Puff Piece

I a currently being Bad Mummy - feeding LM pieces of my Clif Bar. I think having an older child is going to force me to improve my eating habits - now that he demands what I'm eating I can't very well have graham crackers for lunch. On the bright side, having a child who eats table food is also great. Yesterday I grabbed an impromptu sushi dinner and I hadn't packed any proper food for him but he happily munched away on gyoza and edamame beans. Mmmm.

Speaking of food, the naturopath is having me cut out dairy for LM as she thinks he might be allergic and that may be what's causing his cough/constant mucousyness. She hinted that wheat might also be a cause but we'll start with dairy. On the one hand, I am skeptical because with the exception of things like milk protein allergies and celiac disease, I find it hard to believe that so many of us are sensitive to things that have been staples of Western diet for so long. On the other hand, it's true that his cold/flus have been much worse since I started making yoghurt and cheese a major part of his diet. I'll try anything if it might help but I am going to have to get creative now in term in deciding what protein to feed him. I also have figure out something to do with all the frozen papaya-cottage cheese cubes and the cheesy chicken puree I made last weekend. Shit... I just realised Clif Bars "may contain" milk products.

And since you asked, the sleep stuff is going extremely well! The night before last he slept 10 hours straight in his crib... it was thrilling. Last night he regressed a bit and was up again three times, but was very easy to get back to sleep. The consultant had warned us that there would likely be regression on night four of the no nursing portion of our plan (weird, how did she know?) It's funny how you get greedy - initially I said "if we could just get him down to two night wakings." But now that he's done it, I'm all "when will he sleep through again???!" I do miss our nighttime cuddles, but we have a nice long skin-to-skin nursing session in the morning, which we never did before since he was snacking all night so that's a pretty good substitute.

The consultant also developed a schedule for me during the day to help him adjust to daycare since at daycare the kids take a long nap in the afternoon. Obviously the daycare provider will be flexible with LM since he's still small, but it would be easier if he gets on that schedule since they go out in the mornings. So right now I let him nap just a half-hour in the a.m. and then put him down for a longer nap in the afternoon. For the first time he is taking an afternoon nap that lasts more than 45 minutes.

I'm not sure he is entirely ready for such a short morning nap as he gets very tired and cranky. And if I'm out between 11 and 12 (prime errand time) and he happens to be in the stroller, the carrier or the car seat there's just no way to keep him awake, or even rouse him. But the afternoons are awesome and since it's my last week "off" I'm using my spare time not to clean up, do house stuff or sleep but rather to lazily watch dozens of episodes of Sex and the City. I bought them at the start of my meat leave when I assumed I'd have all this free time while he napped and played by himself (ha ha ha!)

Anyway I am even a teensy bit excited to go back to work - or at least to buy lots of glamourous office clothes and new lipstick! I can tell I'm not 100% in work mode quite yet though - I was looking at bags yesterday for work to carry papers/laptop and the one I ended up (this one, was much cheaper at the store than online) looks professional but also doubles as a diaper-bag complete with a wipes container, and wet bag. I was hesistant to get a purple bag since I have a red winter coat, but the salesgirl assured me that red and purple go really well together and in fact they "need to be worn together more often". So I pretty much had an obligation to buy it. It's so much hipper than the diaper bag I have now that I wish I'd splurged months ago; then again it's probably much easier to convince D to carry a red canvas SkipHop bag than the "Paltrow" in plum.

Back At 'Er

The first few days back at work have begun since I am doing my training. I have now spent two full days away from LM. It's been easier and harder than I thought. I haven't missed him as much as I expected during the day - oh, sure there was that initial moment of panic when I was waiting in the lobby before the day started. I saw a pregnant woman, and you know how pregnant women have that sort of air of superiority about them? They have that look that says, sure, what you're doing is sort of important, but I'm generating LIFE here. Well, suddenly that pregnant woman I saw really intimated me, even though I haven't felt that way since I got pregnant myself. Without LM by my side I felt stripped down and insecure.

But mostly I've been fine; I haven't felt the need to dash back to see him on my lunch-break or to phone constantly. It's felt nice to be in the company of adults again.

