Tag Archives: pregnant

Real Estate & Rent

Did I mention I hate home ownership? Like, despise it. With a passion.

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I don’t want to think about how much money I’ve put into our already painful overpriced plot of Bay Area land/house/box that we will live in, hopefully without major issues, for the next years of our lives.

It isn’t even the cost that’s getting to me. It’s that the more we spend, the more of a nightmare management of the home is. From too many decisions to make, to not feeling at all equipped to properly oversee contractors who are literally putting holes in our floors and walls, I am just over it. And there is still so much to do.

Yes yes yes I know this blog is filled with first world, still-have-a-job-during-the-horror-that-is-a-horribly-managed-global-pandemic problems. Sue me. I realize I’m fortunate. I’m blessed. Or, whatever. Yes. True. All of that. But, that doesn’t change the panicked feeling I have when I arrive at my house to check on something unrelated and the contractor’s subcontractor, who has already put in the beginning of plumbing work for the vanity, says “your vanity is 72″ right?” and I’m like… uh… no, 66″ — I confirmed that multiple times with the GC in our What’s App chat (btw, all the contractors like to tout using What’s App for communication, but this just means they can ignore you even more by saying “ok” to things you write in What’s App but then apparently not actually read them.

I’m not going to claim I’m an easy client. I’m particular. But for 25,000 I hope I get to be a little particular. Maybe that’s not enough money to merit particularness. In total we’re spending about 35k on the bathroom. I feel like that’s a lot. I mean, that’s the new car we’re not getting for a while. So. But I can’t be as hands on as I’d like because COVID and being pregnant and all. It’s already dangerous meeting my contractor while he’s in the bathroom and I’m in the hall. It’s stupid. I’m being stupid. After being so careful during the first half of my pregnancy, I’m risking my life over a bathroom.

But it kind of has to get done. It’s not there anymore. Well, the subfloor is there. And the studs. And some drywall they didn’t take down. I don’t know if they should have taken it all down. But it’s still there so. We need a bathroom. We need this bathroom to get done.

I still need to buy tile. It’s hard for me to visualize what things look like without seeing them done, and tile options are overwhelmingly limited yet awful. I don’t want too much grout, but large tile is not relaxing to me. Ok, so bathrooms are like, my thing. I like to relax in a nice tub. Get away from it all. As much as possible in a house with two little kids, a husband, and a father-in-law. So this is very important to to me. Maybe too important. But between how much I’m spending on it and wanting to feel GOOD about it on the other side of construction, I am freaking out about every detail and yet unable to properly manage this project.

That’s not to mention the nine thousand other things going on in the house right now that we’re trying to get done before we move in (spoiler alert, it’s not all getting done before we move in.) We decided we can’t justify paying another 3000 for January rent (plus I will be having a baby sometime in January and we want to be somewhat settled before that happens), so we made the call to move on Dec 21.  A month out from my due date. Baby could come sooner, but G-d willing, baby will keep cooking through the move.

Will I have functional electricity and plumbing? That’s another story.

We’re getting the panel replaced. It has taken a month and a half for my electrician to get an appointment with the electric company. So that’s happening in January after we move in. Hopefully that’s not a big deal. Seems like most of that work will be done outside. Jan 7 isn’t that far away.

The HVAC is getting done now. The crew seems to know what’s up. And in this case its all the new vents. And the furnace. Now in the attic. I hope they’re doing this all right. 20k. Including AC. We didn’t have AC. Remind me to never buy a Bay Area house without AC again? Pretty please and thank you. My husband, who I put in charge of researching cost of putting AC into a home without it, made a comment once that it would be under 10k if there was already ductwork in the home. He missed the whole part about if your ductwork is from 1966 and filled with asbestos and in your crawl space you’re going to want to put in new ductwork anyway and that will cost 20k. And require putting holes everywhere in your house. That will cost TBD but surely a few thousand to fill. Thanks husband. I don’t blame him – this shit is confusing and complicated as new homeowners, and I always expected things to be expensive, but it is just like … everything is expensive and complicated…

So there are holes in my floor? Who will fix them? How do I find a trusted floor repair service to do this? Many floor companies I’ve talked to apparently won’t do a job this small. The super sketch ones will. Do I go super sketch? Do I keep looking? I don’t know. There is a 3×3 hole in my hall closet into the crawl space. I mean, that’s kind of cool. who doesn’t want a 3×3 hole in their closet into the crawl space with no cover? It will be a show piece for the house cooling party that we’re throwing once we’ve all had two doses of COVID vaccines. Check out our new house — check out our new hole in the ground. Want to see the bathroom? Oh, well, look at those beautiful studs! Who needs a toilet when you can pee into the hole where the shower once was? Crawl space is amazing peeps.

