Tag Archives: family

Can’t Sleep When Things Are Going Well and Caving In

$2.5M. I guess that is our current net worth, give or take, if you don’t count taxes or fees on sale of our house. I usually do but tonight I felt like giving myself a little fiscal pep talk so I threw together another spreadsheet (when I should be sleeping) which has us over the $2.5M mark. Even though that’s not real because if we sold our home and sold all our stock holdings taxes would make that a lot less. 

Still, the fact that in some not completely bullshit calculation we are at $2.5M is a significant milestone.

My husband and I picked one of those impossible net worth numbers we have/had to hit in order to consider a third child. $2.5M! That’s not going to happen, right?

Well… depends who is counting. But tonight, I’m counting it.

I’m not going to have a baby tomorrow. But given the savings goals been hit for each child ($500k, $1M, and $2.5M… if baby 3 is a possibility we’re at least at goal.) So that’s nice. None of the money feels real. And I know because I’m still rather heavy in tech stocks I’m going to regret that and it will come crashing down. I’m probably 30% in higher-risk stuff but I’m bored and antsy and FOMOing my life away so here I am holding way too. much FAANG and laughing about it until I’m crying about it. Oh well. When the game is squarely rigged against us — go big or go home? Or, stop taking risks because I’m almost old now? Probably that.

Money is a funny thing. $2.5M is a lot of money. No argument there. Yet I’m perusing the tuition rates for these fancy private schools for gifted kids and my jaw is dropping to the floor smack bang and flipping right back up into a cartoon spiral in reading that school for one kid for ONE year costs $35k or even $50k+. I mean. I don’t care how gifted your kid is. If your kids is that gifted give your kid $35k and have them build a business. Or a spaceship. Or a TikTok empire. I mean, if you are making $1M a year consistently forever then maybe $35k is a drop in the bucket but my bucket, rich as it may be, is snapping its lid on any thought of sending my son(s) to any sort of fancy private school.

I do wonder with my son… I have no idea if he’s gifted or just advanced or even how being also autistic and behind in some areas will make him who he is over the long run. I’m worried for him. Mostly in what happens when he starts to realize he doesn’t fit into the world around him. Right now he doesn’t care. At all. But I think as he matures he’ll realize that he’s different. I certainly know that feeling. My husband blossomed as the alien he is with a small group of smart-as-fuck weirdo friends. Well, maybe blossomed is the wrong word… but he survived and seemed to have fun along the way. I didn’t fare quite as well in my childhood and especially adolescent and early adult years.

And I wonder how much of what we’re capable of is based on the environment we’re put in and what we’re told we’re capable of and how we’re treated when we fail. It’s fucking strange to me to think some kids are shipped off to “gifted” programs where they walk around thinking they’re better than everyone else just because they can recognize patterns and a holographic memory (not a thing I made it up but I’ve decided it’s a thing.) I had some equally fucked up concept of my own intellect as a child based on my father’s commentary of both my smarts and my failure to live up to potential because I was clearly lazy and not trying hard enough when no no no I just couldn’t think straight and the anxiety took over very young when from an early age I felt like I was a misfit and was sad about bothering everyone while also longing so desperately to fit in and connect… but who was there to connect with? It’s not exactly all that different now.

So my son is clearly different and I want to support him while also letting him figure things out on his own. I always thought I’d be the mom who cheers my son on when he takes risks and fails but already I feel like I’m failing him on the failure support despite trying. He is already so anxious, so aware, so thoughtful in a mind that doesn’t yet understand the world or what is really going on. But he’s starting to. And I can tell as the world starts to make sense it becomes more and more scary. After a solid block of sleeping alone in his room in his bed he has been venturing out to sleep in our bed. And it’s sweet to cuddle and all but I can tell that his mind is spinning and processing all of it.

I haven’t told him my father is dead and he doesn’t know what death is yet but he certainly understands that my dad is missing out there somewhere. I don’t know what he thinks of him in his head. I worry for when my husband and my living parent’s pass away. I didn’t have to deal with grandparent death as a child except my mom’s father died when I was 8 and I guess he was always old and distant and it didn’t phase me much though I was a little sad at the thought of not knowing him well. And my great grandmother who was so old in her wheelchair through my young years – I don’t remember her dying but I remember her at some point being gone…

But because we are older parents and the ages are getting further and further apart between birth and the next birth there’s more death early on and it’s just something that is but it’s so terrible to have to experience it and to have to experience it with young kids. How on earth will I ever explain to my son when his best friend, who happens to be 78, no longer will be available to play with him ever again? My husband will be distraught and likely forever disabled emotionally by the loss of either of his parents. There are plenty of books on the subject but that doesn’t make it any easier.

And then there’s my own mortality. How did I get here? Well, covid. And my fear of getting a booster shot after the first 2 Pfizer shots seriously messed me up. I don’t know what was worse — how bad the shots messed with my body or how little doctors believed me (or how the doctors who did believe me said there was nothing they could do!) You start wondering if you’re crazy and just stuck in a placebo effect anti-panacea. Maybe your eye didn’t go blind and come back with dark floaters. Maybe you didn’t have the most intense headache like a monster clenching on your scalp and squeezing you to a pulp then stabbing you with ice picks for weeks. Maybe your hear didn’t shake like a motor and turn on and off when you were lying still at night. Maybe you haven’t had a series of experiences where your left arm and lip goes numb and you feel as if you’re possibly dying or stroking out or something.