The hardest part is when I get home, even though it's also the best part. LM is so thrilled to see me, and I love that. But I have no idea what he's done, when he slept, or whether he's eaten. His whole day is a mystery to me and as such his needs are too. Usually my day is based around the minutiae of his sleeping patterns. Suddenly I feel like only D knows what's going on and I suddenly need him to instruct me on all manner of things; but D's still in the habit of asking me if LM should eat, sleep et cetera, so together we're the blind leading the blind. I guess we'll get used to that and it won't feel so strange not to know every little thing he's been doing all day. That makes me a little sad though.

My other issue is LM's eating - he refuses the bottle all day while I am gone; today that meant he drank only a couple of ounces in almost 11 hours; he did get some solids down. I'll try fresh milk tomorrow as yesterday and today it was frozen stuff, carefully shipped out here with an ice-pack in my checked luggage. Frozen has never been an issue in the past, but perhaps he is refining his pallette. But if that doesn't work, I'm not sure what to do. Maybe I should just relax and just make sure there's lots of opportunity to feed before and after work; I guess he won't starve himself.

Pumping at work has been a challenge too - I'm using someone's office to do it, which is a little awkward. It's especially awkward when you accidentally don't seal that storage bag tightly enough and drip milk all over the occupant's address book... I've also got to wear mega pads to ensure no leakage as the only real opportunity to pump is at lunch and that's quite a long stretch for me. I come in with a padded B-cup and leave with a double D. I'm hoping there will be a better option at my own office, but there may not be since all our offices have glass that permits people to see into them. I may end up in ladies' room or something which will not be conducive to maintaining a bottle-a-day supply as I had hoped. But then if LM doesn't take the bottles I guess it's all moot anyway and maybe it's fine just to let my day supply go.

The Nightmare That is My Childcare Search

Well, I really set myself up for a slew of postings in my last missive, didn't I? Just think, in another few weeks I might even have to post about something unlrelated to babies, like, I don't know, work?

So today I'll cover daycares: I made the very dumb mistake of not putting LM on the lists for large group daycares as soon as I found I was pregnant; I guess I just thought, I don't know where we'll live, I know my mother will take him one day, so what's the point of paying for full-time care. Big mistake. Huge! Not that he'd be in any of them yet anyway - the lists are two years long, but at least it would be in the not-too distant future. I am now rectifying that because better late than never. I'm even calling daycares that have yet to be built and asking to be put on the waitlist there. Honestly, it's hilarious, I drive by construction sites and take down names and numbers. But realistically, LM won't get into any of them for at least a year, probably two.

So next up, licensed family childcare. These are in-home places that can have five to seven children; I assume with seven they need more than one staff person. Unlicensed care can only have two kids, so they don't even really advertise. I started calling the licensed family daycares a couple of weeks ago since everyone had told me that they run more last-minute, they don't do waitlists and they just sort of find out about spots opening up a month or so beforehand. That has proven true, and those that don't have a spot just advise me to call back the next week, (except the place that said they didn't have an opening until September 2010 - I guess they keep a waitlist.) So far I've called about 25 and only one has a place for him. Some that do have spots refuse him because they want an older child. So the one place that has room - I got an interview last week. You probably think that means I interview them. Right? Wrong. They interview me.

So I go to this interview. My personality is such that I tend to talk myself into the idea that something is going to be just fine. I always see the positive at first, then after quiet reflection, I realise, no, no, no, no, no. So I get to the daycare; the house is fairly rundown from outside, but that's okay. I let myself in the back door where the parking is. The kitchen is, to be kind, a pit. Newspapers and clutter piled up. I'm not talking messy (because honestly, my house is pretty messy), but seriously, worthy of some sort of TLC clean-up show; the cabinets are old and have holes in them. The play area is okay - LM immediately starts entertaining himself. There are toys EVERYWHERE, but they are in bins. She assures me she'd put away the smaller toys for him. The carpet is stained, but then what place with four kids under three wouldn't have a stained carpet?

The woman is quite nice; she's not exactly Albert Einstein and confuses some of the kids ages, forgets my name, but she seems relatively competent; she has her early childhood education degree; she's very caring; she's big on spending lots of time outside, which I want. She assures me she'd keep LM in her sights and close to her at all times, that I could call her for reassurance all I need and so on; the other children seem happy. She expounds on her philosophy of childcare and it all seems sensible and in keeping with my own.

So I'm trying to think positive and I call D with a decent report; then I go online and check out the inspection reports. She has SEVEN violations in the past two years, most of them hygiene related. Now one or two, I can understand; I know some of the stuff is kind of random. But to get seven you almost have to try. I start to process everything else and realise that in my desperation I'm lowering my standards way too much.

