Since becoming a “working mom,” my life certainly has changed. I have a mentor at work, M., with whom I go to lunch 1 a month to talk about work and home life things. She is in a good place to mentor me because she is the main breadwinner of her family as well and she’s worked on balancing home and life.
Since Joshua, work isn’t as consuming for me as it was. I think I threw myself into work a lot more to keep my mind off of the infertility battle. It actually turned out to be a good thing, because I worked my way up to make enough so we could afford to adopt and raise our family. My life used to be either 1) Working, 2) Studying for some exam for work 3) Doing some type of extra activity for work to add to my resume. Now, I am trying to get things back into balance, and put more home into my life. Having a baby and having to pay for babysitting doesn’t lend itself well to working lots of extra hours. I’ve had to really prioritize what is important and I’ve said “no” to a lot of activities and committees that I normally would have jumped on. I am just focusing on the Bilingual Committee and Toastmasters at work, in addition to getting my team to where they need to be.
I’ve started a new routine. Mornings are so hectic trying to get Joshua up and ready to go to his uncle’s (or just get him ready for the day), so I’ve started showering every night rather than in the morning. We are not eating out as much (due to cost and it’s actually more inconvenient sometimes with a little one) so I am doing a lot of the cooking. Every weekend I pick a meal (last week it was dirty rice, this week it was meatloaf and mashed taters) and I put it into individual containers and freeze. It’s something I did occasionally before Joshua, but now it is a must. I don’t have time to cook during the week. I come home (sometimes carrying a baby, diaper bag, purse, & laptop bag), tired already from a long day, trying to get Joshua fed, there is just no way that I have time to cook dinner.
Additionally, Donald and I each take turns being a “single parent” it feels like. The one time I usually have Donald here to help watch Josh while I cook is Saturday mornings, so I have Donald watch Joshua while I get up early Saturday and get things cooked and the kitchen cleaned afterwards. I’ve done this for about a month, and it’s working well. I understand now why parents of young children really crave schedules and don’t want to go out of town as much. If my only time to prep food is Saturday morning, it’s such a pain to reschedule that to do something else! Isn’t that strange?
If I have to do something different one weekend, it can throw the whole schedule off.
I was on the phone for work today, arguing with someone about a decision we had made.
This man on the phone said to me, “No, sweetie, you just don’t get it, you don’t understand.”
SWEETIE?!?! Excuse me! I just about flipped out. That is TERRIBLY sexist. Would you EVER call a guy you’re arguing with “Sweetie?” Like I am some child that doesn’t know what I’m talking about.
I haven’t had any sexist comments thrown at me in a while, so this just threw me for a loop.
Work has been a little frustrating lately. It’s a pretty competitive place, and my team isn’t doing as well as they should. So, I need to determine what the issues are and fix them. It’s strange when you supervisor people and their results: you can’t DO the work for them, but if you have to teach them, coach them, and mentor them to do the work. Quite a different experience.
Tomorrow I’m going out to lunch with my mentor, someone who is a working mom whose supervised longer than I have. It will be nice to pick her brain on how she manages her family and work life. Tomorrow is FRIDAY! I can’t believe how fast this week has gone.
Went to Illinois this past weekend…Joshua met his Aunt Julie, his Uncle John, his Great Aunt Joann and Great Uncle Skip, and my cousins. It’s all on the Flickr pages….of course, they all thought he was adorable! Joshua did great for such a long car ride there and back. It was kinda rough on mom, though. I don’t think I’m going to drive that far with a baby by myself!
In the Lutheran Church we’ve been attending the small group coordinator called me to see if I’d like to arrange a small group of parents of young children…I agreed to do it. I think it will be good for us to be involved in a group again. We had to bow out of the small group at Grace just because the Infertility trial was so difficult…I think it’s time we got back into a small group!
While Joshua has been napping, I’ve been trying to unpack. Our adoption finalization party/open house is Wednesday from 4pm - 9pm. Email me at watermelonjessie at yahoo dot com if you didn’t get an evite.