I hired a gardener. I know nothing about plant life except it seems like it should be more green than not green. Gardener was hired because I had an emergency need to prep house for termite fumigation situation (apparently that’s a big deal) and someone who I knew through an old hobby responded to my post on Facebook in a random local group and said her husband can help. And he turned out to be a gardening service owner. And he gave me a quote for bi-weekly gardening service. 125 a month. Ok. But who does he hire to do the work? What do they actually get paid? I’m guessing these men doing the work are undocumented immigrants, which I’m not ok with, but I’m uncomfortable asking. And I’m worried about what they actually get paid. But it also seems most gardening services are owned by white dudes who have undocumented immigrants do the work. I don’t now. Maybe they are documented. How would I find out without making it uncomfortable to answer? I’m morally opposed both to hiring people who are undocumented and even mores morally opposed to paying some white dude 125 a month (which doesn’t even seem like that much) to pay people 10 an hour to do the work. Which, maybe they get more than that, but I would like to know. And I have too much social anxiety and panic to ask. But at least my horrifying field of doom grass has been cut. It looks like its dying. It’s winter. I guess that’s normal. Is that normal? The pepper bush is the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen. Trees seem ok. The gardeners cut a wire to the lights in the front of our house. Didn’t tell me. I asked and he said they did it, but they fixed it, or something. I don’t think its fixed. I want to fire them but I don’t have time and now it’s awkward because it’s the husband of someone I sort of know who I might meet again. And I don’t have time to find a new gardener yet. So for now, they are going to have to do.

I bought too many things for the bathroom. What does that mean? Let’s just say 3 giant vanities (same one, 3 colors) were delivered to my driveway from Home Depot. Poor husband nearly broke his back getting them inside. I wanted to see the colors in person. But in hindsight that was dumb. Ordered a blue, grey, and white one. Leaning towards white. Was always leaning towards white. Home Depot supposedly will pick up a return for free, but that didn’t go so well the other day when we scheduled a return and couldn’t be at the house all day for pick up. We still don’t know if anyone came to pick up the items. One thing is for sure, we’re not going to be able to lift it and get it back to the store ourselves. So we have to return about 5000 of merchandise within 30 days or its ours to keep. Uh. Ok, bad job me. Blame my husband for getting stuck on the idea of a blue vanity. I’m aiming to win him over with purple walls (we both like purple) so we can keep the vanity white, and make it easy to go natural when I decide I’ve had enough of this house and need to sell it in about 2 months.

Oh, some costly-but-happy things… My new washer and dryer is being delivered in a week. Woohoo. The current ones appear to be from 1966 and even my husband (who was very adamant about not replacing them as long as they work) made a comment that they seem to be useless. So, I splurged (because why not, I’m spending all my money anyway) on some nice GE front loaders. At the very least in this house o mess of mine, I can have clean clothes. I mean, if the new electric panel ever gets put in. And someone can confirm the current wiring in the laundry room won’t destroy the new washer and dryer. It might. I don’t understand electric other than our house was not wired correctly. Much is not grounded. Some outlets are. Circuits are not set up right. I don’t know. Is my house going to burn down the first time I do a load of wash in my new sparkly sapphire blue washer? Possibly. That’s one way to clean clothes.

We need a new garage door. The old one is not only manual, but it is mostly broken. I mean, you can bang at it for a few minutes and get it to open if you’re strong enough. We dream of an electric garage opener.

How was this house 1.65M again? Would I have done better buying a 2M house? Did we get screwed? I don’t know, Zillow seems to think it’s worth that. Is Zillow fucking with me? Did Zillow spend 30 minutes having a panic attack trying to open the garage door the other day? That has to knock the Zestimate down at least 100k right?

There is still a random “wine closet” broken refrigerator thing with a lock on it with no key in our garage that the sellers left for us. Thanks sellers. Um. We need to fix our doors as well. And I’m supposedly putting in a door frame for the open nook in my son’s room so there can be a closet there a well.

Did I mention I’m having a baby in T-43 days? And trying to NOT be stressed right now?

Yea, moving in the last month of my third trimester. Great idea peeps.

Career

I Want My Life to Stop Being About Surviving the Next Week

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I know work isn’t supposed to be easy or fun. It’s called “work” for good reason. But I also don’t think it’s supposed to be this hard. It’s not even hard. It’s just my job and my abilities do not compute. I can’t get a team aligned around something—esp when I don’t even believe in it. So instead I’m failing because I can’t drive alignment as a leader nor do good work as an individual contributor.

The mortgage debt does freak me out – but despite being high, it’s not horrible. I figure if I use 25% of pre-tax income per month, I can do $3000 a month if I can keep a $150k salary. My husband can do $2000 a month safely on his salary, and my FIL will be contributing $2000 a month for the foreseeable future as he lives in the master bedroom suite. While the setup isn’t perfect, it makes me feel good knowing as long as I can find a job at $150k then I am financially ok.

