crappy endings

Argh - my friend sent an e-mail informing us of a way to check our grades, which are not officially posted yet. I actually had purposely not bothered to find out when they would be posted, because I really didn't want to check them. But after I got the e-mail I couldn't help it.

Know how I said I bombed that exam? Turns out I really did bomb it. I thought I was being a bit hyperbolic, but I wasn't. I'm pretty irritated actually, and surprisingly upset. I didn't fail, but it was my lowest mark ever, and from a prof I truly did like. It just seems so monumentally unfair to get a completely crap mark after all I went through this semester:
-picking up the slack on the moot, mooting even though I didn't want to
-being sick and tired constantly with migraines, morning sickness, a horrible flu, a cough that never ended, and of course the ubiquitous first trimester flat-on-my-back fatigue
-having a borderline UTI during the exam, but not wanting to defer because it would mean graduating late and throwing everything off, including my bar course
-school full time plus working 15 hours a week at two different jobs in an attempt to qualify for maternity benefits by September

I know those factors don't count for anything, but it just seems like they should. And what sucks is, it totally doesn't represent my knowledge on the subject. I did leave the reading until the last minute, but I did it all. I wrote a great outline. I explained concepts to others. But I got completely buggered because the exam was a race against the clock. I understand why I got the mark I did, but I also know I understand the material much better than my mark reflects. Anyway, I am hating the exam, the course, the prof, pretty much everything. I admit it, I'm shedding some tears.

At the end of the day, does it really matter? No. I'm done. But it's just a shite way to finish off everything. If I didn't have grad school on the brain, none of this would matter. It also likely affects an award I applied for, but then maybe I didn't have much of a shot at that anyway. And grad school may be off the radar anyway, because, well, I'm having a kid. Life is going in a different direction, one that may not be conducive to another few years of schooling. I'm okay with that. But it doesn't prevent me from feeling horribly disappointed in the stupid mark.

Hopefully venting here (and on RateMyProfs - naturally) helps me get over it. Tomorrow, after all, is another day.

In Between Time

Wow - I've been done law school for almost five days. Pretty insane. It hasn't really sunk in yet, perhaps because I'm working part-time and doing loads of errands. I think it will really only hit me when September rolls around and I'm not headed to the bookstore to buy tonnes of books, or loading up on my back-to-school wardrobe. But then September will have another fine project, which will be nice. When I worked for four years, I always remember September as being a let-down - it felt like something should change, but it didn't. So it will be nice to have something happening.

It's nice to be past the halfway way mark in the pregnancy. A lot of my worrying has eased. I feel the little one fairly regularly now - pretty much every day, though some days are a lot quieter than others. There's something comforting about being only a few weeks away from potential viability, even though I know that babies born so early rarely survive and even if they do, often have terrible problems. But it feels nice to know they'd be able to try to help, and I think the worst part of having the miscarriage was just the helplessness of it - it just sort of happens and they can't do anything to stop it. I wouldn't say the miscarriage weighs on my mind in other ways though - was just a rite of passage I had to go through, albeit a sucky one.

Anyway this is my first free weekend and I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do. We went out this morning, but now I just want to be at home and rest - but there's no schoolwork I have to pretend to do. It's odd. Takes some getting used to. Anyway that will all change in a few weeks when I start the bar, so I guess I should enjoy it while I can.

Countdown

I am less than 24 hours from being done with law school forever! Or at least until grad school.

The past few weeks have been rough as I've caught up on the fact that I've done absolutely nothing all term. I have two papers due tomorrow and that is completely it. One is 35 pages and the other is 25 and they were almost entirely written in the past week.

I did get a start on one of them before my exams, but I've pretty much written 50 pages and over 200 footnotes, and edited them in a few short days. One of them actually doesn't suck.

Baby Pants

Well, I've finished my last exam. It went quite badly. I just wasn't familiar enough with the material. Law school exams are all about spotting issues - they provide a hypothetical situation and you can advise your "client" on the law. But there were a few major things I missed - not because I wouldn't have known the law on them if asked, but because I wasn't familiar enough to realise what the question was. Oh well, I guess that's what happens when you do all your reading in two days.