I warned people that our house was still going to be a disaster for the open house, but I really wanted to do a little something to celebrate his finalization on the DAY his adoption was finalized. It is going to be awesome! I am so happy that we’ve had him with us since he was an HOUR old…definitely a big blessing! Some adoptive parents don’t get their kids until they are much older.
I have been a little nervous taking a full week off work unpaid, but it had to be done. There was no other way to get out of our old house and into our new house without taking off work. Donald has been working this weekend and will work tomorrow. He’s also going to work on 4th of July, so those hours should give us some good holiday pay. I’m on a bilingual committee at work so I have some things to do for that, but after that I will work on a proposal to make our company more friendly to adoptive families. I will keep you all updated as I work on that.
Still no word from the biological father, so we are all hopeful that everything will go ahead without a hitch on Wednesday!
Tuesday is the first day Uncle Drew is going to watch Joshua, and his own son Jaxon, at the same time! I watched them both on Friday and it was a challenge. Jaxon was great; he was in a good mood and laid down right away and took a GREAT nap. My son, however, just started becoming “clingy” with me. He wanted me to hold him the whole day. Well, when Jaxon needed something Joshua was just really unhappy, so for a couple hours there I was trying my best to fit two crying babies on my lap. It’s been fun, though, that Joshua knows I am mommy and the only thing that settles him down is me holding him, so that was a nice feeling. I just really wanted to do some laundry and get the kitchen unpacked.
Oh well, holding a baby is more fun than laundry or unpacking, wouldn’t you agree?
Our leave is unpaid. That’s what our company has done with other adoptive families. Our H.R. rep even called home office, and that is the procedure. Sick time is only available to an employee that has an illness or cannot work; adoption doesn’t qualify to be paid for sick time. Under FMLA, we do have our 12 weeks leave, but it is unpaid.
So…I emailed my boss to see if it would be worth it to research all the different companies that pay their employees for their adoption leave out of their sick time. The point may be moot because in 2009 they’re starting a much better “Paid Time off” system that rolls sick, vacation, and personal time together. If that new system had been in place, I would have had almost a month of paid time off to use with our baby. I’ll go with what my boss says. If he thinks it would be like beating a dead horse, I’ll just not worry about it. I would like to see if I can try and get it changed as there are at least 2 people from work that I know of that are wanting to adopt this year.
I’ll have to figure out how to do my research to see what companies pay for adoption leave out of an employee’s sick time bank…
On the baby front, he is doing well! Our doctor, who is the sweetest guy EVER, said that Joshua is “perfect.” Well, we knew that! He gained 9 ounces and 1/2 inch since his birthday! Wow! I think he gets annoyed with me sometimes because I keep kissing him…his cheeks are just TOO cute!
Check out on the top right…there is a flickr link to photos of Joshua. I am not the most computer savvy, so I don’t add photos to my blog as much as my hubby does. At least you can get your Joshua fix through Flickr!
Our adoption leave is totally unpaid, because it’s not a medical condition. So, I was only going to take a week or so unpaid off work, but it looks as if that isn’t going to pan out. I am going to have to go back to work on Monday, April 28th. Hubby is going to take some intermittent leave on Mondays and Tuesdays for the meantime. The expenses are just high right now and it’s cheaper for Hubby to miss work than for me to miss work.
*Sigh* I was hoping to be home a little longer with this little guy.
I am here in my swanky hotel room. It’s an extended stay room with a kitchenette and a flat screen high definition television. Yes, I am here to work!
I am just so, so blessed by a lot of things. I have worked with this company for only 3 years and I’m now a member of management team. I have had to do well and succeed not only speaking in English but in Spanish to get to where I am today. I am so, so happy. Tomorrow we have a day where we dress up and have our photos taken, and we’re going to meet the vice president of the claims department.
I don’t know how much I’ll update while I’m here, but I know I am going to have a fabulous time and learn a lot. I don’t even think I can express how happy I am, how blessed I feel, and what a privledge it is to be here.
Sunday at noon I leave with 3 other people in my office for Leadership Training.
It should be a good time. I have enjoyed my first few weeks as a supervisor and am excited to be learning more regarding leadership and developing my team members. I do not like flying, however, so that is one small part of it I will not enjoy.