But then you know all of that is real and you’re terrified of getting a booster shot when your body seems to be finally almost back to normal. The floaters have almost faded. You can go outside in sunlight and not cry because of your vision.

At the same time you know if you don’t get a shot you very well might die. You’re not being a hypochondriac or overdramatic. It’s just fact. You’re overweight now and that’s super high risk plus your depression is also a risk factor and you’re the blood type that seems to get hid hardest and now you’re over six months out from your last shot. Covid is an assassin out there looking for you and you can run by you can’t hide. So. I should get the shot. But then…  I don’t know. Months of feeling horrible again. Will I recover faster this time, or slower? What if I lose my vision entirely? Unlikely, but after my experience I don’t know what to think is possible anymore. And I’m so not an anti-vaxxer. I got my flu shot and I get it every year. I’ve had every shot in the book. But this really took me out. I’m scared. Of getting the shot and not getting the shot.

Meanwhile… life is being life. There’s been sickness in my house recently, a whole lot of it, but not covid. While my 3 year old seems invincible and has never had a fever (he was coughing a bit this week) my almost 1 year old was taken out by a fever up to 103.7. Poor kiddo. He’s still getting better. Slowly. And I’m trying to do my job that I’m so behind on. I managed to fight a billion fires today (a number of my own ADHD making) and I think there’s a chance I’ve caught up if I really put my head down and push through the next 3 months with tight project management kung fu fighting pow pow pow exhibitions.

But then…

My house is a mess.

My 3 year old son who is reading and memorizing the periodic table and yelling bloody murder at me if I count out of order ever and grabbing his ears should any unpleasant sound roll in or by needs support and therapies and doctors appointments and playdates and experiences and for me to be there and I’m not, I’m not there enough because even when I’m not working I’m so fucking tired or I am working because I can’t focus during the day and well it’s 2:30 now and hey I’m awake writing writing all the thoughts in my head then maybe I can sleep I guess possibly I don’ know. I want to be there for him. I want to sign him up for a thing or two but everything is expensive and yea I “have the money” but do I? I don’t know. If only I could be one of those people who just knew I’d always have a job — outside of mass layoffs — who had skills that were just employable like being a programmer or something but no I’m not that my skillset is pretty much straight up bullshit and while it’s not my first rodeo I’m still being thrown into a pit of mud and spiked in front of a crowd feigning concern. So.

And my younger son. What a personality. What a personality who needs attention and care and love and support. He is so focused and driven and will NOT GIVE UP if he puts his mind to something. I admire that in him though it makes it hard to hide anything from him because he remembers where you put it and he keeps trying to get it. We’re going to be in big trouble when he learns how to climb… he’s already starting to figure it out. I can’t believe he’s already almost 18 months (well , in 7 months) which is the beginning of when covid started with my first son and when I had the time to retreat from the world and go for walks with him that were first him sleeping while I pushed and later on more social walks for us as he counted all the numbers on the houses and shouted out letters as we walked by at 2.5.

Life goes really fucking fast. I mean they tell you it does. But you don’t know what that means until you’re in the thick of it. Here I am. Wading in quicksand and staring dewy-eyed at the sun, blinking to bat off the razor-blades of time.

And my mother needs to sell her house, hoarder house, but that’s another story. Or is it. Well it’s all my story. But who cares. I went out there and tried to help and apparently made more of a mess so she can’t handle it and she’s spending a fortune getting it cleaned up even though I got rid of so much she’s probably still saving money in the end. I can’t believe my mother is 68. Even though we have a bit of a jagged relationship I still don’t know how I can be in this world without her. Many of my friends wonder why I still talk to her. But I see her somewhat as my child as well. Not that I’m the best mother to her either. Mother to my mother. But I love her like a child, not like a mother, if that makes any sense. And if/when she dies it will likely feel like losing a child, and I’m worried about that pain, I’m worried I can’t handle more loss despite knowing loss is a gift of life because it means I’ve managed to keep on living. I’m scared of it all. I wish I could go back to the days when I knew nothing about the inevitable. I look at my sons and envy them and pity them. They can’t be kept in the dark forever. Especially with how fucked up the world is. Speaking of dark, things can get dark even faster. So much horrible things out there. I want to hide them from all of it. But they also need to know. I feel guilty for having kids sometimes. Even though grateful. Like what did I bring these innocent creatures into? Maybe they can do great things but — that’s if they survive it all. And then they still die in the end so that makes me feel pretty sick to be honest. Even if in the best case I’ll be long gone when that happens and they’ll have lived long lives and maybe had children of their own I still feel nauseous thinking about it. So I ought to stop because going down that rabbit hole is never a pretty one.

Anyway. It’s 2:39 and I need to sleep. I was probably going to write more things like about my new virtual therapist who is 83 who told me he can tell I’m highly intelligent and that I ought to be a professor and a columnist he named some columnist I reminded him of and I was supposed to know the reference but I didn’t because I don’t know much of anything but I’ll take the compliment with me to my grave or at least my mattress for now.

To the next 23 years.

It’s nice to think I’ll live to 100, but it’s doubtful. I still plan financially for a long life “just in case” but the reality is my health is already headed downward. I can improve my health by exercising and eating healthy (which I am trying to do now slowly as I get back into thing after having a baby) but right now with my newly-diagnosed blood clotting disorder and potentially unrelated headache symptoms that have now gone on for days since getting the second covid shot, I just feel like my body at 37 is already starting to fail. So I’m giving myself 23 years. That’s how long I have until I’m 60. Anything after that, unfortunately, is gravy. I mean, my morbidly-obese cancer-stricken father made it to 67, but 60 seems like a good goal for now.

