Since I’ve been feeling okayish lately, I allowed Holden to convince me to do some yoga in our family room the other morning.  I practiced yoga weekly when I was pregnant with Holden, starting at some point in the 2nd trimester.  I really felt that it helped me to relax, in addition to keeping my muscles and joints in good shape.  Well, the other morning I got about 15 minutes into my little yoga routine, and I became so winded and lightheaded that I had to stop or else I would have thrown up.  It’s crazy to me how much stamina I’ve lost since August when my exercise came to an abrupt halt due to all-day/all-night nausea.  I tried yoga again yesterday (at Holden’s insistence), and I got in 40 minutes of a pretty decent routine.  I was only mildly nauseous at certain points, but afterward I felt pretty good, and this feeling continued for the rest of the day.  I’m going to keep at it a few times each week, and one of these days I’ll actually start cashing in my passes for weekly prenatal yoga classes (it seems that so far, there is some sort of scheduling conflict every single week that prevents me from going).  All in good time, right?

Other than that—I’m just checking off the days till the end of the semester.  I only teach 5 more classes, then we have our final.  I grade almost every single day of the week just to stay on top of things, even on days when it’s just me and H.  I will grade for 15 or 20 minutes with H in my midst, just to get the pile down to a more reasonable level.  The class I am currently teaching is a brand-new prep for me (I’ve taught EIGHT different preps since 2006, if you can believe that).  Considering that it’s a new prep and it’s a class I’ve never even taken before, I feel like I am staying on top of the workload fairly well.   That said, the class isn’t especially interesting to me (it’s more squishy psychology than actual science), and a very large portion of my class was failing at midterm (about 1/3).  How could so many students fail?  Do I expect too much of them?  Well, the truth is that the failing students either never come to class and/or never turn in any assignments.  Their failure reflects a complete lack of effort on their part, rather than me being an unreasonable hardass.

My feelings about teaching have become increasingly negative over the last few years.  I never wanted to be a teacher.  I wanted to be a scientist.  But somehow, here I am, doing something that I never intended to do.  I liked teaching in the beginning.  I was excited about sharing interesting things with students.  I was excited about helping them learn all sorts of important skills.  I was excited to learn a few things along the way as well (in terms of both course content, as well as pedagogy).  But now….I’m greeted by such apathy each time I walk in the classroom.  My students don’t seem to care what they learn (or even, if they learn at all).  I try to get them to read.  They don’t.  I firmly demand they get off Facebook during class.  They do—but only for a few minutes.  I ask them to reflect on what they have read.  They ask “Can you give us a rubric?”

Gah.  My most recent Supremely Irritating Moment was following one of my classes earlier this semester.  I had passed along job information to my students, as I do from time to time, as a courtesy to them.  I think it’s important to help connect students to resources and potential contacts in the field, so they aren’t out at sea following graduation.  The job information I sent to them was from a local organization that connects workers (usually students) with families who need personalized assistance for their autistic child.  The contact from the organization was familiar to me, as I had arranged for her to come give a talk at our institution last year, when I was serving as the department chair.  A couple of my students pursued the job opportunity (yay!), and set up interviews directly with the families with whom they might potentially work.  Sounds good, right?  Well, of course, there was an issue with one of my students.  Or, I should say, there was an issue with the mother of one of my students.  When the mother found out that her daughter would be working with an autistic person, she FLIPPED OUT, and contacted the freaking college president, demanding that he intervene and save her daughter from what was certainly an unsafe and unsavory job.  What followed from that was a complete overreaction on the part of the college.  The Director of Counseling Services, Residence Life, etc., convened at my student’s dorm room at 7AM to tell her not to go into work because they agreed it seemed sketchy, and they wanted to make sure it was safe.  So of course, my student feels panicked and probably feels like she can’t trust the information I’ve given her.  At this point, the Dean calls me at home, demanding an explanation.  I told her that the position was legitimate, that I had personal contact with the representative of the organization, etc.  I told her I was only trying to help the students.  More phone calls were made, and basically the college determined what I already knew—that the position was safe.  The student’s mother continued to insist that her daughter not work in this position, even though her daughter is 19 and can legally make whatever work-related choices she wants.  In the end, the student gave a big “F U” to her mom, and pursued the job anyway.  I don’t know whether the student got the job.  I don’t really want to broach the subject with her.  I do feel that the officials at the college made some poor assumptions about the kind of work I do with my students, and that they were way out of line to assume that I’d just pass along any kind of job posting to my students, without first vetting it.  I felt like my employer took the mother’s uneducated side, and left me standing there alone, to defend myself.  It made me furious.  And it’s the last job opportunity I will ever send along to my students.  I don’t need this kind of bullshit for $3000/semester.