My hubby is the best. He went out today and bought me some new luggage and a new computer bag for my trip.
I probably won’t blog again until I get back March 7th.
Here is the announcement that went out at work letting everyone know I’d been promoted to supervisor (some of it is insurance jargon):
Jessica (Jessie) started her career at (Company Name) as a bilingual CSA in March
of 2005. She promoted to OCR on the Spanish Auto Coverage Team in October
of 2006 & became team coach in July of 2007. She has been backstopping for
various supervisors since August of 2007. She has earned her AIC and her
AIS designations, and is nearing completion of her GCA designation. She is
a member of Toastmasters, Diversity Club, and FEAPAC. She earned a degree
in Theatre, with a class concentration in Spanish, from Knox College in
Galesburg, Illinois in 1999. She and her husband, Donald, who also works
for KCHP in the Workforce department, are excited to be in the process of
adopting their first child.
On the adoption front, Hubby started his Saturday through Tuesday schedule last week, so if anything happens with adoption very quickly we will only need childcare 2 days a week. We have our names in with 2 different birth families, 1 child was born on Dec. 26th and another is due Feb. 4, we’ve given them our “book” but haven’t heard anything. I don’t think I ever blogged about this, but we had our name in for a baby due in August that she ended up picking someone else. I know domestic adoption can be full of “false starts,” which is just part of the deal. When people ask me “Isn’t this so hard” or “Isn’t this so expensive” I just say “If you want it, you have to play the game.” Even though I don’t like having to tell a social worker every detail of my life and give all of my tax information for the past 2 years and have her look at my house, it’s part of the game, it’s part of the system, and we have to play it. I am getting more and more excited and feeling as if things are really happening. We shelled out $900 for our homestudy on 1.15.08, just more to apply to the tax credit!
So, if one of those children happens to pan out, we’ve at least got a plan. Talked with HR and our insurance company. We can put our child on our insurance as soon as we “take possession” of the child, whether or not the adoption is finalized. No one seems to know for sure if insurance will pay for the birth mom’s labor costs. The birth mom that is due Feb 4th has NO health insurance, and our social worker was concerned that we would be responsible for all her labor costs. Well, if I went into labor my insurance would need to pay my hospital bill, but no one is sure if it can pay for the birth mother. Has anyone dealt with this before? It seems as if (YIPES) we would be responsible for paying these costs out of pocket.
We have everything we can possibly pack packed up and in the storage unit (one last load in Father in law’s van), and we are planning on having photos of our house taken and the house put BACK on the market Friday! It’s been a couple months but we’re nearing the home stretch. We have our bedrooms and kitchen to paint but that is it! Rest of the house is painted. SO glad the remodeling stuff is almost over!
I am pretty excited about tomorrow. Our home is a total mess because we’re remodeling it, but our social worker is coming over tomorrow at 1pm to complete our home study.
I realize another step in this process will be completed, but I feel sort of frustrated at the same time. Our attorney is on a vacation/sabatical, and all we’ve done is let people know that we’re looking to adopt. This seems so strange to adopt this way, just kind of waiting for a situation to present itself. I feel a little lost about what to do next once the home study is done, and when I asked our attorney, she basically said just to send out the letters letting people know we’re adopting and wait. I have nightmares and worry a lot that we will never be matched with a birth family and we’ll have to deal with not being able to be parents and learn to live as a childless couple. If that is God’s will that is His will, but I don’t feel that that is the direction we should go right now.
I just hope once the homestudy is done we will be able to focus on another step of the adoption process.
I have my interview for a supervisor position at my job on Thursday afternoon. I’m pretty excited and nervous; I already had to interview to get into the TRAINING to be a supervisor, and now I’m actually interviewing to be hired formally as a supervisor. This week, we’ve worked on packing more things at our house, put in upper cabinets in the kitchen (Donald and my father in law have done that), and then once we get to a good place I will start painting the inside of the ENTIRE house. Yes, I am super excited (Yuck.) It will all be beautiful when it’s done, but the house better sell, as we’re going to be updating/redoing everything but the carpeting, but including a carpet allowance.
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