My mother just called...

...her biopsy came back positive. She has breast cancer. I am sad.

Some bullets, and a shotgun

It's been a busy few weeks in Gayby-land, so I'm resorting to the bullet post.

*A H0nda Acc0rd just won't cut it for 2 adults, 2 infants and 2 dogs so we spent lots of time test driving used cars. We ended up spending a little more than we wanted to because we were able to get a good deal on a Volvo XC70. It feels way too nice to be something I own! As far as station wagons go, it's pretty bad-ass.

*Work is getting busier, at the precise moment I need it to slow down a bit. One of my co-workers just got transferred to another branch, and I am left picking up the slack. I think I could write a whole post on job related stuff.

*We've had lots of appointments with our new lawyer, who is the greatest lawyer ever. He's the one who fought for civil union partners to both be named on the original birth certificate. So cool.

*We're in the process of changing our last names since we want everyone in the family to have the same last name. We didn't want us both to take one of the last names we currently have, because I was worried that it would make one of us seem more dominant than the other. I didn't want ignorant people to think that one of us was the "husband" because we had taken that name. We looked at all sorts of last names in our families going way back. In the end, we decided on my mother's maiden name.

*Elizabeth and I did a little day trip to Connecticut last week and had a shotgun wedding. We decided to get married last Monday, and had the "wedding" last Friday. Even a simple shotgun wedding resulted in a crazy week of planning. Still, we managed to find rings on our meager budged that didn't look like we'd found them next to the patchouli at a head shop, I got a cute summer dress at a maternity consignment shop, and we booked a JP. Our only "witness" was the JP's standard poodle...who is blind in one eye. Our "reception" was just the two of us going out for gelato afterwards.

*I had my 20 week ultrasound. I had been freaking out about it because my OB sent me to the hospital for the scan, since she thought she had noticed a difference in the fluid levels of the 2 babies. It turns out that there was no problem at all. Huge sigh of relief. I didn't peek at all during the between-the-legs shots, so I still do not know what I am having. I hope I can keep up the surprise.

*About 2 weeks ago, I finally started feeling movement that was definitely babies and not digestion. It makes me smile every time. I'm sure my co-workers walk by my desk and wonder why I've got such a silly grin on my face sometimes.

*I have my 22 week scan tomorrow!

The Other Purgatory

Elizabeth here.  First, I would like to say how much I appreciate all of your support throughout our extended and difficult TTC process.  While I don’t comment anywhere, know that I have been reading and cheering everyone on.  I don’t know if I will post regularly but I thought I’d give it a go for once.

Your dear Gayby and I have been navigating a couple of purgatories at once: TTC and my finding a job.  And while she is now gorgeously pregnant with twins, I am still trying to find a path out of my purgatory.  The very month we started TTC, September 2008, I made my formal entry into the academic job market.  As you can imagine, it’s about as pretty as the rest of the job market.  I know from reading your blogs that some of you are familiar with academia and its unique employment process that is clearly designed by people who, let’s face it, are not exactly natural born administrators, but for those of you who aren’t, here’s a rundown of the application process.

1)    Write a multi-page cover letter outlining everything that has ever made you seem smart and unique.  Include multi-page CV with everything you’ve ever done.  Include 3 letters of recommendation from the best scholars you know.  Include as requested the following: teaching portfolio, including syllabi, evaluations, and classroom philosophy; writing sample, ranging from 30-300 pages; research philosophy; transcripts from any institution you’ve ever attended.  Spend anywhere from $4-$25 to have this material sent via dossier service.

2)    Wait.

3)    Fill out affirmative action card, get hopes up that this means that they’ve at least noticed your file in the pile of 300 applications just like yours.

4)    Wait more.

5)    Jump every time the phone rings.

6)    Wait.

7)    Give up hope. 

Occasionally, you will get a phone interview, conference interview, or campus interview.  The campus interviews are about as nutty as they come.  Meet with as many people as can plan an hour of their day for this purpose, give a presentation of your finest scholarship, have dinner with a group of people who don’t always talk to one another, collapse.

