Tick…Tock….
In just a few hours I’ll be done with the job that could have been my dream job but was really just a huge pain in the neck. My desk is packed up. My tasks are completed (aside from the newsletter which I’ve agreed to do on a freelance basis).
Over the past 15 years or so, I’ve come to believe that things happen for a reason. Taking this job got hubby out the big, bad city, for instance. Had I gone to my then-boss and aske to telecommute she would have said “no” without a thought. However, my 9 months away have changed her mind. We’ve gotten exactly what I would have asked her for in the first place had I thought there was a chance that it would come to pass.
Although there were a lot of red flags apparently, I HAD to take this job, had to try it our or I’d have always wondered. The job I’m going back to is interesting and has a lot of perks but I wouldn’t say that it fulfills my soul. Leaving my current job though, will allow me to go back to my freelance work which DOES fulfill me that way.
I have no second thoughts about this move and for me that’s saying something.
As my reward to myself for the past two years which have included: too many IUIs to count, an IVF which saw us moving cross-country during the TWW, a 10-week miscarriage and at least 3 chemical pregnancies, not to mention this job and all of the associated stress, I’m going to NYC tomorrow. I need the freedom of taking subways and readily available (and relatively cheap) cabs. I need to overload on music and theatre and chinese food. I need to see PeeSticksandStones in her very pregnant state and really come to terms with it face-to-face. Of course I’m deliriously happy for her. I wouldn’t take this away from her for anything in the world. I just want it too. And I have faith that our time will come, although in a different way.
Most of all though, I need to feel the sense of freedom and exhileration that NYC always makes me feel. I need to spend time with friends who know me so well that I never have to mince words. I need to remind myself that I’m once again gainfully employed and while we are working to pay off the IF debt among other things and while adoption will bring it’s own costs, we have a workable plan to do that. And I need to go back to being the relatively unguarded person that I’ve always been. Being here, in a work situation that has put me constantly on the defensive and in a less-than-stellar place physically (mostly due to the side effects of various aspects of IF treatments), with casual friends rather than the type I’m used to surrounding myself with, has built up walls that I need to tear down.
When I get back from my trip, I’m going to attempt to rebuild my half of our office into something that I can work in full-time. I’m going to rebuild this blog so that it displays the hope that I have in my heart. I’m going to get my body sorted out. I’m going to work at tearing down the walls. At FEELING again. I miss me.
But first, I have three more hours to get through……
Crossroads
These periods of waiting for things to change don’t offer up a lot to write about. Which makes me think of a quotet one of my favorite shows of all time: Crusade.
Dureena: My people are taught to avoid cross roads, also beaches, cliffs, pits, caverns, and wells.
Eilerson: Where do you go on vacation? Another part of the room?
Rimshot.
Anyhow…..I find that I’m both excited to be coming up to a cross road and a little bit tired of coming to cross roads, while still knowing that life is filled with them and that I seem to come across more than my share.
I have three days left at my current job. These past two weeks have made me 100% sure that I’m doing the right thing. While I personally like just about everyone I work with, I don’t like working with them. Or…perhaps I would in a different company but not this one. I’m fairly certain that I’ll maintain at least a casual friendship with a few co-workers though. But nothing like the co-workers I had/have at the company I’m returning to.
In four days I go to NYC for a few days. It is less a vacation and more a filling my soul trip. I thirst for NYC if that makes any sense. I will indulge in chinese food and friends and music and will come back exhausted but, I think, refilled.
Then I have a few days to try to turn my half of our office into something useful for actually getting work done instead of just surfing the net, answering emails and working out in.
It’s possible that I’ll also be doing a small bit of freelancing for my current company. With everything going on, I can’t turn my back on the potential income but I’m waiting for them to actually decide what they can pay me before I commit to anything.
I’m looking forward to getting back to a structured, logical work-life. And to being able to tend to our home and animals (and myself!) properly instead of just getting home at 6.30 to make dinner and fall asleep on the couch.
On the heels of my May 4 starting date comes the opening of the floodgates though. Our meeting with our social worker, our medicals, a 24-hour trip back to NYC for me for a meeting, two big name concerts. It will be time to really dig in and start making my life what I want it to be. Of making myself who I want to be.
Forks in the roads are tricky but they also offer opportunities for triumph and success.
Kill Fee
Having ten days left at my current job means that I’m filling my time with (1) typin up lose ends (2) writing manuals in case they ever sort of who will be taking over various parts of my duties, and (3) getting ready for my new job and generally surfing the web.
As I sat down today to set up the online payments for my credit cards, I got a shock. I saw an amount, just under $2K with my old clinic listed as the merchant. I hyperventalated for a second before picking up the phone to call the clinic. As I choked out that I hadn’t seen Dr. Celebrity for almost a year and the billing person was pulling up the record, I noticed something odd. The amount was in the wrong column. It was a refund. From our IVF cycle.