In my defence, I don't the exam was entirely fair since it was a complete race against the clock. Yes, law is stressful, but you're never going to be asked to solve five complex problems involving completely different actors in two and a half hours. Those exams test a particular skill that isn't that relevant to law. Thinking fast and coherently is important. Thinking at the speed of light and identifying every possible legal issue in a very short period of time is not. I have no problem with the format of the exam, and if I'd had three hours, I could have done quite well.

Part of my problem was that I was totally preoccupied with baby yesterday. I had my midwife appointment - for some reason I get really anxious beforehand because the appointment forces me to actually turn my mind to things that could go wrong... I'm anxious about hearing the heartbeat and anxious about the weird things that are happening that I usually just don't bother worrying about.

I did hear the heartbeat, very easily, and it was lovely. But then I asked about the fact that I've been having these weird sort of pains in my cervix and while she said it was probably normal, she'd ask the ultrasound to check my cervical length anyway. (I had one just now!) I'm terrified of preterm labour - as my sister-in-law went through it and lost her twins. It seems particularly scary at this crucial time when the baby is so much more real to me, but still unviable outside the womb.

Also, I've been having what I think are Braxton-Hicks as my stomach gets really hard sometimes, and while everyone seems to say that's normal, it would be a lot more reassuring just not to have them yet.

So I came home and stewed about those things and then realised that I'd forgotten to tell her that when I did my urine test there were some nitrates in it. I got home and Googled it, and found it can mean UTI. So then I became convinced that the pains were actually a UTI and I had to go the bathroom nine times in three hours. I called and asked for a urine culture. D ran out and got my cranberry capsules and all seems well and now I realise I was being a bit ridiculous. I am very suggestable.

Anyway, we have our ultrasound Monday, so I can worry until then and then hopefully feel reassured that all is normal.

In an effort to alleviate my anxiety about both baby and my stupid exam, I decided to check out a few baby stores this afternoon. I wanted to get some kind of cute outfit - but I find shopping for baby extremely perplexing. I can't find baby pants anywhere! What do babies wear on their legs? Every thing just seems to be legless onesies - long sleeves or short. I don't really feel like making buying onesies an "event" since you can buy them in 5 packs at Shoppers. I want something it can wear on a walk, or a trip to Grandma's, like a sleeper with feet. But anything with pants or long legs is sized for an enormous baby. Our autumn baby will need pants when it's small. It's all very confusing. They show itty-bitty shoes everywhere, and babies don't even need shoes since they can't walk, but pants are like the holy grail.

End of Term Angst

Well the excitement of being almost done law school is rather muted by the fact that I have a massive, massive, massive amount to do during the next two weeks. Apparently doing nothing all term can do that to you. Who knew?

I had a wonderful dream last night that I could feel the baby's heartbeat through the skin and that I knew s/he was okay. I went for a 10k run yesterday (lots of walking in between). I feel better when I stay in shape, and still really enjoy running so I have to think that must be good for me. It's about all I can motivate myself to do lately, so I will keep at it as long as I enjoy it.

I sent it my maternity leave request forms to the Law Society a few days ago... turns out lawyers and articling students are not covered by employee legislation, so I am technically not entitled to have mat leave like most other people in this country. I am entitled to 8 months under Law Society rules, so I don't think it will be a major issue to get those extra 4 months, but it's just a hassle.

Luckily my firm has been super-understanding - part of this may be because I was already scheduled to be gone for the clerkship for a year. But they are employing me for an extra month so that I have enough hours to qualify for EI and have offered to put me on their health plan during mat leave (I think they were kind of stuck doing that, but they've been nice about it.)

