KidKate

Again.

I thought I was pregnant. Again.

You see, in spite of exclusive breastfeeding, a week after this, my period returned. With gusto. Followed by spotting two weeks later, followed by ... nothing on its second expected due date. I am currently three weeks late and counting.

For those keeping track, that would put the new baby's due date at a day past Ellie's birthday. I guess for some people this would be a dream come true, but for me, not so much. I am one of those people who have always fervently believed in careful child spacing--not so much for the children (there are of course, advantages to doing it both ways) but for the sake of the parents. The mother, to be precise, who has to carry the second child while caring for the first and then, oh yeah, two babies at once. Two babies who are not twins but are hitting milestones at different times.

So far, I have had four negative pregnancy tests, a lot of light cramping and some ominous twitchiness in my uterus, which Yan feels is entirely in my head but I'm quite certain is not. (Is it telling that I find myself hoping it is some sort of benign cyst rather than a little embryo?) I went to the doctor on Friday to discuss birth control options, where I also got the result of my fourth negative pregnancy test. (I'd hoped they'd give me a blood test to get more accurate results but instead it was just an old fashioned pee cup. She told me not to have sex for two weeks and come back to have the IUD put in.)

I suppose that at this point I can be reasonably assured that I am not pregnant but damn, was that ever scary. Especially when I spent three days nauseas and vomiting from the stomach flu. Thank God it was just the stomach flu.

As I told Yan, a surprise first baby is fine, but a surprise second baby? Not so much.

Resolution ... or not

We decided to take the plunge, pay cut and all.

After spending our first anniversary weekend mulling it over, we agreed to do it. The funny thing is that I was actually leaning toward not going (I know!) but not telling Yan for fear that he'd take it as my final decision, while he was secretly leaning toward going but not revealing it to me for the same reason. A first anniversary lesson, if you will.

Feeling once again at peace with the situation, I emailed my contact in London last Monday night. But life is never easy, is it?

I was a little bit concerned when, knowing she'd be out of the office Wednesday through Friday, she didn't respond. (I was also a little concerned when she didn't open the email until after 1 pm her time, even though I had sent it the night before.) And I became all the more concerned last week when the managing director of another office entirely called to ask whether I'd be interested in a job there.

I would be interested in a job in London, yes, and hell, I'll even take a 20% pay cut to be there, but I'm just not sure that changing careers all together would be a good idea. I've talked to a few people in my office, and it seems that taking this job might make it difficult to return to my field--at least in the same position--once we're back in the US.

I know that this is a good problem to have, really I do, but part of me feels like I need permission to turn it down if the circumstances aren't right. I've only just arrived at this place in my career that I've been working toward for a long time, and I'm not sure I'm ready to give that up.

At this point, it's been almost a week and I still haven't heard from my contact in London. I finally asked the HR person I've been working with in my office to reach out to her, and she agreed. And I've got another person who's agreed to call and put it in a good word for me.

I feel lucky that people are willing to reach out for me (and wish I'd thought to ask sooner) and happy that my supportive husband doesn't want me to take a job that's not right for me, but at this point part of me just wants to stay home and try to make babies.

Wow. Never thought I'd arrive there.

Either/Or

As we await word on whether I'll be able to transfer to London with my job, we've reached some conclusions about our future.

One, if I don't get the transfer, we won't go. If I get the transfer and it's a pay cut, then we'll talk.

Two, we will postpone baby plans indefinitely if we move to London. We've tentatively agreed to wait six months (that'll give us enough time to get settled and retrieve the dogs from Houston), but we'll reassess when we hit that mark.

Three, if we don't move to London, we'll stay here and commence trying to make a baby.

Frankly, if I were making these decisions in a vacuum, I'd move to London, look for a job, and all the while try to make a baby. But I have Yan's mental health to consider, and so this is the plan I proposed this weekend after I found him in a veritable puddle on the floor Friday night.  He kept saying, "You want to move to London, and you want to have a baby--and if we have a baby we have to buy a house--and we'll be away from the dogs for six months, and and and..."

I should hear from London by the end of the week. And I'm happy to say that I would honestly be happy with either of those outcomes.

The Catch

So I mentioned in my last post that Yan got the offer from London. At first glance, it appeared to be a pay cut, but after we got the final quote from HR that included a housing allowance and cost of living adjustment, we just about break even. So that's good news.

The catch is two-fold. One, Yan would still like me to secure a job before he officially says yes to the offer (he has been in touch with the London bureau chief daily and has kept him apprised of our situation), which on the surface is fine; I spoke with my boss yesterday and she was sad but supportive and gave me the name of the person in HR to speak with about transferring to our London office. If that happens, great, but if London doesn't need anybody at the moment, well, it could become complicated. I doubt I could secure a new job before Yan needs to accept the offer and set a starting date.