Then there's the information I sort of ignored until I had some time to process: There's a glass cabinet nearby that looks dangerous. She assures me she "almost" never has the TV on, but then her kid comes and asks to watch it (she says no - but if it's never on, why is he asking?) Some of the three year olds go play in the backyard alone. It's fenced, but still. The kitchen. The bathroom. The clutter. The yippy dog. The fact that the front door is on a busy street. Her husband is asleep in the master bedroom. Did I mention the kitchen? It's gross.

Based on my earlier positive report, D doesn't understand my about-face and wants to call her and ask about the inspection reports. I give him the go-ahead. So he calls and says "we're interested, just had a couple more questions." The kicker? She never calls us back! We got scooped on the $50 a day filthpile daycare!

So what's next? More phone calls. More e-mails. More responses to Craig's List ads. I get a "very interested" e-mail from a Scottish nanny whose ad I've responded to. Then she finds out our address and never writes back. She was looking for east-side and our neighbourhood is a nice east-side neighbourhood, so I can only assume it wasn't close enough to where she lives.

We've now also engaged a nanny agency - we pay them $700 to find us a nanny. They pre-screen for criminal checks and pre-interview and so on. We only pay if we hire through them, so we figured why not start the process so we have it as back-up if things get desperate. (Newsflash: they're desperate!) I may also put up an ad on Craig's List myself as well.

Anyway maybe it's good I have this project as otherwise I'd be too focussed on all the little details about LM's care and how sad it is that he'll be with someone else. At this stage I am too preoccupied with hoping that I won't have to have him in a pack'n'play in the corner of my office for the next six months. I'm guessing that'd affect my hireback.

So thanks Stephen Harper for your $100 a month in lieu of nationalised daycare. It's doing nothing for me right now. But am I wrong to think it just shouldn't be this hard?

Coming to a Close

I have, like, 75 half-written posts in my head. One is about sleep; I feel like I should update you on my totally schizophrenic attitudes about it. Another is about EC (elimination communication, aka infant potty training, or potty learning or whatever the PC term du jour is), which we don't really do, but we a little bit sort of do. Another is about the hellish time we're having trying to organise childcare and how I've called 20 daycares and only 1 has a potential spot and how no one is responding to my ads about nanny-sharing and how we're going to be totally broke if we hire a nanny solo but we may just end up doing it because I cannot leave him in a place that I am not 110% comfortable in, and crap, why didn't Paul Martin and his nationalised daycare plan get voted in?

But right now I can't write any of those posts - I'm too sad... I was just nursing LM down from his first wake-up; we had such a gorgeous day today hanging out in the park for about 5 hours chasing dogs and other babies and then having (me, not him) cold chai at this breastfeeding-friendly café near my new 'hood. When he woke up tonight he reached for me and melted into my arms and fell back asleep so quickly. As I was holding him, it hit me that soon I will be spending the majority of my waking hours (and his) away from him. I am going to miss him so very, very much. I've never been away from my little buddy for more than a few hours at a time, and it's going to be unbearably hard.

In a week or so we are headed to the Big City for a week of work training during which I'll be doing the 9-to-5. Then I have a few more weeks off before going back full-time. We decided that both he and D would come with me. D will work a bit from there and we'll have a nanny the rest of the time, and it will be a trial run of being away from LM for the whole day. It's sort of an expensive thing to do, but I felt like flying three thousand miles away for an entire week would be far too much of a shock for us both. Also, it turns out all of D's siblings will be in the City that week (his parents live nearby) , so we'll be having a big family reunion too. (Weirdly, D's parents have not offered to help us out with taking care of LM during that time - but that's probably yet another post - add it to the list.)

I just feel so lucky and blessed that I had this year with him. In planning my career trajectory, I think that I'll only take six months the second time we have a child and D will take the balance of the time. And in my head, I feel like that will be easier for some reason, with that second child, that I won't have the same powerful physical need to be close to him. But I'm probably fooling myself and it will be just as hard to leave that baby.

I really wish there was some other way to do it - some way to go part-time or to put it off just a little longer. But I'm not willing to make the huge trade-offs that doing that would require, at least not now. I really want to get to the end of the road I started on four years ago when I started law school - for a whole variety of reasons. And yet I am completely fulfilled by what I do being home and would happily do it for several more years if my work world didn't stigmatise people who take multi-year breaks from it. I just wish I could have both - be at home full-time and work. Clearly there need to be more hours in the day.