Now my next dilemma is asking for a few days off from the bar course over the summer for a wedding. They say if you anticipate any problems interfering with your attendence, you should withdraw, but then it appears there is some leeway as there is a contact person who can grant an exemption to attendence requirements . If this sounds weird it's because the course itself is key, not just the exam as in the U.S. There are all sorts of exercises you are supposed to do to pass. I keep wondering if it might just be better to be "sick"... but that feels wrong.

Last Day

Well no aching head for three days! So some combination of the remedies seems to have worked. (Knocking on wood here!) Honestly, three days is the longest I've been pain-free in ages. And I didn't need a nap yesterday, which also may indicate that pastures are getting greener. Yay for being almost 18 weeks.

However, just to prove I am a complete dork I did throw out my neck. I was sitting at the computer and got up and boom, I could no longer move it more than about about 20 degrees on either side. I had to go to work at my part-time job and was in agony the whole day. I hope they don't track my Internet usage because I spent at least an hour Googling "cervical spine" and "chiropractor neck" and other random combinations. I thought I had slipped a disk or something it was so awful, I debated the E.R. (it really was that bad) for half a second, but then more Googling revealed there would be little they could do except tell me to rest.

I decided not to do chiro since it's too expensive in this city and I don't think I am covered for it. So I iced it and the next day headed to my trusty RMT who did something that made it feel a whole lot better. The degree of improvement indicates to me that it was most likely muscular. Yes, I am the queen of bizarre ailments.

Strangely, I remember being on a trip with my brother once where the same thing happened to his neck - we have similar builds, except his is obviously broader and bigger; but we're both kind of small boned with long necks. (I'm making us sound like poultry.) My brother did end up going to the E.R. because he was in so much pain, but they didn't do much for him as they seemed to think the mysterious spinal pain was just an attempt to get painkillers.

He was supposed to drive us on the next leg of our vacation - we were taking two cars somewhere - can't recall where. But the lack of neck movement meant he couldn't, so we got to take the train which was lovely! It was an old one with wooden seats. So far my neck injury has had no such silver lining, but I can hope.

Anyway, in non-neck news, tonight is my very last class of law school! Feels kind of sad, but also not yet sinking in. I am giving a presentation - the topic is corporatisation of pregnancy and birth. Yeah, I have a one-track mind these days - thank goodness for seminars that let me run with it.

April already

April is here with sunshine and somewhat warm weather.

I went for a run this morning along the beach, which was delightful. It was a slow pace, since I haven't been for weeks, and required a bathroom break, but it made me feel good.

Then I went for brunch and had a nap. I think even D is getting panicked about how little work I am doing. He claims to be having nightmares about it. Oh well, they won't fail me at this point.

Competition

I have been in Toronto - actually I AM in Toronto, with just a few short hours until I can take a shuttle to the airport and be home again. I don't mind flying once you get through security - it can be a pleasant feeling to turn over control to someone else. The time passes quickly so long as you've got a decent book, or those individual TV sets which are more and more common even in coach.

The hotel we are staying in Toronto has the most atrocious air quality. I've had a headache since I arrived five days ago, though maybe it's the pressure change and not just the air. But I left the window open for a good hour the other night and the temperature in our small hotel room only changed a degree or so, so I think there's just no circulation.

We got to the finals in our moot competition. A moot consists of arguing a fake case before a panel of judges who ask you probing questions and try to make you uncomfortable. I was the worst speaker on my team (of four), at least the points we got indicated that. It kind of surprised me since I don't really have any aversion to public speaking. The judges told me I don't have a very good poker face, which is true. I definitely had an uphill battle as we were arguing the less sympathetic side. To my credit though, I was arguing from a paper written by someone else since the original mooter resigned and I was a not-quite-11th-hour (9th hour?) replacement.

In the finals, my partner and I had to go, though we were the weaker half. Although I was terrified of letting down our team, that opportunity was good closure, because we did the best we have so far, at least I thought so. We still haven't seen the points for that round. We still lost the finals, but we came in fourth overall, which is quite respectable. Means we have something to hang on the wall back at school.

Anyway, that's why I've been MIA.