So this is absolutely, definitely the last time I teach.  I hate it (can’t you see why?) and it’s not getting me to where I ultimately want to be.  I’m not learning anything new, and I don’t even have the satisfaction of watching my students learn (because they aren’t putting in enough effort).  I’m tired of parents and administrators making student progress a problem of the teacher.  The teacher has a role, sure, but it’s not all on me.  No fucking way.  I’ve gotten as good with teaching as I’m ever going to get—I can run a discussion for 3 hours without Powerpoint, videos, or any other crutches.  I can talk about controversial subjects, like the evolutionary basis of rape, issues of race, gender, and class.  I can write learning outcomes that rock.  I can mediate any conflict under the sun that comes up in the classroom (and sometimes outside of it).  There’s nowhere to go from here.  I can’t get better at this.  It’s not that I’m the best teacher ever (I’m not), it’s just that I’ve reached my personal ceiling.

I have so many more thoughts on this—which is why I am up at 6AM pouring my heart out.  I’ve been grieving the loss of research in my life.  I know that sounds incredibly cheesy, but grief and loss are the best words for it.  I trained for so long to do something, and I can’t do it because the economy sucks, and no new jobs are being created, and the fucking baby boomer scientists won’t retire, and here I am, teaching the fuck-up children of those baby boomers.  I’ve never been to therapy in my adult life, although I do think I need to go to therapy for this—so I can move on and stop dwelling on the sense of loss I feel.  It’s not an opportune time for therapy, though.  I’m having a baby in 5  months, and I’d rather dwell on how awesome that is.  But I feel like it’s hard to think about the pregnancy right now.  When I was pregnant with Holden, I was overjoyed.  We had wanted to get pregnant for over a year, then I had a miscarriage, then I got pregnant with Holden.  By the time I was pregnant with Holden, I was very used to the idea of being pregnant (we’d been wanting/expecting it for a while, and we were stoked that it finally happened).  During that time, I was happy with my postdoc, and felt like I was getting good advising (I wasn’t).  But that’s besides the point—my perception was that I was in a good place.  During this pregnancy (which completely took us by surprise–more on that later), I feel like my professional life has unraveled in a way that is irreparable.  I know that’s probably not true, but that’s certainly how it feels.  I’m still waiting on hearing back about that second postdoc opportunity that I was informally offered back in August.  I’m starting to feel anxious about it, and I just want to know what the fuck is going to happen.  I’m starting to feel like it might not work out.  What can you do?

There’s nothing I can do.  I have no control over this situation.  And I hate that.  All I *can* do is practice some yoga a few times a week, take some deep breaths,  love my little guy, and pretend that everything will work out.  And if I have a girl, I will refuse to perpetuate the myth that having a career AND motherhood is possible.  Because it’s fucking not.

Things are chugging along over here.  One day I feel OK, the next I feel nauseous and exhausted again.  The nausea and sluggishness are definitely hanging around longer than I would like (and longer than I expected).  I’ve felt little flutters here and there that I am pretty sure are  baby movements.  The sensations aren’t really consistent yet, though.

We find out the sex pretty soon, which is crazy.  We didn’t find out Holden’s sex in advance, but this time we decided to try something different and find out.  Plus, I thought it would help me feel more bonded to this baby to know the sex, and that Holden would feel more connected to the new baby if he knows the sex ahead of time.  From a practical standpoint, it allows me to have enough time to sort through the millions of boxes of boy baby/toddler clothes that are taking up space in our guest bedroom.  This way, I’ll know whether I need to donate the clothes or simply sort through them to be used by us yet again.  Did I mention we have a million baby boy clothes?