Childcare and Running Triumphs

Thanks for all the daycare advice and wisdom. So to elaborate a bit more, a nanny share is basically hiring a nanny to look after your child and also the child of another family. Some people also talk about nanny sharing as in you'd have the nanny 1/2 the time, and the other family 1/2 the time, thereby providing full-time employment, but the way we want to do it is to actually have the nanny take care of both children. Hence the need to find another family with a child of similar-ish age, and preferably living nearby. Most of my mommy friends aren't that close by or aren't planning full-time work.

I haven't totally ruled out putting him in an unlicensed daycare situation (licensed day care being far too difficult to get into), but I feel like a nanny will provide us with more flexibility. Also, he's pretty used to being attended to by one person so I'm not sure how a daycare would deal with his peccadilloes - I can't imagine him napping easily for example. Perhaps I am underestimating him and he'd adjust just fine. But regardless, the cost is surprisingly comparable and it is far more convenient, so I'm leaning towards nanny-sharing. I'll probably go through an agency or referral service to hire the nanny, or else rely on word of mouth. The advantage to the agency scenario is they guarantee you someone who will remain with you at least a year and I know my friend who has hired via Craig's List seems to have a rapid rate of turnover - but I'm glad to hear that can be successful, and I won't rule it out. Unfortunately (but logically) most people looking for work want to be hired fairly immediately, so scarily this part of the arrangement will have to be a bit more last-minute.

In other news, I ran my first half-marathon this weekend. I didn't have an amazing time, but I was able to run the entire 22.1 kilometres (doing 10s and 1s, as is my practice) without any unscheduled breaks, despite some rather nasty hills near the end. It was a tough course, but it was a lot of fun. An hour and a half into I was still feeling great, loving the scenery and the camaraderie of the other racers. A wave of nausea and fatigue hit me near the end, but a carbo gel pack (disgusting tasting) got me through and I hit the finish line with D and LM cheering me on. LM wasn't literally cheering of course, but he did like the medal I got and promptly grabbed it from me to put in his mouth.

In conclusion, I leave you with a photo. I was trying to capture his two new teeth; he wouldn't cooperate by opening his mouth at the appropriate angle, so I didn't get them, but I did get the lashes. Are they not insane?

Day Care

Grrr - for some weird reason Blogger ate one of my posts. Or at least failed to publish it. Now I'm looking like the derelict, not-even-weekly blogger!

I'm starting to freak a little about childcare for LM. There don't really seem to be any daycares in my new area (although admittedly, I haven't looked very hard), and there are some downtown but they are crazy hard to get into (read: you need to put your bébé on that waitlist before the pregnancy pee stick dries). I don't see any real advantage in having a kid in daycare that's not where I live or work, so nanny sharing seems like a good option. Now I just need to find a family in my area who wants to share.

I guess I should just put an ad on Craig's List or something but that just seems like a sketch-o-rama way to find childcare. I mean the people I've advertised to before can't even be bothered to show up and pay for the $20 bookshelves they swore they wanted over the phone, and I'm going to ask them to help me figure out daycare? Blah.

Dilemma

When I got pregnant, one my big regrets regarding the timing was that it meant that I'd have to turn down my clerkship. It was a really tough decision, and I still sort of lament it. Yesterday I got a call from the courts - apparently two clerks have left, one for family reasons, one for reasons unspecified, and as a result they are scrambling. The position was offered to me - to start ASAP, full-time, 9 to 5.

And it was interesting, because my immediate reaction wasn't "No." At the time I turned it down, I could have asked to come back after six months. But I didn't. And yet, a part of me thought - wouldn't it be wonderful to be back in the working world, doing a really interesting job. And I guess the thing is, I wanted the clerkship so badly. It was the focus of my whole second year of law school. And then I got it, and didn't do it. And here it was being offered again, which is totally unheard of. It was like all the stars were telling me I need to clerk!

But after mulling it over for an afternoon, I have decided not to take it. It would mean finding last-minute childcare for LM, cancelling my two trips, delaying my start date at my firm. And it wouldn't bring in much more money - maybe a couple hundred dollars extra a month - because by the time I finish paying for childcare, what's left won't be much more than what the government pays me to be on my year of maternity leave.

