now that I’ve checked the marriage box there really is nothing holding me back from getting pregnant – except maybe an overdue international honeymoon which I was unable to take after the wedding for a variety of reasons (call me silly to put off getting pregnant until a honeymoon but I’d like to be able to enjoy this trip as much as possible and not feel sick on it, and I’d like to try regional cuisine including wine/sake depending on where we end up going.) But – I’m also at the point where I’m sincerely concerned about my ability to get pregnant and although I keep telling myself life will go on should I not be able to actually procreate, I feel like everyday we don’t try is another day I might eventually regret.

Before you say I’m being ridiculous, let me remind you at the ripe young age of 15 my gynecologist told me that my irregular periods were not to be of concern (and did not mention PCOS) but that as long as I have my kids before 30 I’ll be fine. That comments haunts me to this day. I am terrified that because I didn’t heed her advice, I’ll blame myself when we are stuck in cycles of IVF, I’m taking dozens of unpaid leave days from work and ultimately losing my job because I’m massively depressed over all of the emotional drama that goes along with infertility treatments and getting used to failures and picking back up and trying again and watching our bank accounts drain at what amounts to playing fertility roulette.

Mr. HECC is the type that doesn’t worry about the future. Generally, this is a good thing. He lives in the moment and I admire that. He doesn’t really have plans and while he wants kids he isn’t getting himself into a tizzy over how hard it might be for us to make them. He figures we’ll deal with it when it’s time to deal with it and if we can’t have any then we might adopt. I’m not sure about adoption (I have very mixed feelings about it and that’s something I won’t think about until I really have to) – but in the mean time I feel like this is pretty important and there are so many things that effect my ability to get pregnant and be pregnant and have children that require proper planning for a what may amount to a non-occurance and in this case I think I’m in the right to be a bit concerned about what this future of ours looks like which may or may not include offspring.

Work isn’t exactly stable right now. My company has no written maternity leave policy and because they have under 50 people they have no legal requirements to provide time off. Basically, how they treat maternity leave would depend on how much they want to keep me around. They can’t fire me if I get pregnant, but they certainly can make it not the easiest to stay. And, honestly, with the amount of responsibility I have I can’t say I’d be the best employee with such distractions. I’d never admit that to my employer, as that might set all of women back hundreds of years, but it’s kind of an unspoken truth – especially in the case for someone like myself with very clear mental illness who has already proven herself incapable of handling personal stressors and maintaining quality, consistent work at all times. The thing is – I WANT to have a few good years of focusing on work with no distractions. Even if I am uncertain of my career, I do like doing good work. I have been so distracted with the wedding (which was just a frivolous, inconsequential life event beyond actually getting married) that I can’t imagine what I’ll be like when I’m rushing off to IVF treatments (should they be needed) and waiting to see if one of them happen to take. Even just trying to get pregnant the good old fashioned way can be extremely stressful – as can be the potential of miscarriage, which is, according to some reports, 30% to 50% more likely in women with PCOS.

The amount of emotional stress that will go into getting and staying pregnant with my condition is above and beyond the normal challenges faced by pregnant women who work. Two of my good friends had horrible first trimesters where they were constantly nauseous and sick, and if such illness struck me I honestly don’t know what I’d do with having to work and not having time off to take. I’m already in a not-so-great situation in my current company where my company isn’t sold on my value, but if I leave and go to another company it would be even harder to ask for time off should I need it to deal with infertility treatments or standard morning sickness. Larger companies are probably better overall in handling the challenges that come with getting pregnant (in most startups I’ve worked for the majority of employees are men and the women in the company are typically younger / not of childbearing age. Executives are rarely female and if they are they are often childfree by choice. My last company was the exception with one highly-valued exec who was pregnant and had a child – and she barely took any time off to do so.) I dislike that at this point in my career not only am I trying to sort out my career but I also really do need to think about how this will effect my ability to have a child and remain gainfully employed. As I’ve noted many times before, I make more than double what my husband makes, so I really can’t stop working. I don’t want to stop working either – but I am worried about the sheer biological and emotional challenges which I cannot avoid once I start trying to get pregnant.