Twenty three years isn’t long at all. And I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what matters to me in this life. I try to avoid thinking about death as I’m terrified of it, even though it’s inevitable, but instead I try to focus on, ok, I’ve got 23 years, or six “four year vesting periods” before I am at high risk for a variety of illnesses, should I even make it that long.

One thing I know for sure — I love being a mom. I do want a third child, but I’m not sure my body can handle it. My plan was/is to do IVF and try to have a girl (*I have a lot of conflicting feelings about this as I think gender is a social construct but it’s also a “real” social construct and a mother and her daughter tend to have a different kind of relationship compared to a mother and her sons), but as of yesterday I’m wondering if I should just let nature do her thing and if I get pregnant again I get pregnant again and if it’s a boy I should be happy with that outcome as three brothers can be nice as well. Going the natural route, as long as I can lose weight quickly, would enable me to get pregnant sooner (if I can) versus waiting to wean and start IVF. With my clotting disorder it seems like IVF may be too risky overall. I need to talk to a doctor about it. If I can’t get pregnant naturally (at 38) then we could always do IVF then, but I don’t have to make that my first option. It’s always possibly baby 3 could end up being a girl by chance, although it just as likely could end up being another boy.

And who knows if my health will allow me to safely get pregnant again anyway.  I need to lose weight, but I’m struggling a lot this time. I don’t feel like I’ve been eating a ton lately yet the scale is stuck at 188-192 and it keeps bouncing back up. I’m avoiding most sugars and have really improved my diet yet here I am. I need under 180 fast to relieve what my weight is doing to my body and then continue to work to get it down much further. If I do get pregnant again, I want to start the pregnancy at or as close to a healthy BMI as possible (which means losing 50lbs!) which given I’m struggling to lose .5lb a week will take, uh, forever. I do remember last baby I didn’t lose a lot of weight until a year in when baby started eating food and breastfeeding less. Then the weight started to come off. And I dropped 10lbs in March last year but that’s because I either had COVID or pandemic-induced anxiety and didn’t eat much in a month and was walking miles a day. I need to start walking that much again and I’d like to be able to lose weight while still eating (healthfully.)

This headache situation is no fun right now though. It’s honestly scaring me. I’m hoping it’s just long-term side effects from the vaccine and will go away soon. It’s been this on and off stabbing pain throughout the left side of my head. I took Excedrin this morning and it transformed into a huge amount of pressure, then my left arm and face felt heavy. I’ve been lying down and feel a little better, but afraid to get up. I’m slightly nauseous. I just want to feel myself again.

The stress of going back to work isn’t helping. I’m trying to refrain from getting stressed as it seems to be a trigger for my recent uptick in medical issues but I just have more and more anxiety by the day. It’s not like my old-time anxiety that I hand somewhat a handle on. I just feel like the weight of the world and so many things is crippling. I’m behind on EVERYTHING. So, gosh, why do I want another kid? Well, the only thing in my life that feels right at the moment is being a mom. And I think I’m a pretty good mom thus far. I can be a pretty good mom to two children but to me family is really everything and there isn’t much of one out here on the west coast so I need to rebuild that. Hopefully I’ll live longer than those 23 years and I can enjoy many years with my children and maybe even their children too. It’s crazy to think how old I’ll be (if I’m still around) when they might have kids. Makes me wish I had my children younger, I just wasn’t thinking about “the other side of it” when putting off having my kids until my mid 30s. I’m glad I had my 20s but it wouldn’t have hurt much to start having kids in my earlier 30s. My dad would have even gotten to meet my firstborn and to this day it kills me that he wasn’t able to meet his grandchild, when I know that would have really made him so happy. And he’ll never know about his second grandson or whoever else might come next. I remain heartbroken.

I want a family. A big-ish one. I want to turn this house into a home somehow. It doesn’t feel like one yet. Or maybe sell this house and buy another place that feels more like a home one day. This place is just a bunch of boxes. Rooms that are all the wrong size and put in an odd layout. I can fix it up but probably never will. The bathroom remodel took a toll with all the decisions. Probably better to sell and move. To the city where I wanted to buy. Though houses go for $1000+ a square foot there, more in the areas we’d want to be. It’s insane. And I don’t see myself moving into a well-paid role… ever again. I can’t handle the pressure. I need something that is more stable and lower stress. For my health. It was fine when it just impacted my mental health but now that it’s putting me at risk for an early death or other issues that could disable me I just want to part in that game. I’m hanging on for dear life for the next eight months to get the last of my stock but after that I’m reevaluating everything. I just want time. The most precious resource of all.

I’m scared, too, that a manic episode will return. I’m so far removed now from the one I had in 2019. My therapist won’t believe me about it, she thinks I’m just depressed. It’s terrifying when you lose control over what you say and do. For the most part the whole time period was quite benign, but I definitely regret some things I said. I don’t know who I was then. I was someone else. It’s sad that I felt GOOD then, like I was entertaining and charismatic and all the things I want to be in my vat of awkwardness. Clearly I wasn’t any of that at the time, but I felt that way. Now I’m on the other end of it, I guess. I don’t even know if I’m depressed. I’m just tired. Tired of chasing after — proving that I can “do this” whatever this is. “Not failing.” Making money. Growing that money. Buying a house. Keeping the house. Being an adult. Supporting a family. I’m grateful for it all and know I don’t deserve any of it. Yet it’s still hard to hold on. I power through the days. I count down the weeks. I watch the clock pass by until it’s night again and I can close my eyes to sleep for 6 hours straight if lucky. And yet I know one day I’ll look back at these moments and miss them too. Isn’t that funny. These are the best days. I want to start feeling like they are.