I’ve begun the slow process of getting the baby’s room ready.  It’s going to take me forever.  The baby’s future room is our current office.  We’ve decided to move our office downstairs to share the room with the guest bedroom (the guest bedroom is actually the largest bedroom in the house and is big enough to house an entire bedroom set plus our treadmill, and whatever office stuff/desks/bookcases/books we move down there).  The baby’s room still has our office desks and miscellaneous paperwork sitting around, but I’ve already moved the majority of our books down to their new space in the guest room.  The baby’s room definitely needs to be painted, which is going to be a huge job because of the dark wood trim that needs to be tackled.  But luckily, it’s a tiny bedroom so painting the walls should be a quick job (after the initial prep of fixing all of the holes that the previous owners left behind).  Holden’s current dressers will be moved over into the new baby’s room.  We’ve treated Holden to a brand new dresser, which was a huge splurge, and probably one of the most expensive pieces of furniture we’ve bought to date.  It’s a nice piece, so he’s stuck with it through young adulthood!  We’re still waiting for it to be delivered, so hopefully it will get here before Christmas and will “count” as one of his Christmas presents.  We’re trying to go “light” this Christmas since I won’t be teaching in the spring and won’t have that extra income coming in—not to mention the miscellaneous added expenses that come along with having a baby.  And other random expenses seem to keep cropping up all at once—for example, we need to buy ourselves a new mattress, and probably also a new bed frame.  We got our bed frame used when we first got married 10 years ago….that’s also when we bought our mattress.  Our mattress hasn’t been as comfortable lately, and the bed frame squeaks loudly ever time we shift in bed ever so slightly.  So that is annoying.  The bed came apart completely at one point several years ago, but we managed to re-secure it with a number of nails.  I think the time has finally come to buy a replacement, though.  We had kicked around the idea of a king size bed since we’ll have a nursing newborn soon, but I don’t know that our little bedroom can handle a bed of that size.  So we’ll have to see.  Either way, the mattress for sure needs to be replaced.  True confession—my water broke on our mattress when I went into labor with Holden.  So yeah—it probably should have been replaced a while ago:)

Holden has been enjoying Halloween-related activities and school field trips to apple orchards and pumpkin patches.  He is getting increasingly articulate, is obsessed with random dinosaur trivia, and is so so so excited to be a big brother.  I love that he will be nearly 4 years older than his sibling—he totally and completely “gets” the idea of being a big brother.  I can’t wait for him to meet his little brother or sister.

Last week was the first time we took H to a midwife appointment.  He was so excited to be a part of it, and was especially psyched to use the doppler!  I’m up 5 lbs. finally (I can eat again, hooray!), and we’ve scheduled our anatomy scan for November.  We didn’t find out the sex when I was pregnant with H, but we *are* going to find out the sex this time.  So only a few more weeks until we know!  It’s crazy!

I haven’t hit the 2nd trimester energy boost yet, even though I’m close to 16 weeks.  I’m still feeling a bit sluggish, and the queasiness does rear its head sometimes (although it’s really, really manageable at this point).  I remember feeling pretty awesome at this point in my pregnancy with Holden, so this has been pretty different.  I just paid for a bunch of prenatal yoga classes, and I had been planning to take my first one this Sunday, but I ended up having a crazy week and now I won’t be able to go.  Holden goes to school on Tuesday and Thursday, and I usually use those days for grading and class prep.  Well, I had jury draw on Tuesday (cool, but I got no work done).  On Thursday, I went to drop H off at school, only to find that they were closed for in-service.  So I lost Thursday as well.  I’ve accomplished about 2/3 of my grading so far (somehow, with H in my midst), but have to finish the final bit tomorrow (Saturday) because midterm grades are due to the Registrar by midnight.  THEN, I can actually begin prepping my 3-hour Monday night class.  So yeah, no yoga for me.  Have I mentioned that I hate my job???

But you know who I love?  I love my Holden. And I love Rob.  And I will love this baby sometime soon (I’m one of those people who doesn’t feel the love until the baby is born, weird, I know).  I love my little family so much.  I think they are the greatest bunch of people I could ever share my life with, and I feel so super lucky for that.  Yoga or no yoga, crappy job or no crappy job, I have my little family to hug and kiss at the end of the day, and I think that is pretty darn great.

Here’s my big update post.  I was pregnant half the summer and didn’t even know it.

Let me explain.