As is, I have about 15 PTO days per year (no “sick” days) – which is actually really good for a US company – and I’ve used nearly all of the ones I’ve accumulated so far on getting married. If I do take the extended honeymoon I’ve dreamed of since forever (Mr. HECC and I have never traveled internationally together in our 10+ years of dating), then I’ll wipe out the remainder of my PTO once I have enough to actually leave for two weeks. It will take seven months with absolutely no days off (no sick days, no vacation) to collect enough time off to actually take a two week vacation. Unfortunately I’m taking a day this July for a funeral so that means my accrual of days starts in August. That means it won’t be until March that I can take the time off to travel for a real honeymoon (well I can maybe negotiate some unpaid days earlier but I’d prefer not to lose income – the amount it costs me to miss a day of work isn’t worth it.) Meanwhile, I have friend’s weddings which require travel and I’d like to take some PTO for them this fall, but I can’t because I want to save up for the trip…

The bigger problem is that once I do take a honeymoon I’ll be left with zero PTO days just when it’s important for me to start immediately trying to have a child. It’s an easy conversation to tell your (male) boss you are pregnant, but highly uncomfortable to discuss how you are trying and have PCOS and need to go see multiple doctors and you don’t know exactly what the process is going to look like or how long it will take or if you can get pregnant but you are going to try really hard and you need some time to go to the doctor and you don’t know how much and you just used up all your PTO on your vacation but besides the fact you want to stay at your job and keep your job you also need your health benefits so you HAVE to stay at your job…

And as this is all so soon, I feel like I should be thinking about it and planning. It’s not just typical HECC anxiety/neuroticism, it is my life, my career, my income, my stability, and my future. I can just wait and deal with it as it comes, but I see exactly how this plays out and it isn’t pretty.

My current plan is to stay at my job at least until December and then maybe take a few weeks unpaid between starting a new job, ideally at a larger company that has a maternity leave policy and that supports pregnant mothers. I don’t know if I can get a job at one of these companies, but at this point in my life that is probably the most important benefit I can seek out (other than good health insurance.) If I was thriving in the startup world I’d fight harder to stay, but my successes are few and far between, and I think life is point me towards some kind of change. Mr. HECC may go back to school for teaching in a year, and with that I hope he’ll have a stable (albeit low-paid) job which enables him to maintain a level of happiness and take care of our “who knows if they will ever happen” children while I continue to do whatever it is I end up doing professionally. While I don’t see how we can afford to stay living in this area, his plan is to have his mother live on the same property we do and help with the down payment (my thoughts on that are for another post at another time.) In any case, life is complicated as always. I am happy to be married, but thought I’d be a bit more stable in other aspects of life by now. It will certainly be an interesting ride over the next few years of adulthood. I think the only thing I know is that I want kids, so I somehow need to manage a life around making that happen… even if financially it isn’t the smartest and logistically it isn’t the easiest.

 

Career, Family, Married Life, Parenting & Motherhood, Parents, Retirement

The Emotional Reprecussions of Narcissistic Parents

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No one has perfect parents, and by 30-something you’re supposed to be well adjusted enough to forgive and forget any of their misgivings. I don’t know why I’m still holding out for the day my parents learn how to care about anyone other than themselves, yet that faith consistently proves futile.

When my father was diagnosed with cancer seven years ago and told he had one to two years to live, I spent an evening collapsed on the floor with my friend holding my hand and praying to Jesus for me – which despite my being an atheist Jew was somewhat comforting. Despite growing up as the child of narcissists, and despite being quite self absorbed myself, somehow I’ve managed to learn how to care about others. I’m not very good at expressing this, and I certainly don’t know how to manage these feelings within the context of my family, but I’m learning.

Dad is still alive and kicking. While I had hoped that somehow the stars would align for him to both kick the terminal disease and for having a terminal illness to turn him into a man far less self-centered, I’ve realized this will never happen. The more amount of time I spend away from my parents, the more I can observe their great narcissism. To be fair, they financially took care of me throughout my childhood and then some, and I had a very comfortable childhood, at least on paper.

But that comfortable childhood was spent listening to hours upon hours of my father telling my mother she’s an idiot, throwing curse words at her, screaming and berating her, while my mother nagged about one thing or another, setting him off over and over again. My parents, in many ways, are perfect for each other. There is no satisfying their narcissistic supply, and it would surely drain anyone who actually cared to please the other when such pleasing was impossible.

I may be the type to over dramatize a lot of things in my life, but my parent’s crazy is not one of them. The definition of narcissistic personality disorder defines my father perfectly. My friend from childhood came to visit today and said she was not looking forward to coming over to the house because of my father, as he was never kind to her. She was a bit of a troublemaker as a child, but that was due to her parents both working and leaving her home alone from a young age, alongside her father’s alcoholism and abuse (which I did not know about at the time.) We both had crazy situations at home which is why we bonded, but my father always made it very clear that he looked down on her and her family. Today when she came over, he didn’t greet her in anyway. Yet, when my boyfriend comes over and doesn’t say hi to him, it’s the absolute worst possible disrespect. In short, my father is a great hypocrite, proven time and again, as he constantly cuts others down for faults that if he’d only look in a mirror for once he’d see so clearly in himself.