Health scares and reminder of how short life is

When you’re on the journey to FIRE it’s easy to forget that life is short and maybe shorter than you think. A few months ago I opened my eyes from a nap and my right eye was blurred for 30 minutes. It resolved and I didn’t think too much of it after a while but last week it happened again. I finally went to my doctor who referred me to an opthamologist. Suddenly I was stuck in Dr Google as well reading all of these horrible things that can cause one eye to go blurry like that. So far my eye doctor found something in eye eye that could be its own thing or a symptom of something bigger so she’s running a ton of tests. The only thing I’ve figured out thus far is that it seems to be tied to blood pressure spikes so my doctor also ordered me a 24 hour blood pressure monitor to see if we’re missing anything there.

At the same time I managed to be one of the lucky ones to get an allergic reaction to my COVID vaccine. It was mild but it was still scary, as a day after I got the vaccine and my Zyrtec wore off my throat started feeling like it was swelling up. To be fair to the advice nurse I called she did tell me to go the ER but I didn’t want to have to leave my 3 month old baby and figure out how to pump and get him breastmilk in a bottle when he hasn’t taken a bottle yet, so I popped another allergy pill and stayed home. I survived. Don’t do this at home kids. Though I did. But you get the point.

I’m back at work now too. I feel so grateful I can work from home. Life would be so much harder if I had to drive an hour to work each way. I really don’ think I could do that right now. I mean, I would if I had to, but it would probably break me. I’m barely getting through the day as is. I’m wishing I could just slow down and enjoy this time. I don’t know how I left my first son to go to work when he was 3 months old. I don’t want to leave this baby ever. Not for a while.

And on top of all of this I am feeling that I’m getting to the end of my childbearing years, and I really want one more kid. Maybe I’m crazy, but a biological urge, and just something I know. Of everything in the world that feels wrong — being mom feels right. And I don’t want to not try and then regret it. I mean, what’s the point of saving all this money? I did this so I can have a family. I don’t really care about buying myself stuff anymore. I just want to build out a family because I’ve basically lost mine. With my father passing away I have no real connection to his side of the family, even though I go to events with them sometimes like weddings and such. And my mom’s side I’m connected to but not in the same way I want to be with a family. Not that one can guarantee their children will grow up and want to be part of the family always. But family is all that matters. And I have the chance to build my family…. one more kid… I don’t know if I can handle being pregnant again and I really don’t want to rush into it, but there isn’t much time left.

Right now I’m just focused on my basic health. I gained too much weight in my pregnancy, so I’m slowly removing pounds. I’m sure that will help my medical conditions as well. I was up to 212 when I gave birth and now I’m about 188. So I have 28 pounds to lose to get to where I was before I got pregnant, than another 10-20 before I get pregnant again if I can manage to get to my goal weight. I want to get to a really healthy weight before getting pregnant (likely via IVF) and then focus on not gaining as much weight in the pregnancy. I know I planned to also do that this time but it was hard being pregnant during COVID I just got depressed.

So maybe I can have it all. I pretty much have stuck to my plan otherwise. I am just worried a bit about my health issues. It’s scary to lose your vision out of nowhere and not know why. It may still end up being something serious, but my doctors aren’t rushing me for an MRI so they don’t seem too concerned about the worst case scenarios. I’m trying not to be. It’s hard to keep my mind off it. I’m 37 but this is the age medical issues start occurring in people who have been healthy before. I’m terrified of going blind too — even though so far I haven’t been told I’m at higher risk for that with my eye issue (PAMM) but we really aren’t sure what’s going on yet. I’m very aware not only how short life is but how short QUALITY life is. So what if I live to 100? What if I lose my vision at 60? I’m sure people can have a good life without their vision but I don’t know how I could live without sight or any other sense. I’m trying not to think catastrophically but in the good of it, I feel motivated to really focus on getting healthy. I’ve been eating so much sugar and drinking caffeine and as a week ago I cut out caffeine entirely and I’ve substantially reduced my sugar intake. So that’s a start.

26 Hours and a Baby Later

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?

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

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!)

I Think We Just Bought a House. OMFG.

It was bound to happen. After 2 years of on-and-off and very on and very off and very on again looking for a house to buy, we put an offer in and won. Or, at least I think we did. Our sellers supposedly picked us, and they’re signing their counter offer that we signed in the morning.

