Resigned

I resigned from my job today. In person. I brought Henry with me. My boss was amazing. She said she somewhat expected this. (I'm not surprised by that.) She also said that she completely understands, she thinks I'm doing the right thing and that if our positions were reversed, she'd do the exact same thing. She also said to not hesitate to use her as a reference or even if I wanted to come back or wanted help finding part time or work from home work that she'd help me out. It really could not have been better. I expected her to not be surprised, but I didn't expect this much support. It really made me feel good about the decision.

And if I needed more help, this is what I came home to after walking Bdog this morning.

Two Month Check-Up

We had our two month check up today. That meant shots. The PA did them really quickly and Henry only cried very briefly, which was a relief. I was nervous about them, but they did such a quick job I didn't really have time to freak out too much. I'm sure this is from experience.

I have to say I love our pediatrician. He is so calming, and he makes me feel so good about myself and how I am doing as a mom. He can see how happy both Henry and I are, and he tells me that our happiness is a self-fulfilling prophecy and that Henry will just be happier and happier and cuter and sweeter because that's how he is now and that's how I expect him to be. Henry is about average in height and a little above average in weight. He's healthy and growing as expected and doing really well.

I've been going to my in-town Mom's group every week and I went on a social outing with a social Mom's group yesterday for coffee. I enjoyed that and will be trying to go again. I had T's friend S come over and help us de-clutter, which was great. Our house is looking infinitely better, especially downstairs. She also helped us turn our 3rd fl into the guest bedroom now that Henry took over the previous one. She assembled a bed from 1ke@ for us, which was HUGE.

The other huge thing is that I'm 99% sure I've decided to quit my job. Everything is pointing toward that for me and I think I'm just going to do it. The 1% is really just my fear of doing it. Can I tell my boss over the phone? Everyone has been so encouraging about it that I'm just going to do it because I think it's what will make me happiest in the end. I'm going to double check that I'm not accruing anything or earning anything at work (I don't think I am) and maybe talk to my boss on Friday. Any resigning advice? I want to leave on as positive a note as possible.

And don't forget the cuteness:

All good

I'm still here. I guess I don't feel like I have too much to say. Motherhood is the best. I absolutely love it.

My biggest concern is still about work. I've sort of decided that I want to quit my job and stay at home. However, I feel like I can't know that for sure unless I try working part time. I also feel like it would be terrible for my already lousy resume to quit. But when I think about returning to work, I basically want to cry because I feel so strongly that I do not want to. I wish I could convince myself that not going back to work was the right thing. I'm not sure why I can't accept that about myself, but I seem to be having a difficult time with that. My husband fully supports me no matter what I do. I think he wishes I would believe myself and just quit and stay home. But there's just this lingering feeling in my stomach when I think about quitting that I'll regret doing that some day.

Henry is growing. He's hit six weeks and is really changing. All his predictability has been thrown out the window. One day he barely napped at all, and the next day he slept all day. His night sleeping continues to improve and now Bdog is more likely to cause me to be sleep deprived than little H is. Between the two of them, though, it definitely alters my sleeping patterns. I wish Bdog didn't start getting hyper at like 5:30.

We sent a 6 week letter and email to CC and O. We didn't hear back from them. I can't say I'm not disappointed, but I do understand why they didn't reach out. Maybe next time. I'm going to send another email in November.

Nothing else to report. I guess I see why people stop blogging after becoming parents. I'm not planning on doing that, but right now I don't have too much time to report on my parenting and adoption experiences.

Oh, I am trying to facilitate an adoption group that meets once a month, locally. It's meeting for the first time on Saturday. I'm interested to see how that goes.

Henry just spit up on himself. Gotta go!

Happenings

We had the hearing test today. He passed! His hearing is within the normal range. I suspected his hearing was fine because of his reactions to noises. However, it is still a relief to have a test confirm it.

I sent off our first letter to CC and O. yesterday. I printed some pictures and wrote what I could think of. I feel like our letter is woefully inadequate. I do plan to send them and email with some additional pictures this week. I want to tell them to let me know if they want the electronic versions of the pictures we printed. In fact, I just looked at the contract we signed and I think I left out some information that I'm supposed to supply. But I'm hopeful that because I'm going to encourage them to ask if there is something they want to know that we didn't include, that this will work out.

I feel so crazy busy. People keep telling me that I might get bored, but at this point I can't imagine it. I still worry about what's going to happen with work. I went back to visit yesterday and no one did anything but assume that I'm going to come back to work full time. I'm not. In fact, I'm dreading the idea of returning at all. I'm definitely thinking about staying home, but I haven't made any final decisions yet.