The other headache is getting our dogs there. While the UK has recently lifted its mandatory six-month quarantine, it has replaced it with a mandatory six-month waiting period following a negative rabies test at an EU-approved laboratory. No exceptions. We've contacted the government agency that makes the rules, asked our veterinarian, posted queries on the Urban Hound message boards, and spoken with other expats living in London with dogs, and despite the fact that our dogs have always been vaccinated against rabies and never missed a shot, they must either stay behind in the US for six months or enter into quarantine for six months. At first glance this appeared to be a deal breaker--giving up the dogs is simply not an option for us, and Yan said the job in London wasn't worth breaking up his family, even if only for six months--but after a fair amount of sweet talking both Yan and my parents (my parents have three cats; Simon eats cats), pending my transfer, the dogs are set to go live with them in Houston for six months. Yay!

Oh, and sadly (for me, anyway), the Ovulation Arsenal will have to be returned to the medicine cabinet, at least until we figure out which country our future child might be born in.

.

UPDATE: I began this post on Tuesday, and after much ado was finally able to speak with the proper person in the London office of my company on Friday. She was quite helpful and enthusiastic, so I am updating and getting ready to email my resume to her as we speak. I am feeling cautiously optimistic. Funnily, I've been telling people that our odds of moving to London are about 75/25 in London's favor; Yan (a natural pessimist) has been saying 10/90. We'll see who wins this particular bet.

Ovulation Arsenal

10 days till ovulation…

1 five-day ovulation predictor kit

3 early answer home pregnancy tests

3 regular home pregnancy tests

6 applicators of Pre*Seed

0 answers about London.

The London Conundrum

...is ongoing. We are in limbo until Yan gets an offer--at which point, we may have to jump into high gear to start making arrangements to get out of here. Meanwhile, New York is doing its damndest to talk Yan out of heading overseas with increasingly tempting offers and words of warning about taking the lower profile position in London. How's a girl to compete? Though truth be told, as time wears on I am starting to get cold feet myself.

Meantime, after taking a (mental) break from the business of baby-making, my period was late last month. As the CFA exam closed in on us, and still without an offer from London, this didn't do much to put Yan's mind at ease. It finally arrived on Day 31, but not soon enough to resist the reawakening of Baby Fever. We agreed after we got married last year to start trying this June, though as we neared our deadline, I tried to sneak in a few bonus rounds with little success. I guess "Honey, I'm ovulating!" doesn't do it for Yan any more than it does for MetroDad. Go figure.

In any case, Yan took the exam on Saturday and feels it went about as well as the others, which he passed, and I am overjoyed to have my husband back (even if he does mostly just want to snooze on the couch in front of a baseball game. Any baseball game, ahem). He has agreed to stick with the June date, which means that his protests of, "But I'm tired!" will have to cease, as least during those (hopefully) fruitful six days. I honestly can't believe that I'm at this place (see: "Honey, I'm ovulating!" above), but I have always been a planner and it just seems like paying attention and doing it right the first time (or tenth or twelfth or thirtieth time) is probably the best way to proceed. Grudgingly, Yan seems to agree.

And with that, we're off to the races.

.

PS: There is something sort of shrill sounding about this post that I don't love and didn't intend, but after working on it for about an hour with work stuff hanging over my head, I think it's time to retire it.

Should we stay or should we go?

We heard this week that London has been given permission to hire Yan. There was some debate about this because in the wake of rising costs, the bureaus prefer to hire locally where they can keep expenses down. However, the bureau chief in London asked Yan to write a proposal outlining his qualifications and experience, and after much ado, has told Yan that an offer is forthcoming.

But wait--there's a catch.

New York wants to keep him. My husband, who I already knew to be incredibly hardworking and talented, is being offered one of the most coveted jobs at his paper. A job where people go on to write books and win Pulitzers. A job that could make his career as a journalist. A job--well, a job that's the shit. That's the upside, and it's big.

The downside is that this would be an incredibly stressful position, and Yan, being prone to stress--well, I'm just not sure he could take anymore. Between his current job, studying for his exam in June, and all the other extras he's currently involved with, he works around 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Granted, the hours will decrease a bit after June 3, when he takes the last of the 3 exams required to get his CFA designation, but even without studying he generally puts in 6 days a week. We were hoping to start trying for a kid after he passes his last exam and I get promoted (with any luck) this summer, but I just don't think it'd be a good idea to either get pregnant or have a baby with him working those kinds of hours. (For one, thing who would fetch my ice cream?)