The Break

Ah spring break. For some reason, I thought it would be a brilliant idea to paint our entire place in preparation for selling it. Since our place is essentially one room, (and our bathroom is still in disarray from recent renos) our place is a gigantic mess. So it isn't turning out to be a terribly relaxing break. And of course there's the little matter of school work - I am supposed to be doing some.

We have our first prenatal appointment later today, which is very exciting. I am hoping we can hear heartbeat on the doppler, but I guess they may not try it if I am still too early.

The cat is doing a little better. She purrs and jumps on the bed and moves around and doesn't appear to be in any pain. She is usually relatively recalcitrant and moody when anything is off in her little universe, so I think it will show when she is ready to go. She is taking steroids and this could shrink her tumour temporarily and give her a little more time. I am worried that her time will come when I am away next wee, but I hope she lasts until I get home again. D will have to pill her, which I know will be a challenge.

My moods are all over the place - happy, then tearful. But more happy than tearful.

Drama, drama, drama

In an effort not to make this blog solely about being pregnant, I will update you all on school. I've been doing this group project, which I think I alluded to recently. I have sort of a peripheral role, except that I get the same amount of credits for it as everyone else. Sounds great, right? Except that there was a bit of a falling out with a member of the team... he didn't keep up with the work, we had to pick up the slack, the team got a little (okay, a lot) frustrated with him, the frustration showed and he got frustrated back; he then sent out a really nasty e-mail to all of us, including the prof. So we decided to have a meeting to decide if we could continue to work together - super fun! Drama, drama, drama.

I personally never wanted to have the meeting, because I knew not much would come of it and would seem like four against one. But one girl was insistent, so we did it. For three minutes, no one said a thing, so finally I got the ball rolling and called him out on the fact that we all had to pick up his slack and that his e-mail was completely inappropriate (In it he told us all to "get a life" and said some other pretty silly personal stuff). I tried to be polite, but I was frank. He responded defensively, as one might expect. I was a little annoyed that I had to do most of the talking, since as per sentence one, I didn't really want this meeting to begin with.

Anyway I was kind of hoping things would smooth over and he'd "shape up" rather than "ship out," but he's chosen the latter option. We had another meeting last night - the one where I was going to say that for ambiguous "personal reasons" (read: fatigue, nausea, unwillingness to put myself into stressful situations), I didn't want to take on his role. But then were told that he's resigned and now I don't have much choice. The only other alternative is to have someone else who was already doing a lot (read: much more than me) to do both his stuff and her own. But it makes a lot more sense for me to do it. Blah.

It was too bad the meeting went down like that, because it resulted in my 'fessing up to my "condition" in a rather dramatic way, as I tried to explain why I hadn't wanted this to happen because I'm not feeling all that well today. I was verging on tears, which I'm sure muted the otherwise happy mood that such news usually brings. My announcement had more of a "shock and awe" component. Then I explained how unexpected it had all been, how crappy I am feeling et cetera. "But it is happy news!" I added.

After the meeting, one of the girls was congratulating me and asked me: "So, it was really out of the blue?" Which is kind of a funny question - I mean, what answer does she want? It was as out of the blue as pregnancy is when you're having unprotected sex with your husband. The response that popped out was: "Well, I have to admit I wasn't being super careful." Why did I say that? I have no idea. She really didn't need that information. Why did she ask? I'm sure she wonders herself. In any case, there were no follow-up questions.

And because even when my posts don't start off about pregnancy they end up that way, I will add that morning sickness has hit like a big metaphorical and literal punch in the gut; it's a lot like a hang-over - overwhelming nausea, headache (I get headaches for everything) and cravings for home fries with loads of sour cream. And like a really bad hangover, it lasts all day.

I'm skimming this really terrible book for expectant dads that a friend lent me when she sniffed out my news. Yes, another couple guessed, in record time. I hadn't been over there more than ten minutes and had barely cooed over their little one. Anyway, this book for dads has little sections in it labelled "In the Doghouse" with helpful hints like "Don't tell your partners she looks 'fat,' or that her feet have gotten 'huge'." So many pregnancy books are like wedding books, they treat you (and especially 'Dad') as if he has an IQ of 80.