This is a huge deal. I’m so tired of the entire process that it just feels like a huge relief to be “done” with it (even though our home ownership journey is just beginning.) In order to not totally get in over our head in Bay Area real estate (which is so easy to do) I made some simple rules about buying…

  • NO crazy bidding wars or unethical negotiations
  • Keep mortgage to under ~$7000 / month with space for FIL (who also will contribute to mortgage for a few years)
  • Buy in a neighborhood I can see us living in for many years
  • Buy a big enough lot to be able to expand the house if we want to stay
  • Buy in an area that, if not super close to current job, is close to a strong job market with future options
  • Buy a house that isn’t a fixer upper (ie nothing clearly falling apart, everything generally livable for 5 years without changes)

I think we got most of the above. I feel like we have been dealing with HUMAN sellers, which is nice. They apparently picked our offer over a higher bid because they really liked the heartfelt letter I wrote. I had heard of people winning house buying bids with letters but I wasn’t sure that was a real thing. Apparently, they liked us, because we’re real people, who want a real house to raise our family in. I guess that struck a chord with them. Or maybe my realtor is lying to us. In any case, I feel like while we’re paying A FUDGE TON for this house — both buyer and seller are winners here.

The risk I’m taking is that I am placing a bet on being able to sustain my current job for 15 more months, which includes 5 months of maternity leave (I can get laid off during maternity leave but it’s less likely than if I were working and at risk due to any performance issues — which isn’t a problem right now anyway as I’m finally kicking ass and taking names at work.) So that’s basically 10 working months to vest all my stock. I’ll sell it on vest, which will help me hit my other goals for next year:

  • superfund 2 529 accounts $75k each ($140k total)
  • max out pre-tax 401k, husband’s solo 401k, AND my after-tax account (~94k towards retirement)
  • max out ESPP plan (~$21k)

By doing this, I also can move towards my continuous goal to fix my portfolio diversification — the retirement funds are getting a lot of bond funds and international funds to move away from being too heavy in large cap US stocks. It will take a few years to balance that out, but I’m getting there. Avoiding selling my large caps because they are like 75% cap gains right now and my cap gains rate at the moment is close to 35% with state and fed.

We’re trying to get to $450k cash in hand for down payment, close, and emergency fund. I think after I sell off my upcoming RSU vest this month we’ll be about there.

It’s crazy to think that this is possible… going from basically $0 in 2005 to where I am now. I really don’t know how I got here (well, I do, I tracked it all on this blog) but it still feels like a dream.

Buying this house is terrifying. We are going in no contingencies, as one must do around here to win a house — and giving the owners a 30 day “rent back” (ie live free for 30 days gift.) This would not be a huge deal except I’m due in mid January, and this puts our move in date around end of November. While my husband has promised to do all the hard parts of moving and I can just sit and point to things (and despite what my friends think we don’t have THAT much stuff since we live in a 1 bedroom) it still gets a bit scary thinking of moving in late Nov/ early Dec. It’s possibly at that point something could go wrong with my pregnancy, and that will make moving very difficult for my husband — having to manage moving, kid, and me potentially in the hospital. I’ll be 32 weeks or so at that point, so hopefully it won’t be an issue. But really it’s cutting it close.

Even though owning a home is NOT an investment and is NOT a financially wise decision in a HCOL area like the Bay Area, I feel really good about this purchase. I feel good that the home isn’t perfect and it’s under $1.7M. Anywhere else in the country this sounds like a lot but here it’s really… well… it’s a lot but it’s not much in terms of what you can buy in a house. I like that I’m compromising and getting a 3 bedroom and my FIL will live in the big room and we’ll be living in the smaller 2 rooms. I like that it has room for improvement and that I will enjoy going for walks in the cute neighborhood everyday and love how the neighbors say hi to each other and how in a big sprawling city it has a similar vibe to where I grew up on the east coast. Sort of. At least enough of one where I look forward to meeting my neighbors and maybe even, gasp, making some new friends.

I could have moved to the east bay and spent even less, but that didn’t make sense for many reasons. This price point makes sense to us. I opted out of the peninsula because bidding wars were insane and — when I saw a total fixer mess that we looked at a year ago (that sold for $1.5M) listed at $2.2M with a half-decent flip job, I knew it was time to give up on that city dream. At least for now. Probably forever (I’m really into this 2.65% 30 year fixed loan so it will be hard to find a reason to leave unless rates are this low again and I am super wealthy in a few years.) This is a good, solid house. It has its quirks. The chimney may be slowly detaching from it (ok, that is something I’m worried about and need to get looked at.) But overall, it’s solid. I will feel happy coming home to it everyday. I will feel happy looking out the window at the cute house across the street that reminds me a little bit of the house I grew up in.

I’m glad we didn’t settle on the things that matter the most.

I am so fucking terrified but also excited. I’m turning 37 and buying a house and having my second kid (of maybe 3 kids?) and I’ve kept this job for 3 years as of next month and overall–for me especially–things are going pretty darned well. Sure, the world is falling apart, we have a sociopath for a president and may end up in a civil war come election season, and COVID is still lurking in every corner of air where someone might cough or laugh or breathe, but I feel strangely hopeful. Like, maybe it’s going to be alright for a little while. Like I am not just working and surviving for mere survival.

Seeing my son light up about the “green grass” in the home’s yard — “need to run! need to run in the grass!” he exclaimed — I knew this was the one. I want him to not be stuck inside a tiny one bedroom apartment all day. I want him to be able to run around the yard safely fenced in. To have a little swing set in the backyard and to one day, post COVID, have friends over. To have a house of our own. Life is so fucking short. I’m ready to start living it. For $7k a month. Or, you know, whatever it costs.

 

 

 

Planning – Getting Ahead of Life Somehow

I’m looking at how to best manage the next 5 years of my life before I, gasp, turn 40 (holy crap, 40 – what on earth happened?) Anyway, I still have 4.5 years before that happens… which is so little time and yet these years will define the rest of my life in that I will either have achieved the final level of phase 1 financial stability, or not, and I will either have had one or more kids (to add to the one I already have) or not.