The good news is that Yan is not married to staying in New York. He knows how stressful the new position would be on our marriage and (future) family, and he's not sure how long he wants to continue to be a reporter anyway (hence the CFA). But he also has doubts about leaving our life behind to take a less-prestigious position in London.

London has many, many upsides, including the fact that I could probably easily get a job there, and it wouldn't be a bad place to start a family (an expensive place, yes, but I believe they have better maternity leave and vacation policies). It also might help to get us of the rut we seem to have fallen into both at home and in our jobs.

I think more will become clear in the coming days, once he has a chance to talk to some more people, and we find out whether the salary in London will be enough to live on. It really comes down to that classic conundrum: career versus family.

And we have only just begun.

.

PS: Yan took that picture near Big Ben when we were in London in March. Nice, eh?

Don't be lud-i-crous, it's my ut-er-us

The night before last I had a dream that my uterus fell out of my body. This must having something to do with the fact that my mom used to work for gynecologic oncologists, and after surgery some women would get prolapsed uteri and have to wear a doughnut to keep them from slipping out again.

Except that in my dream, my uterus came sliding right out of my body and completely detached. It was a red slippery thing and had several heavy cords coming out of it like electrical wiring. Also in my dream I was pregnant, and the detached uterus inexplicably did not threaten my pregnancy. However, as I held it in my hands to examine it close up, I thought, "This means I won't be able to have any more children," pondered that for a minute, thought, "Yep, I'm fine with that," and carefully placed the rejected uterus in the trash.

Weird.

Two things

Should ideally happen before I get pregnant:

• I get promoted
• Yan passes the CFA exam

Both are due this June. I think we are on track, as my generous supervisor has told me she's putting in a promotion for me, and Yan has thus far passed two out of three of the exams required to earn the CFA designation. After each of these events occur, we'll be in relatively good financial shape, as we'll both (eventually) command higher salaries and I'll be able to coast for a while in my current job without expecting to be promoted again for a couple of years.

The twist, of course, is that if one or both of these events doesn't happen for us, I'm not sure that I'll want to put off trying. I suppose that I read too many infertility blogs, which I've learned so much from, but I'd like to find out sooner rather than later if I can actually sustain a pregnancy (I know that I've been pregnant before, but that's no guarantee that I can carry a pregnancy to term). I figure finding out at 30 is that much better than finding out at 35. It's weird and not at all unusual, I'm sure, to feel personally ready but not quite professionally.

What's also weird is that I'm famous for jumping the gun and haven't yet. (When we got Mandy, we said we'd get a second dog after we'd moved into our new apartment, and then after we'd come back from vacation, but I couldn't wait. I found Mandy on PetFinder.com a few weeks before our vacation and then had a friend stay with her while she peed on the floor every single day.) I've gotten all checked out, I've gotten prenatal vitamins, I even bought a few classic Winnie the Pooh prints on Charing Cross Road while we were in London; in short, I've done everything but actually have unprotected sex. Yan seems to be leaving things up to me, then panicking a bit when we do have a pregnancy scare, but on the whole, I think he's tentatively on board. (Mari's husband Ed is the only man I know who actually seemed to want a baby more than his wife; when she unexpectedly got pregnant again only 9 months after their first son was born, Ed was all "YEAH!" and pumping his fist in the air while Mari has remained in shock practically up to her due date this April 7.)

There are a few other factors, which I'll go into later, including a possible semen allergy (lucky, lucky me!) and a move to London (which actually would be lucky).

In any case, that's it for now. If I had any readers, I'd ask whether anybody else felt this way before starting a family, but I suppose that would involve actually telling people other than Yan about this blog. So, for now, I'm left to my own devices. But if you're out there, post a comment--please!

Ha.

I've mentioned more than once (read: exhaustively) that I've gained about 15 pounds in the last six months. So concerned was I, in fact, that I made an appointment with my PCP to check my thyroid. While this is not as outrageous as it might sound--I do have hypothyroidism and haven't had my dose adjusted since I was diagnosed--it was wishful thinking. Alas, my thyroid is normal. My eating habits are excessive. Yan and I plan to join Weight Watchers when we return from Europe next month.

In other news, I recently started a rather nasty prenatal vitamin. I had no idea that something as innocuous as a vitamin could be so incredibly distasteful. It gives me bad breath, heart burn, and a general feeling of queasiness, though Mari assures me this is completely normal. She suggested that I take them at night with a little food, which seems to do the trick. Thank god, because if I had to continue taking those every morning followed by rocking back and forth at my desk in a sea of nausea, this whole baby business may have been off.