I just made myself worry about the letter and pictures. Dammit, I hate when I do that. I tend to lose sleep over things like this.

Things are good. I love being a mom, and I definitely feel a lot more like a mom. Our boy is precious, and I know he is comforted just by my presence or my voice. I can't believe this has finally happened to me. I am enjoying every minute of it, even the exhausted ones.

Henry's book

I want to write a book just for Henry with his birth story in it. I took pictures while in FL so I can put a book together for him. I decided to use $hutter.fly to make it because we can get a hard copy and order multiple copies so we can give one to CC and O. We thought they might like one.

I've uploaded the pictures and started the layout, but I'm finding it difficult to write. I need to make it simple so that a little kid can understand, but I want it to be lasting as well. I guess I have a little while, but it's more difficult than I thought it would be to make.

Things are going pretty well. Henry is healing up quickly and nicely. Tomorrow is T's first day back at work and me home alone with Henry, so I'm a little nervous. I'm sure things will be okay, but it's nice to know someone is there for backup if you need it. Luckily T works less than 10 minutes away, so if there is an actual emergency he can be home asap.

I'm starting to again think about work and what I want to do. I guess I can't decide without having been home all by myself yet, but I'd love input from other moms about when they did re work. Keep in mind that I don't have a real 'career' just a job. I could take it or leave it and I'm 100% sure I'm not going to work full time. I guess I want to know the pros and cons of working part time vs. not working at all.

All I gotta say is 12 weeks to be home with a baby is certainly not very long. 24-30 weeks seems a lot more realistic. 12 weeks is nothing.

I think B-dog peed on the rug in the living room, which is totally out of character for him. It smells like pee and I don't know how to fix it. T claims he can't smell it at all, but I certainly do.

My friend Jess is in from Wales and is going to meet Henry for the first time. I have to go pick her up at the station.

Out at work

I told my boss and HR today.

I was really scared. I cried a little while telling them. But it does feel like a monkey off of my back.

They were supportive and happy for me. I mentioned the caution and how I didn't want people to know until papers were signed, just in case we left and I came back a few days later without a baby. They seemed to get it.

The HR woman had a friend who was matched and the birth mother decided to parent after the baby was born. So I feel she does get it a little bit.

My boss has a crazy family story, but is pretty open about it. I'm more worried about her saying something. She said that she'd say, 'Family issues' or 'Personal issues' when she was informing people that they may have to take over some of my work. I think she's going to consult me before she decides how she's going to split up my responsibilities and maybe I'll have some control over it, but we'll see.

But I do feel some relief that I came clean.

Now I just have to worry about whether I will indeed come home with a baby or not. And a bunch of other stuff.

MIL is here

My MIL is here from Oregon. We're taking her to Martha's Vineyard tomorrow for one night. We're boarding B-dog for the first time. It's only one night, but I hope he does okay. I think he might miss us, but he doesn't suffer from any separation anxiety, so I think he'll be okay. We went over to visit the house of the person he'll stay with and he totally peed in her house twice. I felt *really* bad about that. :( But she has dogs everywhere and he's never really been in anybody else's house. Still, it's a bad precident.

I think I've pinched something in my hip. I'm having a hard time standing up for more than 5 minutes. When I sit I'm fine, but standing up I get pain and numbness all the way down to my ankle. I need to get this fixed. I went to the chiropractor today, but it didn't really make a difference.

T's been having migraines lately. We wonder if it's stress from all this adoption stuff. They're really bad and it sucks.

MIL is a lovely lady, but we don't have much to talk about and she tends to not want to sit in silence and just talks and talks to fill in the lulls.

I'm supposed to talk with expectant mom again this evening. I called during the day, but she was napping. She asked that I call later tonight, so I will. She had a doctor's appointment on Friday. She said that everything is good, and she is having a 3 hour glucose test on Monday.

Time is going both incredibly quickly and incredibly slowly. I guess I will tell work that I plan to return, even though I think I probably won't. I'm going to tell them the week of the 20th. We'll switch to T's insurance just in case. If I don't return, they'd make us pay the premium and I don't want to get stuck with that. I still am not sure I even want to return, but if they'll take me back part time, I guess I'd consider it. I can ask them if they'll consider that about a month before my 'return' date.

I think we're putting off thinking about more baby stuff until MIL goes home next Saturday.

Still freaking out.
---------------------
ETA:
Spoke with expectant mom again. Less awkward this time. This woman really expects that we are going to parent her child. I just can't wrap my mind around it. She was giving me mommy advice!