Now my goal is to far exceeded $150k so I can continue to invest and grow my family’s networth. I prefer not to be house poor—especially if I am in a career that gives me at least one heart attack a day. I am in this career for the money. It’s not a passion project. I am doing this so by the time I’m 50 (45 if I’m lucky) I can maybe slow down a bit. Or speed up, but on the things that matter to me. 50 is 13 years away. That’s crazy. That’s life. It’s fast. I started this blog in 2007. That’s 13 years ago. So little time. But in the next 13 years I’ll have 2 teenagers (and maybe a pre teen, we’ll see) and I’ll either be in a really good place financially — or perhaps in a mental institution.

I just have to get through and stay strong until 2021. I can do this.  It’s basically 3 months of playing the game as best as I can (mostly just meeting deadlines at this point — I’m not putting out anything revolutionary) — then coming back early next summer (exhausted as I’ll be with a toddler and newborn) and more game playing in my new role for 6 months. Then I see how things are going and likely start applying to other opportunities. That 6 months will likely be painful, but it will be worth it. Getting the rest of my stock is definitely worth it. Next year is really a life changer in terms of my savings. It shouldn’t be impossible. I’m fortunate to be out on maternity leave for some of it. The timing worked out. I really wanted to stay even longer but it’s pretty obvious I am not safe here and after 4.5 years on the job I am safe to go to a new role.

But what is the new role? I want a job where I can feel really good about my work. Where I have a boss who is supportive and helps me get better in my field. I don’t expect hand holding, but I want to work for someone who at least understands what I do and can provide some guidance.

This time — for the first time in my career — I think I am in the position to shop around a bit. Not to say I’ll find a job easily, but now I have a decent brand name on my resume. I think in the least I’ll get more calls when I apply—esp if the job market is in a better place in 2022.

Right now I HAVE to keep my head down, play the game, smile, be friendly and likable, get shit done, be forgettable except in terms of just always following through on everything I say I will follow through on — even if that means pulling all nighters here and there. I am 80 days away from a major milestone and barring any unexpected layoffs I’m going to get there. I need some time to figure out my future as well — I don’t want to settle for a $150k job just because I am afraid. I don’t want to end up working for a boss who will make my life miserable because I can’t live up to their expectations. I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do. One thing is for sure – it’s not this .

Anxiety, Infertility, Married Life, Parenting & Motherhood, PCOS, Pregnancy

When to Start Planning for Baby and… How to Handle at Work?

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With an embarrassing number of HPTs (home pregnancy tests) scattered about my bathroom, all with faint or not-so-faint double lines, this whole “I’m actually pregnant” thing is starting to feel more and more real. I’m still super early… which means miscarriage is quite possible, but the double lines now 16 days after my trigger shot means either I have a ridiculously slow metabolism or I’m at least somewhat pregnant.

For better or worse, my husband and I haven’t seriously considered life after having kids — because, with infertility and all the unknowns of if we could have kids, we didn’t want to get our hopes up. I mean, we discussed it a bit —

  • Can we manage to raise a child in our 1 bedroom rent controlled apartment until the kid is 2? Yes. Um. We think so. 
  • Will we raise our children with any specific religion? No. I’m Jewish and he’s Christian (both super non religious) but we love our holidays so we’ll each focus on the cultural traditions and not much else.  Father has agreed that kids will be “Jew-ish” by the nature of Jewish law (mom is Jewish, so are the kids.) But hubby isn’t giving up Christmas or Easter – I’ll just have to amp up the excitement I felt as a kid around Purim. 🙂

  • Will we send our kid to daycare? Well, we haven’t discussed this too much yet… his father lives nearby and we think he’ll be quite helpful in babysitting when asked as he’s retired and basically sits around all day (and he does like little kids, luckily.) Husband’s mother lives in a horrible mess of a house with cat droppings everywhere — while she can put together a super fun and creative holiday game for kids, we’ve agreed our future children will not be stepping foot in that house and that grandma is not allowed to watch them without us around / in the other room. My parents live far away, and my mom has made it clear that she thinks it’s so horrible how all of these parents these days are having so much help from their parents… so I’m not asking her for anything other than family pictures when we visit.

Ok, so… that leaves a zillion other things to figure out in eight months. I’m admittedly terrified. I’ll be almost 35 when I have my first kid now (assuming this bean sticks) and that’s as good of a time as any. But, really, how the fuck are we going to make this work?

Husband won’t discuss until my blood tests come back positive. I get it. He doesn’t want to get his hopes up either. But I’m freaking out here. In a good way. And also in a not so good way.