Not too tired

I am adjusting to the new reality - mostly boosted by the fact that I get to surf real estate listings and look at cute wooden baby furniture. But I am newly stressed because someone told me you have to work 6 months full-time to qualify for EI - surely not! I thought I read on the web that 600 hours in the past year was enough and by my calculations that's only 4 months, which is do-able. Six months ain't gonna happen.

I am still not having a lot of symptoms - a tinge of nausea now and then, but no real fatigue, strong scents et cetera. Which is lucky because this has been the weekend from hell as I am working on a team project. Due to one of our team members, we have been pulling some very late nights. We rewrote his whole part tonight. I have to be back there at 9, which I am unimpressed about. I'd love an excuse to sleep in. But I am being so good and not telling anyone at all, having learned my lesson on that front.

I also found out that on Monday, it will have a heartbeat, which is kind of interesting.

Anyway I must be off to bed.

The end of the holidays

Today is the first day of classes. Not for me though, my slacker schedule has me free on Mondays, which is kind of nice. It delays reality a little longer. We had a wonderful, if exhausting, seven days in the Caribbean over Christmas. My immediate family was also there. We saw lots of critters, including two gorgeous dolphins playing in the waves, and a very large crocodile. We stayed at a really nice little hotel; it was sort of a rustic deluxe thing - no air conditioning, no fancy pool, no enormous white sand beach, but just a bunch of brightly coloured cottages with decks that looked right over the ocean.

I had the usual spats with my brothers and mother; something about them does bring out a very anal side of me. My mother called it "holier-than-thou." But D, who never hesitates to call me on it when I'm being a tad unreasonable, did side with me at most times (although never speaks up then!); he's sort of a sanity barometre. My family loves to complain about everything - the food, the service, the rooms. And while I'm not averse to a little gripe session myself, as this blog, even this paragraph, no doubt affirms, I like to turn off my critical side when I'm IN PARADISE! All they want to do is sit around the cottage and listen to music, or read alone at the bar. And oh lord, they drink - they really pack it away. Oops, there's my holier-than-thou side coming through. I will stop.

Last weekend D's job had a retreat; spouses were generously permitted to tag along and enjoy the very nice accommodation and tasty meals. D works with a lot of young folks and I think that must be a lot of fun. It's quite a different atmosphere from the staid law firm world where the median age is over 40. I don't think anyone at D's firm, partners included, has even hit 40 yet.

Yes, the party scene was a little different at the retreat than what I've seen so far in my profession. The partners showed up at a basement dance club and were grooving with the best of them. Can't say I've seen that (nor would I necessarily want to) where I work. But then a lot of people who enter the legal profession have similar personality traits; we all have a dose of Type-A-ness. It's a well-paying job and many of us, if we are honest, have entered the professional at least partly because of that, yet we're not the type of people who have the sort of creativity and tolerance for risk that you find in entrepreneurs. All of this doesn't necessarily add up to a crew who likes to hit the trendy spots or the up-and-coming after-hours. Now that I think about it, law parties are a lot like civil servant parties. Hmm - something to ponder on in the future - whether or not choosing a job based on the party scene is a good or bad life strategy. I can see some good arguments for doing so, but it's certainly not the path I've taken!

I've been battling a cold - it hasn't hit yet, but I've got the sneezes and a general grogginess, tummy ache, headache. I got my flu shot, so I hope it preserves me from anything truly awful. Part of me wonders if perhaps we made a little Jamaica Mistaica when we were on holiday and if that's what's making me feel so strange. It would be absolutely terrible timing work-wise, money-wise etc. But I'm sure a little part of me will be sad if my suspicion is wrong. Plus, it gives me an excuse to surf the net for two- and three-bedroom homes for sale, which is always fun.