The way the grant worked was that you paid a set fee. The grant paid everything else. The fees were then submitted to the insurance company and anything they covered was refunded AFTER the entire group’s (multiple patients thrown onto a spreadsheet so that the clinic can manage the billing all at once) cycles had ended. When I got a check from them for $43 last fall, I figured that was it. But I was wrong. I don’t know how many people were in the group but obviously, at least one person had a successful cycle and had a baby last month. It wasn’t us.
The refund we just got (unfortunately refunded back to the credit card instead of refunded as a check) amounts to just over 1/3 of our fee. I’m happy to have it. It will allow us to buy a grill or talk in more concrete terms about a vacation we want to take next year, or just take some financial pressure off. And in reality, we would have received the discount whether we’d gotten pregnant or not. But it still feels a little bit like a “kill fee” you get when you’re hired to write something and the editor either doesn’t like it or cancels the project. It thanks you for your time but tells you that you failed.
I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. It was a very nice surprise on a Monday morning. And I’m otherwise quite happy at the moment. But still…..
Things to Ponder
Since I learned so much from the various blogs and boards I followed when undergoing infertility treatments, I’m not about to forget to utilize these tools to learn about the adoption process. The only slight difference is that you never saw Dr. Celebrity or Dr. Ambitious popping into a forum to share their thoughts. Many of the adoption boards DO have employees of the adoption agencies as members. While I’m not really sure how I feel about that, it can be helpful. And, at times, thought-provoking.
Yesterday, the coordinator of one of the agencies we’re considering posted that her agency had received a referral from Bulgaria for a 10 year-old girl. Because of the child’s age, the referral was MUCH quicker than normal and the coordinator also made an interesting comment about how, in Bulgaria, the kids are taught to look forward to adoption – they’re told that if they wait, their forever families will find them.
On one hand, I love the idea that the kids are anticipating their adoptions – that they’re taught that this is a positive change and something to be desired. On the other hand, what must a child think as they’re waiting and waiting and waiting?
I love the idea of adopting an older child. If circumstances were different, I’d consider adopting two kids, one perhaps older than the other. But if we have one chance at a child……well, by requesting a child around the age of 3 we’re already missing out on the joys of babyhood – all the experiences we wanted to have and share. We’re going to miss out on the chance to make a child feel loved and secure from infanthood. We’re going to have to make up for lost time. We’ve missed out on so much already. I don’t want to miss out on more.
Things That Go Bump in the Night
First off thanks to all for the support on the job front. Yeah, I know it will be great for me and that I’m not taking the easy way out. I’m escaping a bad situation that some of my co-workers are too inexperienced to realize is as bad as it is. 14 days to go and I can’t get a straight answer on who I can train to run our ecommerce site – you know, the thing that makes us money? Anyhow….
I rarely remember my dreams. Over the past two months however, I seem to remember a lot of them. I don’t know why (can this be linked to whatever has caused me to now go 7 weeks without a period?) and I don’t know why the dreams are different from the ones I usually DO remember; the ones where I’m being chased (bad), or falling off a wall (good actually – not a death-fall and very nice freefall) or even sitting and talking to hubby or friends or family (which is the type of excitement that populates most of my dreams.
Last night I had a dream in which two things happened: (1) I found out that my recent foray into hennaing my hair turned it white-blond in the back (my hair is dark brown with red overtones) and no one told me and (2) I found out that I was pregnant. I went through my dream being amazed and just more than a little ticked off at the timing (upcoming work obligations, things that hubby and I are planning, finances, etc….). But I was actually shocked when I woke up to realize that no, I wasn’t pregnant (really, I’m not). And I was WAY more than a little ticked off at my subconscious for duping me this way.
I’d love to write that things are forging ahead with the adoption. But this is going to be a drawn-out process. Our first meeting (to follow up on the millions of emails) with our social worker is May 14th. The agency list is whittled down to two.
A. A very large, well-respected agency for whom Bulgaria is a relatively new country to work in (they used to work there to fairly disastrous results but this is years later and the offending staff members are no longer there). They’ve been responsive and helpful even though I’ve corrected them about a few details from my research. They’re the cheapest option by a very slight bit and the bulk of the payment is due in one lump sum after the referral. It’s great that it’s so late but at the same time, paying that all at once is frightening.
B. A smaller agency with very strong ties to Bulgaria and one of the agencies really at the forefront of US adoptions there. They’ve offered us a payment plan which splits their own fees up into 3 so that they’re spread out instead of due upfront. They’ve been responsive an helpful and you get the feeling they just want to make this work. I’m slightly worried because a lot of people seem to be using them and I wonder if there is the possibility of the pool being too full. One other plus though is that they’ve worked with our social worker before and say that she’s one of the best, which can’t hurt.
But until we’ve met with the social worker, I don’t want to sign on with an agency. I’m more frightened of the home study than I am of anything else in this process.
In other fronts, we’re trying to enjoy life here without worrying about cycling and shots, etc. We’re looking at buying a serious outdoor grill as our (rental) house has a huge and beautiful backyard and we intend to spend as much time as possible in it this summer.
I’m hoping that my new relaxing lifestyle, come May, even allows my sub-conscious to work out whatever lingering issues it has. Cause I really need a good night’s sleep.