I just started my new job a month ago… which, yes, means I got pregnant (theoretically) basically the week I started working. This means I won’t be eligible for FLMA (unpaid 12 weeks off with guarantee to return to work) and who knows if my company will offer me their minimal maternity benefits given I’ll have to take leave so soon after starting. I’m mildly concerned, to say the least.

My company, from what I’ve read in the very limited literature on maternity benefits, says that they offer 4 weeks of paid time off. I’d love to save up vacation time to use but since the company offers “Unlimited Vacation Time” (my favorite bullshit new-age benefits policy that screws over employees), there is no way to save up time… other than not taking ANY vacation before I give birth (or, only a week before I am due?) and try to make the case that I am using vacation days. But how many can I take as part of this “unlimited” vacation policy? I’m planning to estimate based on the informal conversation I had with my boss before joining… ~15 days are acceptable to take off per year as part of this policy… so if I don’t take any for 9 months, that’s a little over 7 days of PTO I’m entitled to (yes, a whopping extra week of maternity leave, if they’ll agree to this.)

Now, the good thing about my job is that I could potentially do it from home at that point. There are people on my team who work remotely, and it seems to be an acceptable work setup for the company. It’s part of the reason I took the job. The actual work I’m responsible for can also mostly be done remotely (although I prefer face time with the team.) So, my current vision for how this plays out is that I have a very health to-term pregnancy, work until a few days before my due date, give birth on my due date or earlier, and then after the 4 weeks off (if my company gives that to me) I start working full time again but remotely.

That’s all nice and dandy in thought… but, is it really doable? I’m not a young mother at this point… since I’ll be nearly 35 while giving birth… and at this point with my infertility treatments I’m not ruling out a multiple birth. So many things could make this so much more complicated and what do I do?

I believe I do have disability benefits (short term) for 66% of my salary after the 4 weeks, for a few more weeks – maybe that covers some more time off. I’m not sure if I’m eligible for them after 9 months at the company… (at least I can prove I got pregnant AFTER starting and after my benefits would have kicked in.) I’d like to ask someone about this but… it’s not ideal to announce anything or ask HR anything until you’re 12 weeks along, so, perhaps I’ll wait.

I’m also concerned about first trimester “morning” sickness. I’ve already been nauseous on and off and it’s supposed to be too early to feel this way (though some boards say with multiples you can feel this earlier – uh oh.) I’m fairly sensitive to just about everything, so I’m unclear how I am going to keep this a secret even through my first trimester anyway.

The other good news, however, is that I’ve worked for my boss before, and he basically told me when I interviewed that if I want to have a family it would be good to think about joining this company (vs a smaller company like ones I typically end up in.) And he’s right — even though the benefits for maternity leave aren’t Google/Apple/Facebook/Netflix-level awesome, they’re better than the nonexistent maternity policies of most startups. They at least exist. Someone on my team is actually on maternity leave right now, so when she comes back I can ask her how she managed it.

I’m mostly worried about the first year of my kid’s life. I like working, but I’m so concerned I’ll just be too exhausted to think straight. We can’t afford to live on one income (especially not my husband’s income… his is about $65k and mine is $165k (plus potential of $50k-$100k bonus, etc. annually) so, I have to work. It’s the only way we have a shot of ever being able to afford to live in more than a 1 bedroom apartment. Assuming I can get half of my bonus each year ($215k), and he starts working as a teacher for ~$50k, then as a couple we’re making $265k and… that’s enough to live in a two bedroom condo in a reasonably nice area here, plus save for the kid’s college and such. I think I want to work, but I don’t like not having a choice… in case there are complications.

…I know plenty of women DO work shortly after having a kid… but it happens that my close friends who are married with young kids are either stay at home moms or work but work from home for themselves. I don’t want to miss my child’s first moments… I know it will all go by so fast.

Meanwhile, where on earth are we going to put a crib in this apartment? We have the space — our living room is rather large and so is our bedroom for a 1br… but, either we put a crib right next to our bed in between it and my husband’s desk / office… or, we put it in the living room. The living room doesn’t have air conditioning so that’s probably a horrible idea. Especially since the baby will be due in August.

Fortunately, I’ve hit that random goal of saving over $500k before getting pregnant – so I know there’s a cushion. But I don’t want to drain that unless I really have to. My goal is still to work full time and not take much time off to have my kid(s). But who knows what the future holds. I’d like to have a path to renting or owning a home with at least two bedrooms. I’d like to have a husband who is willing to talk about this stuff before I am officially pregnant… but as he’s going back to school this spring for teaching, and will be still taking classes and working when the baby is born… I don’t know how we’re going to do this. We’ll figure it out. But I’m really looking forward to when this blood test confirms that I’m indeed pregnant so perhaps we can start planning our future together.