While planning this type of stuff is hard given so many moving parts and possibilities, I have to say thus far I’ve been pretty good at hitting my goals. I saved $500k before having my first kid, and, with infertility treatments was able to get pregnant by the time I turned 34 (taking my pregnancy test literally on my 34th birthday.) So with a track record like that, I’m going to keep planning and attempting to hit these goals.

Today, I thought out how the next 3-5 years could work… will keep posting here to see if life turns out this way, or not…

  • Keep current job until March 2022 and save $400k (net worth $1.3M)
  • Potentially free embryos ~Dec 2019 (3 mo after finish breastfeeding)
  • Lose 40lbs by May 2020 (~3.5lb / month)
  • Move into 3br apartment or house (rent/buy) May 2020
  • May/June 2020 (age 36) – pregnant with baby #2 (due Mar/Apr 2021, age 37)
  • Maternity leave 4 mo ~Feb/Mar/Apr/May Jun 2021
  • Sept/Oct 2022 pregnant with #3 (after 5-6 months at new job!!!) – give birth June/July 2023 (age 39)

A Widowed Mother Who Lost Her Wealth (And a Grieving Daughter Trying to Help)

My family was never wealthy, but for my entire life we’ve been more than comfortable–comfortable enough to not pay close attention to our spending. While we never took lavish vacations (unless paid for by points acquired through my father’s work), we didn’t budget. We should have.

As an adult with my own job and an understanding of the value of a dollar (and my motto – no matter how much you make, every cent counts), I’ve managed to build up a networth of over $650k, give or take, at age 35. I want to be proud of that. I want to enjoy this as some sort of accomplishment. But I can’t. I can’t because I feel incredibly guilty and lost when it comes to helping my mother out of the financial mess she is in right now.

Some may look at her situation and say it’s not that bad. I guess it isn’t, but it will be soon if she doesn’t plug up the holes in her sinking ship. Not all of the holes are her fault–but she’s just so delusional and has no ability to stop spending. It is impossible for me to advise her beyond subtle suggestion that she cease spending when my parents paid for my college education, a nice wedding, and an overall nice life. Part of me feels like I ought to help her out and provide the funds to plug up some of those holes. And–most of me knows that even if I were to give her my entire $650k, she’d still find a way to burn through it.

This is a long story… a very long story… and one that is keeping me up at 2am with a newborn who is sleeping so I really ought to be sleeping. I can’t sleep. I can’t do anything but let my mind spin on this giant dilemma, trying to find some sort of solution to the puzzle. There isn’t one that’s pretty or that my mother will agree to. But, after sitting back and letting my recently-deceased father make a mess of the finances in his last years of life (not that I had much say in that, but I could have maybe done something… more on that in a minute)… I feel like NOW I have the opportunity to stop this sinking ship before it reaches the bottom of the ocean.

The picture was looking rather unfortunate on the first go-round of budget vs income that I quickly ran after my father passed away this summer and my mother had to make some decisions about her social security survivor’s benefits (which are confusing as hell, yet to be fully understood, and the subject of another post I’ll write one day.)

As we did more digging, we uncovered that in 2014 there was $1M in an IRA. By 2017, only $400k remained. During that time, there was the purchase of a second home which cost, including renovations, about $100k (or maybe more because my parents seemed to always underestimate the cost of their renovations and not keep tab.) There was my wedding, which, at $50k, was a lovely affair and something that made my dying father beam with joy, but was an event that never should have happened given the financial situation my father either somehow didn’t understand or hid from me and the family. He said, over and over again, he had $50k set aside for my wedding and $50k for my sister’s. He said many things. I’ll never know if he was delusional due to the cancer drugs, unrelated mental illness, old age, or maybe just a serial liar–to not only us but himself.

When he was working he was bringing in good money, at least for a middle class household. Ironically the man who left his family without a stable retirement spent his life’s work as an actuary–planning pensions for companies and accessing risk of running out of money to fund those pensions. I try to find humor in this.

But then, and I guess I didn’t realize this since I was already away at college, he stopped working around age 55 due to his obesity and mobility issues, and then shortly after that began collecting disability. His work paid out nicely for a few years, and also offered a good pension, but the reality was (and where I was blind sighted is) that the amount coming in did not cover the amount spent. I don’t know the exact gap, but it was substantial, and ignored.

Although the wedding was a big expense and the second home purchase wasn’t for pennies,  what really did them in, based on my research into the last 10 years of spending, was their crazy high expenses. My mother, ever in denial, would say she doesn’t spend like rich people do, then come home with piles of clothes “on sale” from Chicos or some “non luxury” store, not to mention a pile of face creams on auto-purchase from QVC and who knows what else. Then, there was the dining out bills, and the $600-a-month house cleaning services (I’ve convinced her to drop that to 2x at $300 a month.)

I’m not one to judge how they spent their money — they had a right to spend it any way they wanted. And I understand my father, facing certain death, wanted to enjoy his limited wealth in his final years. It was just the perfect storm of financial chaos. Even his long term care policy, dutifully paid into for many years, likely costing over $20,000, ended up going unused because he refused to admit he was dying–or, perhaps because he realized that the policy didn’t actually cover enough to not require dipping further into the shrinking retirement savings left.