In July, R and I went on our wonderful 10-year anniversary trip.  Apparently, I got pregnant on that trip, but didn’t realize it until a bit later.  Quite a bit later.  At the end of July, I had what I believed to be my period (it wasn’t).  We hiked Camel’s Hump on my birthday (yes, I was pregnant and hiked an over 4,000-ft. mountain).  At the beginning of August, I heard through a friend about a potential postdoc position in Psychiatry at the university.  “Awesome,!” I thought.  I can get back into research.  I had a series of interviews (with the principal investigator, and later with her research staff).  Long story short, she wants to hire me, but EEOC regulations may prevent her from doing so.  They have to do a national search (which takes time), and hope that the affirmative action office is satisfied with me from the diversity perspective.  So, I wouldn’t be able to start the new job for a few months, *if* I get hired.  Fine.  I am already working part-time, so no problem.  After I wrap up my job interviews, (this is now a couple of weeks after hiking Camel’s Hump), we head to Storyland.  We had a wonderful little vacation, where I had a beer one night with dinner, and went on all sorts of rides with H.  I would have been around 6 weeks pregnant at that point.  A week after that, we got ready to embark on a camping trip.  The morning of our camping trip, Holden had a 101.1 degree fever, and I was starting to feel kind of queasy.  I assumed I was maybe coming down with whatever H had, or maybe I was feeling a little stressed over my uncertain employment outlook.  We did go camping and had a great time.  We hiked Mt. Elmore (5 miles round trip).  I was so tired afterwards, but figured it was just because of whatever mild stomach bug I had.  When we returned from our camping trip, I still felt sick.  And of top of that, coffee was beginning to taste weird to me.  This has only happened one other time in my life, and I pretty much knew at that moment that I had to take a pregnancy test.  I took the test, and it was positive.  This was towards the end of August.  I assumed that I was just shy of 4 weeks pregnant.  What ensued was nearly 7 weeks of pretty horrific morning (all-day sickness), that slightly eclipsed the severity of the sickness I experienced when pregnant with Holden.  I went to my first midwife appointment in mid-September.  The midwife did her exam and told me that I seemed “more pregnant” than the 7 weeks that I was supposed to be at the time of the exam.  She scheduled me for a dating ultrasound for the following week, where I found out that I was actually TWELVE weeks pregnant, and due in early April.  Holy shit.  So all of a sudden, I had to process not only that I was pregnant, but that I was much more pregnant than I had thought.  Many things started to swirl around my head.  Good:  morning sickness is almost over.  Bad:  WHAT?  Good:  My new April due date is sooner than my previous May due date.  Bad:  April is sooner than May.

I started to feel guilty that I didn’t even realize I was pregnant for so long.  How could I have been so stupid?  How could I have missed the signs?  I also had to go back to the woman I interviewed with, and tell her that I was pregnant, and talk about how we were going to deal with that.  She was surprisingly supportive, and offered me part-time work from my date of hire (which is still not established) until the baby gets here.  After that, I can take as much leave as I want, and then return at either part-time or full-time status.  Wow.  I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome from such a weird situation.

I am now 14 weeks and I am just starting to feel a little better.  I can finally eat again, although I still have super queasy moments.  I didn’t gain any weight during the 1st trimester, but I didn’t lose any weight either, which is a minor miracle considering my eating habits (or lack thereof).  My parents just flew up this weekend for a visit, and I finally shared the news with them.  We had Holden tell them that he is going to be a big brother.  They were very surprised!  Holden is excited to be a big brother.  He talks a lot about things that he wants to teach the baby, and he is already setting aside “baby toys” that he wants the baby to have.  One such baby toy is his prized yellow school bus, which was nearly attached to him at all times from about 18 months of age to 24 months or so.  He was very casual about it when picking it up and explaining, “Mommy, this bus is a baby toy, so I think we should give it to your baby.”  Sniff.  That was his favorite toy.  Now he has moved on.

I’ve had a lot of weird thoughts about this pregnancy.  I worry sometimes about loving another baby as much as I could love H.  I don’t think this feeling is too unusual.  But what I do think is unusual is the fact that I am kind of mourning the loss of our close-knit threesome.  Our family is going to change, and that is kind of scary, because I think we work so well together.  My image of Holden for a long time has been as an only child.  I think of him as my one little guy, and now he will have someone else to share his life with.  That idea is going to take some getting used to.  I don’t think I’ll absorb that concept fully until the new baby is here.

As for why I can never hike Mt. Elmore again……I hiked Mt. Elmore for the first time, on the morning that I found out I was pregnant with Holden, October 6, 2007.  I hiked Mt. Elmore the 2nd time, when I was already pregnant with this second baby, but did not know it.  I found out just a couple of days after vacating our campsite that our family was on its way to changing forever.

I have so many thoughts and emotions around all of this, and I get to document it all again, right here.  Won’t you join me?

Holden started preschool at the beginning of September.  He LOVES it.  He is only there two days each week, but having that structure has really helped his behavior for the other days of the week when he is with me.  He’s been better at playing independently, he doesn’t seem to get frustrated as easily, and he doesn’t seem to push my buttons on purpose quite as much.  He is learning a lot at school and seems to be well-liked by his peers.  His class took a field trip to the apple orchard last week and they got to see how apple cider is made.  They took the apples they picked back to their school where they made apple crisp.  Yum.  I don’t think I’d mind being a student at his school!  Here are his pictures from his first day of preschool:

And of course, the picture he will hate us for when he’s older:

I have some big updates to make to the blog—expect a big update post next week when (hopefully) I have time!