I've had it.

I have been mentally done with my job for several years now. I wanted to leave, but I knew that I needed to hang on here because of our health insurance, which covered  my IVF treatment (and Zazie's process for the older girls), save for co-pays. Now that H's here, I am ready. to. go. Like, yesterday.

For my field, NYC is a great place to be because there are so many firms large enough to have my kind of library. Problem is, you're living in NYC and all that entails.I have loved NYC for the 13 years we have been here, but now that we are staring down the barrel of pre-k and the financial reality of raising three children here, I am ready to leave.

But where?

I am applying to jobs here in the city, in the hopes that someone will pay me more than I make now. If they do, it is conceivable that we can begin to dig our way out of the deep, deep financial hole we find ourselves in and then move to Jersey or a better school district. Problem is that I have many years of experience but no supervising experience, so I don't qualify for a library of my own or they don't want to pay me enough.

I probably wouldn't get hired in Canada (no one needs an American librarian with my specialty). The middle's out (got a nibble on a Dallas job, but Zazie was SO opposed it wasn't even funny). Most of the south is out, except Atlanta because of proximity to family/friends but I'd have to take a major pay cut. West coast would be ok, but SF is just as f*cking expensive and LA is pretty darn expensive too. Seattle... we spent a weekend there for a wedding and there were too many dudes in kilts. Boston? I don't know... cold and those accents. DC might be good, but it's nearly as expensive as NY and all that traffic. So basically, unless I switch specialties or fields, it's NY/NJ and ugh. We will never make enough money, and it isn't like I have lofty, expensive goals for my life- you just can't ever make enough money here to have the normal standard of living people have elsewhere.

I just applied to a job in Portland. I think it would be perfect. I haven't ever been to Portland, but it looks gorgeous, cost of living is less, it's liberal... and this job would give me my own library. I applied last Thursday and haven't heard anything back yet. That's not unusual... the nibbles I've had so far have come a week or so after I first apply. Portland just seems so appealing and not too many jobs come up. I'm hoping because my job is fairly specialized that they'll be interested in me, despite the fact they'd probably need to pay something to relocate us.

In the meantime, I am jumping out of my skin at the possibility. I would be sad to leave our friends, but as a former military brat, I get excited about someplace new. Or if not that job, SOMETHING else better. Guh.

This girl...

At her 2 month appointment, which happened at more like 2 1/2 months, this girl was 13 1/2 pounds and 24 inches long, which puts her in the 90th and 97th percentile. My mom sent my height/weight chart and she's at the same point I was at her age. I'm 5'11", donor was 6'0", so girl's gonna be big. She has a delicious smile. She even laughed a couple times night before last! (I guess we haven't been that funny since then)

This girl cracks me up. We spent a good 10 minutes last night with our faces just inches from each other singing "We arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre Pink-a-LICIOUS!" very loudly. I don't know why, other than that someone gave the girls that book and we read it for the first (and second, and third, and fourth) time yesterday. 

This girl is an awesome big sister and a sweet, sweet girl. She told me last night, "You're doing a GREAT job making milk for H., Mama" as I used the breast pump. I think, however, that she is having a hard time now that there is ANOTHER person to share attention with. Or maybe she's just three... who knows? 

A year ago...

And everyone gets through the night
And everyone wakes up alright
And the fear you feel will pass
Then a calmness that will last

A year ago, I laid on our bed in the dark and cried for an hour while listening to this song. The doctors told me I had a less than 10% chance of getting pregnant. I felt hopeless, knowing that the IVF process I was going through was our one and only shot of getting pregnant.

Now I have a deliciously fat baby that woke me up three times last night to eat and two gorgeous big girls who gave me "birthday presents" (stuffed animals wrapped in scarves and put in a F.resh D.irect cardboard box) to wake me up this morning. I can't believe my luck.

My love and prayers to those of you who are going through the process right now.

The Birth of H

Just before her due date, Sandy hit. We were fine, our building was fine... we had a near catastrophe when our docs insisted I go into Manhattan for my 39 week checkup on the morning of the storm. If I had been 1 more cm dilated, they would've admitted me to the hospital and of course, my hospital was the one where all the patients were evacuated in the middle of the storm. As it was, we barely made it back to Brooklyn before they shut down the bridges and tunnels. Whew.

H's due date was election day. If anyone asked me, I'd say that I just wanted to vote, I didn't care about when she got here. My contractions started shortly after I got home from my walk to the polling place. Election results came in, Obama won, we celebrated, and then I went to bed, figuring I should get rest before labor really kicked up. I woke the next morning and the contractions had pretty much died down. I had light contractions irregularly all morning, light and irregular enough that I wasn't timing them at all.