With this, I’m left to wonder if my father, as ill as he was, didn’t go to doctors outside of his cancer doctor because he hated going to the doctor–or, if part of this was because he couldn’t afford the treatment. In the end it wasn’t the cancer that killed him, but issues with his heart and blood pressure–perhaps related to his cancer treatments, but undoubtedly something he could have had treated better over his life and especially those final years… but he chose to only focus on his cancer. If his goal was to die of something other than cancer, then he succeeded. I’m pretty sure his goal was to live forever and he couldn’t think of the world any other way. I get that, no one wants to admit they’re dying–but when you are facing a terminal illness and are told you have 2 years to live (and then you manage to live more than 10) at the very least you can pick out a funeral plot and prepay for a burial, not leaving your wife to run around to cemeteries the day after you die to pay the highest possible amount for both of your graves (yes, this happened. Yes, I was out-of-my-mind with a one-week-old at this time, trying to provide advice.)

But now–now the biggest issue, and the one I find saddest–is that we’ve uncovered a horrible situation regarding taxes. Taxes unfiled and unpaid. All of the numbers I’ve been running to try to save her primary home in the northeast–which, while worth $500k, has a $200k home equity loan out on it, by the way–were thrown out the window. And I threw my hands in the air. I give up. This is looking bleak. Sure, she can cut all of her spending. She can stop the house cleaning services and limit work on the house to only vital fixes for a while… nothing cosmetic. But even then, she starts dipping into that small $400k IRA immediately–which shrinks to almost nothing after the taxes are paid, and she has nothing left to pay the home equity that comes due in 2020 and flips to principle and interest at 3x what she’s currently paying.

In short, the only real answer is to sell one of the properties, and sooner than either of us would like. I’ve told her clearly that the northeast home, while a place that holds all of my memories as a child, and one I’d love to keep, is a complete money suck and sadly I think it needs to go. She agrees, but wants years to clean it out (she’s a hoarder and my attempts to help her get rid of things on my last visit, outside of taking care of a 3 month old, did not make a lot of progress.) I selfishly want the house to stick around for a while too–although it won’t be the home for my “dream” visits with my family… holiday visits to grandma and grandma — long summer nights with my kid(s) playing in the backyard through the sprinklers, running after fireflies like I did as a child–I thought maybe a smidgen of this could exist.

I know a house is just home and a home is just a house. I’ve lived enough places since leaving that house now… gasp… 18 years ago. I mean, I knew, deep down, we couldn’t hold on to it forever. Mom would move out when dad died at some point. But either time went by too fast or I didn’t think it would be this soon. She clearly wants to stay there… but it’s not possible, especially not with the vacation home as well.

She could potentially sell the vacation home, which would pay off some of the home equity. But she doesn’t want to do that, and I think it wouldn’t be wise anyway–they invested quite a bit in renovating that property and, while it’s small, it is a good place for her to live in her “young” old age. Even though some of her friends still live in our development in the northeast, many are moving away, and few still go to the social gatherings she goes to–whereas the 55+ community with the vacation home is filled with active seniors, at least in the winter months. I’m worried about how she’ll like it there in the summer when it gets extremely hot with violent storms and most of the residents leave to the north–but maybe she’ll be ok. She seems to find people to talk to wherever she goes (or talk “at”, but to her there’s no difference and she’s pleased either way.) So, the financial planner in me says — get her out of the northeast home as fast as possible. Like, yesterday fast.

But she’s committed to not moving until at least 2020, and she still thinks she can make it there much longer. She keeps asking me how long she can stay and I try to explain to her that there’s no exact number because the question becomes how much she needs left in her IRA to grow to afford her lifestyle–AND what is going to happen to her later in life if she needs long term care (since my father cancelled her long term care policy years ago saying it was too expensive.)

Now, she does have an after-tax income of $60k+ per year once she gets full social security benefits. That’s pretty darned good. If she had one home, especially one home that doesn’t cost as much as one with a lot of property and an aging architecture, then maybe she’ll be fine. She can sell the house, pay off the home equity, take the remaining $250k or so to pay off the taxes (est $80k) and family loan ($30k), and then take the remaining $150k and, ideally, invest that somewhere safe, while slowly drawing down the IRA and minimizing tax damage in the future.

She could, alternately, sell the vacation condo and put that money into the northeast home, but the costs are just too high there and she’ll still run out of money. I think with the vacation home she can actually live on her income, even if she wants to travel to visit her grandson or spend some time in NY.

The problem is, the longer she stays in the NJ home, the harder it is to ensure her life when she moves is financially ok. What I don’t want to happen is that she burns through her IRA in a few years because of credit card bills and loans and having to pay this ridiculous amount of taxes that sadly are just so high because of penalties due to my father not filing (yes, getting to that in a minute)…

So the taxes… I really don’t know what happened. My father always, ALWAYS paid the right amount each year. He didn’t always file on time–but if you pay the right amount and don’t file the IRS doesn’t actually care. Somehow, whether on purpose or by massive mistake, he was short about $23k one year and $18k the next. The $42k in taxes owed is crappy, but the penalties on that because it was never fixed are what is extraordinarily sad. For that money, not only did he take too much out of the IRA in two years to cause such high taxes owed, but he ALSO then didn’t pay those taxes or file or anything. I want to ask him WHY? But I can’t. Because, you know, he died. And I’m still dealing with processing that and all these feelings I have around wanting to empathize with him for being such a sad, sick man but also then being angry and grateful and who knows what else–is why I can’t sleep.