My father is the more violent type of crazy. He’s what I’d call a bad person. He has no care about how his actions make others feel. It is true that my mother has no care about how her actions make others feel, but typically his actions make others feel unsafe while hers are just annoying or embarrassing at worst. Wouldn’t it be nice for my father to, at least for the short time I’m home to visit, make an effort to make the household hospitable? No, in just 24 hours I’ve listened to him spurt more variations of “Fuck you” and “You’re an Idiot” at my mother than I’d care to count.

Thank goodness my mother has no heart inside of her to care. It’s just same old, same old with her. He seems to no longer physically shove her or grab her anymore, largely due to her calling the cops on him finally years back. Of course, after the police came to pick him up and take him to the station she had to go down and pick him up once he was released. That was the day I was terrified my father might actually kill my mother. She’s always been petite and weak, he’s always been obese and strong – which is a bad combination with a man who has no ability to control his temper and a woman who has no ability to realize she ought to not nag – or suggest any of her own ideas – in order to keep peace in the household.

My mother is no angel. She doesn’t have an ounce of mothering spirit in her body. A friend of hers came over tonight, a woman who was my Hebrew School teacher long ago, and as she asked how I’m doing I explained to her my concerns about having a child and maintaining a high-powered executive job, she briefly stroked my hair in a very motherly sort of way — this was completely off-putting to me, but the motherly-ness of it was kind of nice. She does call my mother out at her self-centeredness from time to time, not that my mother actually internalizes any of this feedback, but sometimes it’s nice to have a third party’s opinion organically in the mix. Makes me feel a bit less crazy.

Then there’s my sister, who, just graduated from college, is thank goodness a good person, yet broken as much as I am from growing up in an abusive household. While my seventeen jarring years at home pushed me towards my bipolar medley, she has also sought help for her depression. She has also been, just recently, leading quite the promiscuous life, because she has no sense of what a healthy relationship is, or how to respect herself or her body. And I feel horrible as her bigger sister not being able to provide any guidance to teach her that she deserves to be loved, and what that means. The fact is both of us have been formally diagnosed with depression, and I’m confident that the root cause of this was more nurture than nature. Who can come out of a household filled with so much selfishness and hatred and lead a healthy, normal, successful life – at least without being heavily medicated?

The Beatles said it best – all you need is love – and for the first 20 years of my life I had no such thing. During my 20s I struggled to learn how to love with a very patient, mild mannered, soothing boyfriend who came from his own broken background. His neglect and my physical and emotional abuse seemed to create two fractured creatures made somewhat whole together. There are days when I look around at other people in society who are perhaps more “normal” or socially able and I wonder what it would be like to be a person who can go out to events and socialize, but then I have to remind myself how completely awkward and abnormal I am, and why we’re the perfect fit for each other, till death do us part. And I remind myself that the only thing I really need to be happy is the love I never had as a child, the forgiving, relentless, eternal love that manages to find equal parts beauty and annoyance in even my many faults.

When I began my career, I had no one. I had never experienced love, I never valued myself enough to be in a healthy relationship with another person I fully respected or who respected me. Sure, I had a few relationships, but these were short lived – a girlfriend who, despite being kind and giving, was far too simpleminded to be a long-term match; a boyfriend who, a risk-loving midwestern guy with a horde of giant dogs and bad jokes and no emotional depth, was no fit for my sensitive side; and another boyfriend, a professional who, despite at the time earning a hundred thousand dollars more than my intern salary, and having been dating for nearly two years, made it clear that I would be paying for everything on every date, down to a $7 movie ticket, and then I’d be sleeping on the living room two-person couch for the night. I was so hungry for love and looking for it in all the wrong places because I had absolutely no respect for myself. I didn’t know how to be loved, or how to be worth being loved.

This is why I threw myself into my career. I wasn’t great at everything I did at work, but I had nothing else to focus on, even when my relationship with my current boyfriend begun, as I was unable to let him in. I found myself, typical as a child of abuse, trying to start fights at every turn, not feeling comfortable just existing in love. I needed the chaos, the ups and downs, the rush of the pain I was so used to. I pushed him away harder than one should be able to push a man and yet he stayed. He stuck he out. He knew I was hurting and lost and we both knew we were perfect for each other even though I tried so hard to break us apart.

Now I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve grown up a bit. I still have a lot of aging to do with wisdom to gain. But now all I need to find happiness is to be hugged tightly in his arms. I don’t need money or a fancy house or nice clothes or a new car or even to travel the world (though I enjoy traveling) because I could spend the rest of my life in a room with him and it would be ok. Suddenly, all of my motivation to focus on my career at the cost of avoiding my broken self shifted to my desire to be able to create a healthy, positive family with him. The years began to fly by and suddenly I was in my late 20s and then 30s. We didn’t get married or have kids, we just kept on watching the years go by, having fun together, but making little progress in terms of starting that family I began to see clearer and clearer.