1. Have a rocking chair in the baby's room.
2. Have a good nightlight so at night you don't have to turn on a bright overhead for diaper changes or feedings.
3. A bit of information regarding formula. (Not divulged here for privacy reasons.)

She wants T to give expectant dad a call so they can talk 'guy stuff.' Told her maybe next week because MIL is here. I'll have to help with that phone call, but I think it's important to talk to him.

Also, she thinks she might have ultra-sound pictures on a disk and offered to send them over to us. She said there were some good shots. I'm not sure I can look at them, but I do want her to send them over.

I can't believe that this is actually real.

PMS and decisions don't mix

The dog should be coming home with us on Friday. I'm happy and excited and nervous. Bringing home a retired greyhound is different from bringing home other dogs and involves a lot of reading. You can have a glimpse, if you like.

And then today the pottery place called to say that someone dropped the class and they have an opening, but now I don't want to take it any more. It's too much. Getting this dog is enough. When I didn't get into the class, I decided to get the dog. I'm much more interested in walking him and training him than taking pottery now. With the responsibilities of helping the dog adjust, I can't picture myself going during open studio time. I feel awful that I don't want to take the class any more, but alas I don't. Am I crazy? I feel crazy.

T and I have picked a name for the dog, but sometimes I think I like it and sometimes I don't. We wanted a name that was related to his racing name. This is (indirectly) related. I liked it a lot at first, but I'm having second thoughts.

We're also getting the stairs carpeted, and I need to do some sanding/cleaning/painting before they do that. I bought the stuff and got goaded into buying some ridiculously expensive paint that I'm now afraid to use.

And we need to dig up the front yard. I did some digging this past weekend, but it's very difficult and takes a long time.

How do people have energy to do things? I just don't get it. And I really don't get how, after working all day, people can come home and be a parent. I'm so cranky right now I could spit.

Oh, and I was walking around the office and the pregnant lady came out of an office and my former boss who I was walking with started talking about the baby (who though yet unborn she already called by name) and my boss started rubbing this woman's belly and they started talking about a baby pool for when the baby is going to be born and I did not know how to extricate myself. I was standing there freaking out, wanting to bolt but wanting to make an excuse. I tried to smile and say, "See ya!" and walk off and I think that's what I did, but I'm not sure. I can't even remember how it ended because I was so panicked.

PMS sucks.

I wish I could feel confident in t

Show and Tell

This is where I went to say goodbye to my boss that never was. I got hired by him, but before I started my new job he was promoted, so I never actually got to work with him. Apparently this is one of his favorite places.


Love the gold vinyl. Around the rest of the room were not more delightful black, shiny pictures but actual oil paintings of famous Italian people like Frank Sinatra and John Travolta. It was quite the lunch. Everybody thought the food was delicious. (It was okay.) I was delighted to discover that they have function rooms!

Join the fun with:

Not much

I tried to think about talking to my boss about her inappropriate comment, but the meeting I had turned into something bad, so I didn't. Because I misunderstood a procedure, I felt like I was being accused of trying to get out of completing my work or working hard enough or something. Anyway, I just couldn't bring it up, so that's that. Between her comment, some other comments she has made, and this encounter of feeling accused of not working hard, I'm not currently feeling so great about my boss. But it is what it is.

I'm trying to take this as something good so that when we get placed with a baby I won't mind quitting work and staying home. Isn't that funny?

Not too much is going on. We're feeling sad today. A colleague of T's has been ill and passed away at a too young age. T doesn't deal with loss particularly well. It's all very, very sad.

Saturday we are doing the MS Walk if anybody wants to donate.

I'm having second thoughts about our facilitator again. I think I want to work with an agency. We have to make a decision and fill out an application and commit before my pottery class starts. We're currently just wasting time and spinning our wheels. Why can't I move forward with this?

I heard this piece about grief on the radio today. This woman had lost her husband. I just couldn't help but think about myself in this situation, only the person (people) that I lost never actually existed. They were just concepts -- perhaps multiple cells. But the thing that has died is the person that would have been created had my DNA been able to successfully combine with T's DNA, and any of the thousands or millions of possible outcomes of that combination simply never will be. I really think they should have spoken with people who have failed all fertility treatments for that study.

My parents are going to be back from Florida today and I will see them this weekend. And despite all of this shit, I'm happy that baseball season is starting even though my fantasy team kind of sucks.

I'm glad tomorrow's Friday.