I’m now looking at any tax relief available to my mother, but it seems unlikely she will get any help from the IRS. Innocent Spouse theoretically applies to her–my father was abusive to her for years and refused to let her partake in household finances, even when she offered, and later, begged–especially regarding the taxes. He would yell at her and occasionally become violent. There are even police records of this (though not in the years the taxes are owed.) But “innocent spouse,” as far as I can tell, is for partners who lied on their returns. Well, he didn’t file a return, so there’s not much innocent spouse we can claim…

Now there is an abatement of penalty clause where, if you were in good standing the 3 years before the year you failed to file, you can get the penalties waived for that one year. But you only get to do this once. Not only was my father failing to file year after year (always having paid the full amount on time except apparently in 2011 when he had a small payment plan), it’s impossible to know if he already requested this one time penalty abatement. There are no records. He did all of his own taxes. My mother is perplexed–after going through all the of the papers… she says to me, it doesn’t make sense–where are all the taxes? The papers from the IRS?

My theory is he, either strategically or in a rage or in a fit of paranoia, threw them all out one day. Maybe he just straight up lost his mind and got rid of a box of important things by accident. Maybe he realized he did that and was so ashamed he just gave up on ever doing the taxes. Who knows.

One thing is for sure – he refused help–even from his few close friends and his family. And, for a man who said he wanted to leave his family with wealth and ensure his wife was financially ok for the rest of her life (which never made sense to me given how emotionally abusive to her on a daily basis) he sure made quite the mess. He just couldn’t admit he was struggling. He had way too much pride. And, in his final years, he didn’t want to accept his mortality. He told my mother she was overspending, but then he’d overspend himself. He once asked my mother how much my aunt and uncle gave me for my wedding — $500. He immediately wrote out a check to their daughter for $600! It wasn’t about generosity with him, though he’d like you to think it was. It was always about showing off how generous he was.

Even during the year of my wedding–I offered to pay for more of the wedding up front, even if he wanted to pay, so he wouldn’t have to withdraw so much out of his IRA that year. I knew the taxes would be high. No, he said. He was offended by the suggestion. He had the money and he wanted to spend it. Yes, I have guilt for spending it, but I didn’t know how bad things looked. Last I heard there was still $1M in the bank and a home that was paid off. I failed to dig in too much–but as blind as I was with eyes shut to the downfall of the great American dream, my mother seemed to have clawed her eyes out in order to be incapable of looking.

So now what? I have my own life to sort out here. I’m doing well, but have a long way to go. My first batch of RSUs vest in a few weeks… and with that I should have a $50k bonus after tax (should the stock market not completely disintegrate before Christmas) and I could say, you know what, mom, you guys paid for my college and wedding, and now I’m gifting you $50k (or, $15k in 2018 and $15k in 2019 and so on.) But what good would that really do? She needs to understand the value of money. I think I’m starting to get through to her a little bit. I paid for dinner the other night and she actually said thank you. It’s not that I want her to have to thank me – it’s that I want her to realize the value of a dollar. It may be too late to fix this mess… but maybe it isn’t. Maybe I can gift her a happy next however many years she has… for as narcissistic and childish as my mother is, I still think she’s been beaten down by an emotionally abusive mother then an emotionally and physically abusive husband, and she deserves the right to happiness in her old age. She has to throw out the clutter and really be wiling to simplify… and that would be good for all of us.

I just don’t know if I can convince her of this in time, and also let go from my crazy ideas to “save” my childhood home by either purchasing it or providing enough money in gift form to pay off the home equity or… plenty of bad ideas that not only wouldn’t help stop the bleeding, but also could financially ruin me as well. So I hope we can all make the right decisions and fast enough to stabilize and move on from this challenging period of our lives.

Can you teach empathy? Pregnant daughter of narcisstic parents would like to know…

My sister and I surprised my parents this weekend with the news – I’m pregnant. While I envisioned the surprise – in a normal, loving family -to go something like this…

My parents would meet my sister, who was visiting for the weekend, and she would enter their condo and go to her room to pull out a gift from me to give to them, without them knowing. I would call “from the west coast” as a coincidence, to say hi, and they’d mention my sister just arrived. Then my sister would give them the “gift” and they’d open it to see inside something that clearly stated they were going to be grandparents. At the moment they were having a loving, emotional, “we’re so happy for you” reaction, I’d knock on the door and they’d be further surprised that I was there, not across the country, to celebrate with them this wonderful news. We’d embrace and cry, especially since they know and understand how much we’ve wanted children and how hard it has been to get pregnant, and we’d all go out to celebrate, excited for them to be grandparents, excited for my sister to be an aunt, and excited for myself and my husband to soon be bringing new life into the world. Continue reading Can you teach empathy? Pregnant daughter of narcisstic parents would like to know…

Surprise Trip to Florida to Tell Parents I’m Pregnant

As of today, I’m 7 weeks, 4 days pregnant. Due 8/4/18. I don’t particularly feel 7w4d pregnant, but that’s what the doctor tells me I am, and what my ultrasound reveals. Given I went through infertility treatment, I know pretty much exactly when conception happened. Isn’t science amazing?

Anyway, I’ve yet to tell my parents I’m pregnant. There are a few reasons for this. One, it’s ok to wait until your second trimester to tell anyone you’re with child, given miscarriage rates are high. Continue reading Surprise Trip to Florida to Tell Parents I’m Pregnant