At about 2:15pm, I went to the bathroom, sat on the toilet and my water broke! I had been paranoid that my water would break while at work or on the subway, so I was relieved that my body was neat and tidy. It felt like a balloon popped and water gushed and gushed. My contractions immediately kicked up to bad period pain level. Everything you read says that your water breaking doesn't necessarily mean delivery is happening asap, so Zazie was taking her time, but I was pacing and I wanted to leave our apartment now now NOW! Before we left to go to the hospital, the pain started getting really, really bad... bad enough that I had to get down on my hands and knees on the floor. My mom kept the girls busy back in their room while we got stuff ready, but El (of course) found me on the floor and said "What are you doing, Mama?"

Did I mention that we had a snowstorm that day? And that our hospital still wasn't open because of hurricane damage, so all deliveries were taking place at another hospital 70 blocks north, which meant that travel time would be 50 minutes on a good weather day? Yeah.

Our friend E graciously agreed to drive us to the hospital in our car. We started off and I was in the front passenger seat, but about two blocks into our drive, the pain got so intense that I couldn't sit in the seat any longer, so I moved to the middle of our minivan to kneel on the floor and lean over one of the girls' car seats. I listened to my labor playlist for about 10-15 minutes until I realized I just couldn't concentrate anymore. I was hot and sweating and I wanted to fart so badly, but I didn't want to just let go in front of our poor friend, who was white-knuckled, driving a car he'd never driven before in snow and traffic. My knees started to hurt from the seat hardware on the floor, so Zazie and I switched places so I could kneel on the third floor bucket seat. Zazie reminded me to tell her when contractions started, but at that point they were so intense and coming so quickly that I couldn't tell where they started or ended.

I leaned over the back seat and put my head on the cool window and I just kept moaning, "Oh my g-d... oh sh-t... oh my god... what the f-ck? what the f-ck." Tears were streaming down my face. We were, of course, stuck in traffic going up the FDR and I can only imagine what the people in the cars behind us were thinking when they saw my face! Zazie updated me on each exit we passed so I knew where we were.

By the time we got off the FDR, I asked Z to tell our friend E to please hurry up because I thought that I might have the baby in the car. I was already having the urge to push and I knew that once you feel the urge, it isn't long before the baby's born. Zazie offered to check to see if she could see her head. E was horrified and started driving faster. I declined her offer. At that point, though I hadn't planned on an epidural, I decided that if this was only the beginning, and labor were going to get more intense than the crazy intense pain I was already feeling, that I would definitely ask for an epidural.

Mercifully, once off the FDR, we quickly got to the hospital. I jumped out practically before the car stopped and walked as quickly as I could to the front door. The guard took one look at my face and said, "Labor and delivery?" and took us in the express elevator. We got there and they sat us in a row of chairs to fill out paperwork, but I realized that there was no way in hell I could fill out any paperwork. I immediately got on my knees on the floor and leaned on my elbows on the chair to try to breathe and concentrate on not making too much commotion in my pain. I was in that position for a couple of minutes, but I quickly gave up and got down on the floor on my hands and knees right there in the middle of the hallway. I told Zazie that she'd better tell a doctor that I was going to have the baby right there, and at that point, I was surrounded by medical staff who got me into a room VERY quickly. :)

Once in the room, I whipped off my clothes in the corner and got on the bed. They tried to get me to lay down, but I'm pretty sure I ignored them and kneeled backwards on the bed until they insisted on a cervix check. Holy crap, a cervix check hurts in the middle of a contraction! I told them when I got into the room that I wanted an epidural. Once they did the check, they told me it was too late to have an epidural... I was already at 9 1/2 cm! I was upset that I couldn't lessen my pain, but also pleased that the pain wasn't going to continue for much longer. It took a bit for my doctor to get there (she told me she'd taken a cab across Central Park and when they called and told her my status, she contemplated getting out of the cab and running through the snow!) but when it was time to push, I was lying on my side with my foot on her shoulder.

Pushing. Whoa. I wasn't told to push. I felt the urge to push and I informed the staff that I was GOING to push. The l&d nurse (who was a godsend!) kept reminding me to breath and focus and she very calmly counted with each push. A couple pushes in and I was making a really loud guttural sound, kind of like a roar/moan and it really helped. While I pushed, I gripped the rail of the bed. Apparently, I was also pushing my forehead into the rail- I realized the next day that my forehead was bruised! Lovely! The doctors told me to reach down and feel H's head, and honestly, I don't know whether it helped in the way they thought it would. I was really puzzled at what I was feeling, forgetting in that moment that they'd just told me I was feeling her head. I just kept pushing, trying to give it my all so that labor would just be over.

I don't know how many pushes it took, but our sweet baby H was born at 5:12pm weighing 8 lbs. 15 oz., just about 3 hours after my water broke and 45 minutes after we got to the hospital. She is delicious.