I'm sure LM would survive, even thrive, without me. I'm sure I'd enjoy the work. But I think I'd also look longingly out the window on a sunny July day and think, I could be hanging out in the wading pool with my guy, I could be going to music class or working in my garden. Work will always be there. But I can't get back this time.

And part of it is just about having confidence in my original decision. I don't want to a big fancy New York lawyer, or a well-known litigator. Work is important to me, and I want to have a career I love, but I have to have faith that I can get to that place through less traditional means. I need to define my own success - not adopt the definition from some law firm hiring committee.

I'm Bored, Therefore I Blog

BLAHHHH! Another day of mat leave - another evening spent alone reading blogs and playing online Scrabble while baby sleeps. Not sure if this has come across yet in my other posts (hah), but I really hate the fact that my husband works SOOOOO many hours!

You know what would be amazing? If I were on mat leave but I worked one day a week at a trendy clothing store; or maybe two half-days. Just enough to have intrigue and drama to talk about (because the owners and customers of this mythical trendy store would be very intriguing) but still loads of time for baby sign language classes and pushing the stroller in the sunshine while sipping a (dairy-free) frapo-mocha-tini. (I won't be insulted if that last sentence makes you throw up in your mouth a little - but I do love my baby sign.) Unfortunately childcare would cost me more than I could make in any trendy store, so that will remain a pipe dream. Imagine that - longing to work retail. Think of the discounts.

Anyway I may be off to bed since I am likely in for another long night - the wee man has bronchitis and his coughing wakes him often. And because he is thirsty or perhaps has a sore throat from the cough, he decides to wake me. I took him in last week but the random doctor at the walk-in clinic said "Oh, it's a cold." Um, yeah, I figured, but the kid coughed so hard he barfed and the nurse's line told me to bring him in. Sadly the walk-in doctor didn't spend enough time with us for me to express those concerns. After a quick once over with a cold stethoscope that made him cry, she just said "Steam him in the shower and feed him more often." The nurse's line made the exact same suggestions so I was super-happy to have bundled him up, driven to the clinic and waited in a room full of people much sicker than us. It's not that I wanted drugs - far from it - but another 30 seconds of reassurance and maybe some suggestions of what to watch for would have been nice. The clinic was not so busy that she couldn't have given that to a worried first-time mum.

And doesn't the "feed them more" advice seem silly? It assumes you don't demand feed - because if you're demand feeding you can't really feed them more since they eat whenever they're hungry. And since most doctors advocate demand feeding (at least that's the advice given to most of my IRL friends and chatroom buddies) shouldn't it be the baseline of normal? The advice should be "continue to demand feed." Which is what our family doctor said today at our four-month visit. (Yay!) She also diagnosed the bronchitis and spent a few minutes giving me advice on what to do and answering my questions. Now just hoping he recovers fast.

In other news - is this not the face of an angel? Don't you want to bury your face in that double chin?

Office Talk

Well after a very brief weekend away, a weekend spent lazing by a pool and sleeping tons, I am back at work. I am actually quite enjoying being there, which is good. I wasn't sure how I'd feel going back. Also, I wasn't sure what the reaction would be to me given that I am there for such a short time. But I have been busy and as long as I am busy I am happy.

It's definitely nice to have summered there and to be familiar with it. It all comes back quickly - the protocols on PDFing documents, the various software tools, the network bugaboos, the office personalities. It feels very familiar walking around there, as I guess it should. But it really feels like I never left. It's nice to know that I enjoy it even being so preoccupied with baby, because hopefully it means that when I go back in a year (and am doubtless even MORE preoccupied with baby) it will go well.

In my rare non-busy moments I am researching daycares and realising that we have to put ourselves on some waitlists; I keep saying that but never seem to get it done. We even have to pay non-refundable deposits for the privilege of being on such waitlists. The childcare system in this city is absolutely, horrifically brutal. We may end up paying for a nanny, which means that I will essentially be working for the sake of itself, with very little left to take home. Oh well, we shall manage. D just got a raise, so that should cover, oh 8 weeks of daycare. I will think positively and visualise us getting good childcare.

Speaking of which, I have found that visualisation/positive thinking is actually a really cool tool. I've been scanning "The Secret" lately, although it is totally not my kind of book. The other day I accidentally broke the stem of my orchid (they take forever to grow back), but I just believed it would heal - and oddly, it has! I've been trying it in other contexts too, and more often than not, if I really believe it, it does happen. Anyway, that's my new age thought of the day. Back to regular programming.