Head: better. Soul: not so much

My new cube was a bit better today. At least, I didn't feel like I was hallucinating. That's a start. I felt a headache coming on a few times, but I ate, drank water or got up and walked away and managed to hold it of. I also wore a hat and despite my hat head it blocked some of the light out and I think it helped a bit.

I am, however, feeling sad. One of the HR women at work is adorably pregnant. The other day she chose to sit next to me out of an entire, huge room of people. Plus, I'm feeling really fat. My pants are all tight, my shirts are all a little bit small. I have been exercising a couple of days a week, but I'm still eating kind of poorly. I don't feel like I have the energy to try to eat healthy, even though it's probably not that difficult.

My new job is weird. The people I work with are a little odd and it's not very social. I tend to eat lunch in my old department because people are rowdy and fun there. Also, two people were just hired in the Training department, which is also rowdy and fun, and I kind of feel bad that I didn't get to apply there. I was a teacher after all. But since I got offered and accepted this job back in November, I didn't even have the choice.

Again, even as I move forward, I feel like I'm not. The whole world moves and I just sit here. At least I sort of feel like if we did get a baby that I wouldn't mind quitting my job to stay home. But that just seems like a far off dream and pretty moot anyway.

If work sucks and family sucks (even though my husband doesn't suck), then what's the point? I just don't get it. Yes, I have a great husband, but I'm just not sure what else I am accomplishing here on earth. No, I'm not suicidal, but I'm sad because I just don't understand the point of life. I used to be this smart, fun person with the whole world in front of her. Now I'm just someone who never had the right job and wasn't able to have children and is just getting old in a job she is too smart for. I just don't get it.

Work Headaches

Today was slightly better. I hid behind a wall I built with cardboard and an old curtain I brought in from home.

It's definitely me. No one else is having this problem.

I did find out that there are different light bulbs in my new area than in the area where I was sitting before, which makes me feel a little less insane.

I am changing seats tomorrow, and they're going to see if it's possible to replace the lights in the one light that is right above my seat. I'm thinking of wearing a baseball hat and sunglasses too.

But I feel better today. At least, I don't think I might have a migraine. I just feel slightly light-headed. No real headache, though.

But I did go out for a couple hours for my 'welcome to the department' lunch. So I had a big break in the middle of the day. And after coming back and working for a while, I was semi-hallucinating. It was like seeing 'trails' or weird light flickering while looking at my computer screen.

I hope moving my seat helps.

My new cube

at work seems to be making me sick. I've had a headache 85% of the time since I moved my cube. I'm trying to make some adjustments -- I think it's the light that is causing this. But it sucks to have a headache all day every day. This is not normal for me.

And I asked about possibly moving or making some more changes around my cube, but like everything else, it's complicated. So I'm going to try to block out the florescent lights that shine right it my eyes and see if it helps.

I've been kind of cranky lately.

Nothing doing

I haven't heard anything at all about this situation. The agency is waiting for the expectant mother to contact them. Her father, Bruce, is supposed to show her our photo booklet. He was apparently quite taken by it, but I don't have any idea if this expectant mom has looked at the booklet or is interested or anything. Meantime, I'm just sitting and waiting and trying not to think about it.

Meanwhile I'm trying to settle in to my new job. It's been going well. Today was the first day where I had to start figuring out ways to politic a little and how to handle people and situations and my boss, etc. It was nothing bad, but I did have a few cringe inducing moments.

Wish I had something more interesting to say today. All I can say is that it's been snowing way too much. I'm ready for that to stop.

Confusing

Sometimes I confuse myself. I feel like I don't communicate enough with other people. I'm a pretty outgoing person and I like to be active in my relationships with people. I like getting email and comments and notes on my wall, etc. But I'm not particularly great at reaching out, which means it's silly for me to expect attention back. Plus, I don't have much to say about anything. I don't want to talk to my long, lost friends because I don't want to talk about our infertility and our waiting for an adoption to happen. But if asked, there's nothing much else going on with me. Sure, I can talk a little bit about my new job (which is going well so far) or I could mention my latest knitting or crochet project, but I'm not sure how interesting it is. And the people I'm friendly with already know about these things. There's only so much to talk about when it comes to cooking or crafting or work. I just feel dead in the water and conflicted. Do I want to talk to people or don't I? The answer is, I'm not sure.

And I haven't heard anything from our agency.

And here are some alligators because someone asked about them.

Vacation's all I ever wanted

Tomorrow is my last day at my old job! Yay! I'm so very happy about it.

Saturday we leave for Florida.