I know having children is going to be a massive challenge due to my PCOS, and I don’t know how I’m going to manage to maintain my job and go through infertility treatments when the time comes. I’m going to have to make a lot of sacrifices and I will have to be strong enough to do this, not on my own, but as a team of two, us against the world. I’m quite frankly terrified because I don’t want to have kids and be a bad mother – I know I can be a horrible boss sometimes and while that’s not good either, at least with work you don’t always have the same employees throughout your career. One wrong move as a parent and it haunts you and your child for the rest of your life.

My teen self never dreamt of becoming a mother. Now, there’s nothing else in my life that seems more desirable or real. I’m afraid of what happens when I have children and introduce them to my parents, especially to my father’s rage, and how to explain to them that he thinks he’s right all the time even though he isn’t. Then I remember that chances are he won’t even be around when they’re born, or old enough to understand anything. Then I get sad over that, because I do want them to meet their grandfather, even with all of his volcanic anger constantly erupting. And I want them to meet my mother, as she far better plays the role of crazy grandmother than mother, taking pictures of her grandchildren and buying them presents to later be photographed with as well.

I can’t believe how fast time is flying — I’m nearly 32 and I’m not even married yet. I don’t feel behind mentally yet I know biologically the door to have a family is rapidly closing. Between that and the challenge and cost of going through the procedures needed to even children while also maintaining my high-pressure job is frightening. I’ll need to make some big choices about giving up massive savings potential in order to have a family. But at the end of the day, what is the point of saving if you never have a family to share that with (if that’s what you want to do, that is.)

 

Aging, Fashion, Infertility, Married Life, Parenting & Motherhood

Thinking about motherhood a lot lately…

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It’s not just that most of my friends have children that is on my mind lately – it’s that their children are very quickly growing up. I didn’t feel so behind with my friends having tiny babies that could only communicate in screams and silence, but now my friend’s kids are bouncing around all over the place, building up their personalities, laughing and making out a few words. A few of my friends are even on their second child. I’m 31, childless, by choice, but it won’t be by choice for long.

I didn’t grow up knowing I wanted to be a mother. But now that I’m in a long-term relationship of nearly 9 years, I’m ready. I mean, I’m really ready – as ready as I’ll ever be. But the reality is that I’m not even engaged yet. If I get engaged in early 2015, which I think I will, I won’t be married until late 2016, after I turn 33. As I’ve written about before, having children is going to be challenging and require some form of medical intervention due to having severe PCOS. Who knows if I even can have kids? It may be impossible. What will hurt most is finding out that it might have not been impossible if only I didn’t wait so long…

There’s a growing part of me that wants to skip this marriage thing altogether and jump to having children, or at least trying to. Marriage seems unnecessary these days – and, as I’ve written about before, actually costs more in the long run from a tax perspective and makes life even less affordable. Perhaps marriage itself is not a necessity anymore. I’d like to be married, but I don’t need to be. I feel, at this point, I do need to have children. That’s more important. I want to build my family before it’s too late.

My boyfriend is aware of this, and he wants kids as well. We’ve both discussed 1-2 years as the timeframe for having children. The marriage stuff is where it gets tricky. It requires 1-1.5 years of planning. Not that I really am ready, ready to have a baby today – as in, I couldn’t imagine keeping my current job after giving birth, and I’d like to remain in my job for at least two years if possible. But… I go back and forth… because I’d like children, and by children I mean 2-3 kids, and if I wait any longer it’s just going to be harder to have one, let alone a pair or trio.

I feel like I also have no one to talk to about this. I bring it up with my boyfriend and he says we’ve already discussed it and there’s no use rehashing, in so many words. A peep of this to my parents and I get an earful that I’m waiting too long to begin with. My friends who already have kids and who are sleep deprived aren’t interested in hearing my minor jealousy. So I blog about this topic a lot because I just have no one to share these feelings with. And I’m really starting to get scared — life is buzzing by so quickly and I just don’t want to let it blur before my eyes without having the opportunity to build my family. Yes, adoption and such is always an option, but like so many other women out there I would much prefer to give birth to my own children. I’m not sure if I’d ever adopt. But I’ll cross that bridge when the time comes.

It’s just crazy to me how when you turn 30 you’re suddenly, well, old, in terms of your biological clock. Nowadays our 20s are more or less thought of as time to find ourselves, to explore, to grow up – and then boom, you’re 30, or you’re 31, and then… you have 10 years to get your shit together before you’re freaking forty and you’re a full-on grown-up entering middle age. So, I have ten years, or less, to have all my children, if I’m going to have any, and figure out how to balance some form of work life and personal life. I’m terrified of moving too fast and even more so moving too slow. I put all of my energy into work because I have to right now, that’s my focus, but I can see focusing on that for so long that I just run out of time to have a family. I feel like I might have my priorities mixed up.