Bar Exams

Phew... done.

Money Matters

Okay, feeling a little less panicked. Not going sailing was the right decision. I am now only one exam away from being done.

In non-bar exam news, having a baby has made us get really serious about finances, and budgeting for absolutely everything. I've got a spreadsheet budgeting for absolutely every baby related purchase - even breast pads and diaper bags. I'm still trying to justify to D that we need the organic crib mattress. I have a cousin who died of SIDS, and that makes me a wee bit anxious about all the risk factors, though I have decided that the crazy SIDS monitors are not really useful and are probably just stress-inducing.

Anyway, in an effort to be financially responsible, I was just going over our mortgage statements. The prime interest rate has gone up yet again. We have lived in our condo for two years, and pay roughly $1600 a month into our mortgage ($1636 after the new rate increase). We put down a 20% downpayment. Of the remaining debt, we have paid off only $12,000 of principal in 24 months - the rest (more than half) is all interest! Isn't that depressing?

Factoring in condo fees and the exorbitant heating at our old place, it only costs us about $100 more to live here than it did to rent, so it's still a better deal. And our place has appreciated by quite a bit. But it's still kind of sad to see how much we pay the bank to live here. And of course I haven't factored in all the costs associated with buying, which go into the thousands when you consider lawyer's fees, inspections, painting, buying the odd piece of new furniture, moving. Wow.

Anyhow, I better get back to criminal procedure. And crib mattress shopping.

Uh Oh

Okay, freaking out doesn't begin to explain it. I'm getting my head around Estate Law, sort of, but Corporate Tax and Secured Interests are still a gigantic mystery. I am starting to realise that failure IS an option. Holy crap.

Countdown

It is now T minus less than one week until the bar. I am officially FREAKING OUT!!!! I have a lot of material yet to read, and then do practice exams. We all have all these assignments to hand in and they give them to us throughout, which means that a lot of time and prep goes into them, when I'd really prefer to have been focussing on the exams a little earlier. Too bad I never got around to filling out that feedback form.

Also, a few optimistic weeks ago I booked myself for an afternoon of sailing tomorrow - was that a dumb idea? I may have to cancel that. Then again, if I have days and days of studying ahead, maybe a few hours outdoors is what I need to keep myself on track. Ha - I can justify anything.

I am starting to tire again quite easily, so I find I need to sleep until 8:30 or so - not conducive to a full day of studying.

Now I Work Down at the Car Wash, Where All It Ever Does Is Rain

Studying for the bar in the summer officially sucks. It is 500 degrees out and I am stuck inside with only a fan poring over some lame exercise on a Saturday evening. It's not really that complicated, but the marking scheme is nit-picky and a wee bit arbitrary so it's causing me undue stress.

I don't think I've ever had a summer where I've had to study. I spent most of my childhood and teenage ones outside at summer camps, canoeing and camping. Then I worked some "real" jobs, many of which involved sitting in a windowless office. But at least at 5 p.m. I was ready to go and be on terrace somewhere. Even last year when I summered, I was usually home by 7. So I have never had to spend a July Saturday at 11 p.m. sitting in front of my laptop. That doesn't mean I haven't ever done it - but I've never been required to do it. Hopefully, I will not have to do it again (though I realise that may be a tad unrealistic given my career choice). There was a radio show broadcast from my summer camp this afternoon and it filled me with nostalgia.

Thank goodness I will be done in August and will not be required to bring home the stress of work with me.

Anyway, in far more exciting news, Lag Liv is having her baby, four weeks early!!!

Childcare and so on

I'm calling it a him now - I've been convinced for much of this pregnancy that we are having a girl, as I just felt very female vibes. D has been equally convinced of its maleness. But recently I have started to feel a very male vibe from it, and D has started referring to us (er... me) as "his girls." Anyway, we shall see. I have resisted buying any pink until now, but now that it's a boy (er, that I think it's a boy) I want to buy some pink to be truly egalitarian.

I've had friends ask me what we plan to do for childcare. The answer is - we have no idea. It is over a year away after all. But we do need to get on waitlists as daycare availability is abysmal here - waitlists are routinely a year or longer and people often register for waitlists right after conception!