Things are hectic but fine. Didn't get the stuff off to the facilitator before we're leaving. I'm a little disappointed in myself for not doing it. I'm just not feeling settled about it, I guess. But we'll do that when we get home, I suppose. Right away. I'll finally have some flexibility to get to the post office anyway.

Have a good week everybody! Wish for good weather down there!

more sick

T came home sick on Tuesday. We went to bed pretty early.

T woke me up at about 4:30. He had been up for 45 minutes and his chest HURT. It wouldn't go away. It seemed to be getting worse. It wasn't burning or radiating, but it was BAD. We had to go to the ER.

Drove him there. It took forever. When we got to the desk, he couldn't even stand up.

He went in for tests. I really didn't think it was his heart because he had had 2 different stress tests not too long ago and some EKGs and they were all normal, but they had to test it. They gave him aspirin and nitroglycerine and then some morphine. The morphine didn't help. They gave him an x-ray and a CT scan. All negative.

They gave him some even stronger drugs and finally, finally he could actually sit still without writhing in pain. It was about 7am at this point.

They released him because they had no idea what was causing it. He has to follow up with is primary care doctor. He got some meds.

Now it's close to 8. I had been home for the past two days, so I had to go to work. I wanted to stay home with him, but I couldn't. So he went back to bed and I showered and went to work.

The meds seemed to help and went down to just ibuprophen by evening. He was even better this morning. But I'm still super worried about him. Then he had a work disaster today and didn't even leave the office until almost 7pm. (It's ten til right now and he may have just left just now.)

He works too hard. I think it was caused by stress. He won't work less hard and I'm worried this will happen again. I need him to exercise and he doesn't.

But he is a bit better. But I remain very worried.

Tomorrow is Friday. No work on Monday. We leave for FL one week from Saturday.

Sick

I left work at about 11:30 yesterday and stayed home today. I was running a fever. Poor T seems to have it now, too. Luckily I seem to be getting better and I should be go to go back to work tomorrow.

Heard back from the friend I emailed about being a waiting family. She was understanding and said she had some friends who dealt with infertility and 'ended up' adopting. She asked if we were going overseas or staying in the US and told me that if I didn't want to talk about it, she'd understand. So that went ok. I guess it went about as I expected it.

All of my relatives have started joining F@ceb00k now, including my dad and my aunt so I'm getting weary of the whole thing. So maybe I'll be less obsessed with it.

I have exactly 7 more working days at my current job. It's longer than a week because there's a long weekend in between, but it's getting there.

Coping strategies

I need to learn how to deal with things.

Like I've seen a lot of other people mention, I have a F@ceb00k profile. On this site I am finding a lot of former classmates and friends I've lost touch with. Inevitably, as I'm in my mid-thirties, I get friended, get the, "Hi Rachel! How are you? We have two kids now! Blah blah blah, we're busy but happy!" Sometimes they want to visit. Sometimes their kids play with someone else I know's kids. Sometimes they're super-important and have had high powered jobs and sometimes they took time off to take care of their multiple children.

How do I respond to all of this? Do I tell them we're waiting to adopt? Do I not? Do I just say where I work and that we have our house?

Sometimes I feel like I should just stay away from it, but I can't seem to. But seeing all of these people fruitful and multiplying makes me totally bummed and I don't know how to respond to them. I'm one of the few people that actually enjoyed high school. I mean, I didn't enjoy all of it, but my circle of friends was a good one, and if I ignored a certain section of high school people, it was a pretty good time in my life. One of the best, actually.

I'm terrified of contacting old friends now. I feel like such a constant failure at career and family. I don't like to talk to people because I see how successful they are -- financially, career-wise and with children. I just don't know what to do or say or how to react.

Should I just stop logging in to F@aceb00k? What do I do?

I wish I had more self confidence with these things.

One email

I emailed the facilitator today.

She said don't bother to work on the Dear Birthmother booklet on my own. She'll guide us some more to make changes the way she wants and editing it further will just frustrate me. So we could just fill out her application, send her a check and then include a book with it.

She said we didn't have too many changes to make -- mostly a few picture changes and integrating the text with the images. Right now the text is completely separate.

So, when T comes home from work we'll talk about this some more. We were going to have a lawyer look a the contract first. I don't know whether we're still planning on it or not.

I was feeling resentful of all of this again this morning. Perusing facebook can be difficult because I see so many people talking about their kids and stuff. I hate feeling sorry for myself, but I do sometimes. I can't imagine this sadness ever ending.

Still just counting days til our vacation and my new job start.