All the lawyers I know have nannies - they say the hours are just too unpredictable for daycare. A couple of people have recommended that live-in help would be the way to go. When a partner at my firm suggested it, I almost said - you do remember what you pay me right? We live in a tiny apartment and are making a den into a nursery. We live in a town where half a million won't buy you a house within the city limits. Would the nanny live in our linen closet?

D and I combined make a great income that puts us statistically well above average. But my first year law salary, while completely respectable, is actually 50% less than I was making three years ago. After taxes, it would cover a nanny or a bigger place, but not both. If we do go the nanny route for my first year of work, we'll likely have less disposable income than when I'm on maternity leave. At least on mat leave I'll get EI and the EI will be more than the difference between what I'll make first year and what a nanny costs. I am excited about the career path I've chosen and all, but part of my desire to work does involve making some money at it.

It's all pretty sobering and makes you realise why women are so limited in non-conventional career choices. Anything where there may be extra or unpredictable hours involve a lot of expensive childcare options. While I know D will do his share, he works long hours as well. I hope we can both work something out so that we are both able to be more flexible and I'm really lucky to have a guy who's very dedicated to being 50/50. But I know that usually the one who ends up cutting back on hours and pay is the mother - and I can understand why that happens. He already makes so much more than I don't see myself catching up for at least 5 years. It's the reason we aren't splitting the parental leave 50/50 this time - we couldn't survive on what I'd make.

If I find it this hard, in one of the high-paying firms in a very lucrative profession, just imagine how hard it is for most women.

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.

Mysteries

All I can say, is that it's a really good thing I don't work full time these days. I do work a full day once a week - and it's brutal. I fell asleep there today - could barely keep my eyes open so I closed the door and laid my head on a big binder on my desk for a wee rest. My own snoring woke me up 20 minutes later. It's a very good thing there are no windows in my office.

I am someone who needs a lot of sleep at the best of times, but that really does take the cake.

We had our ultrasound yesterday and it was amazing. We kind of went back and forth on doing it at all, as many studies I've read said there are no real differences in outcomes when people have routine ultrasounds, or just when the doctor orders them for cause. But my midwife said that knowing about the heart, position of the placenta etc. might change what whether we did a home birth or not, so we went for it. I'm really glad that we did because it was really moving - I was tearing up the whole time to see those little hands and little feet and a big old head, and the thing just wiggling around in there.

Also, we had it done at the local women's hospital here, and they were truly lovely. They let D come in and watch the whole time, unlike at the private clinic where I've gone before. And also, they had a big TV monitor up so we could see everything and ask all kinds of questions.

We did not find out the sex; we didn't want to anyway, but the hospital also has a policy of not telling you until 24 weeks as that is the guideline of the College of Physicians here. Seems a bit patriarchal to me that they won't tell you about your own body, but apparently they believe there are sex-selected abortions. So I'm torn on how I feel about that since obviously that's a good reason not to tell - but I suspect those who really want to know just go elsewhere.

Anyway, we told the tech we didn't want to know, and she said if we didn't we should close our eyes at one point. I kept looking though, and I thought I saw boy parts (that is what D is sure we are having), but then again, I also thought that its abdomen was its head at one point. I suspect what I saw was actually the umbilical cord. For my untrained eyes, it was really hard to tell what much was without it being pointed out, other than the really obvious stuff, like hands when you could see all the wee bones in them. I admit I have looked at some ultrasound photos on pregnancy.com that say "I'm a boy!" or "I'm a girl" indicating that the photo is a picture of the requisite parts - but those were totally undiscernable to me as anything even human. So a mystery it remains, quite happily.

Pangs

I just called and turned down the clerkship. I told them I was pregnant. I am having some serious pangs. Part of it is just, what if I've turned down this amazing opportunity and something goes wrong between now and then? But all things happen for a reason, right? I am not meant to take it. Must remind myself that.

I have been having serious heart palpitations lately. Apparently it's a preggo thing, but my midwife seemed a bit concerned when I told her my pulse literally stopped for a second or two. "It's probably normal, but you might want to see your G.P., since it is your heart." My G.P. was very understanding and nice and told me that progesterone is an arrhythmic agent. good thing I'd done some Googling beforehand because I actually understood what that meant. I had some bloodwork to check thyroid and hemoglobin just in case; oh and I got an echocardiogram, "just as a baseline." But she assured me I was not about to drop dead of a heart attack, which is always nice to know. Since I got no call, I guess I'm all good.