For some people, it’s ridiculously easy.  They have a few dissertation chapters done and they get an offer at the first place they ever interview.  For others, it’s more difficult.  They do everything right in grad school: teach a lot of classes, present research, get published, finish everything on time, and spend years languishing on the job market, piecing together whatever other work they can find to get by.  Sound like any other processes we’re all familiar with?

It has nothing to do with worth or scholarly value.  It’s not a meritocracy.  It’s the quirkiest system to find employees ever designed, and it’s based on the whims of a committee often comprised of people with different ideas about what they want, and the result is often a compromise.  I know all of this, but it doesn’t mean I don’t question my merit with every rejection.  Sound familiar?

I happened to get a decent postdoc for the current academic year.  At the VERY LAST MINUTE (as in at the moment I got my last summer teaching paycheck).  The person who held the position previously got a permanent job elsewhere, and the director of the project knows me and offered it to me to fill the position quickly.  I was desperate, so was she.  I took it, and it’s a match made in purgatory.  She has a tendency to yell and belittle.  It’s not pleasant but not unbearable.  I shouldn’t complain.  At least I have something for the moment.  But we have 2 babies on the way, and I don’t get benefits in this position.  Gayby deserves to be able to quit her boring job and stay home with the babies while she figures out what she wants to do – she sacrificed figuring out what she wanted to support my academic fantasyland – and to do this I need to be carrying the benefits.  I owe this to her, and I desperately want to give it to her.  I’m applying beyond academia as well, but it’s pretty bleak out there.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if everything just came together at the exact right moment?  I’d like to be done with all purgatories once and for all.

I'd like to thank the academy...

I've been given the SugarDoll award by the lovely twin mama Elana

Here's how the award works- simply say 10 things about yourself, then give the award to 10 fellow bloggers. What a perfect workday distraction. Get ready to be fascinated, people!

1) I refuse to eat tomatoes if it's not summer. Winter tomatoes are not worth the effort it takes to chew them.

2) I could kill an entire sick day laying on the couch watching old episodes of Roseanne.

3) I can wiggle my little toe without moving my other toes

4) The babies made me buy a 12 pack of pickled onion monster munch last month. I had to go online to find it. It was on backorder. The babies got very impatient.

5) When I was in third grade, I got sent to the Principal's office for pulling bits of foam out of one of the seats on the school bus. In my defense, the seat was already torn up.

6) I've never seen a Star Wars movie all the way through, only caught bits and pieces here and there.

7) My first word was my dog's name.

8) I used to have a plant in my cubicle at work, but it disappeared. Who the heck steals a plant?

9) I've had the song "Take A Chance On Me" by ABBA stuck in my head for about two days. I'm sure that at least ONE person who reads this will have it stuck in their head for a little while now too.

10) I can't fall asleep unless I have my arm tucked under my head.

And now I'd like to award the following bloggers, chosen at random from the outstanding choices on my blogroll:

Adventures in Babymaking

Amy and Melissa's Baby Blog

And Baby Makes Three

Bao in the Oven

Eeney Meeney Miney Mommy

Figboiler

Half a Dozen of the Other

Make it so Number One

Mama and Mummy

Schroedinger's Womb

Single Mom Insanity

A Weighty Issue

Well, it finally happened.  I can no longer button a single pair or pants that I own.  I am sporting quite the belly these days my friends.  Unfortunately, it's not one of those adorable little "I'm smuggling a small to medium sized melon under my shirt" kind of bumps.   I'm at an annoying in between stage, and to most people I just look fat.  

Let me backtrack a bit here.  I need to come clean.  I didn't start this journey as a skinny little thing.  I'm only 5'2" wear a size 10.  Weight has been an issue all my life.  Even putting a physical description of myself up here makes me anxious and uncomfortable.  My mother used to stand over my shoulder disapprovingly when I made my school lunches and tell me how many calories were in the food I was preparing for myself.  My grandmother was famous for making the admonition, "a moment on the lips, forever on the hips" on Thanksgiving.  So I became one of the many young women who played by the rules when others were watching, but binged when I was alone.  I have always been ashamed of my body.  The fact that it took me so long to get pregnant made me dislike my body even more.  I hate to sound shallow, but this in between stage my body is going through makes me very self conscious.  

All of the diet advice for expectant mothers of twins recommends eating a LOT of food.  About 3,500 calories worth, heavy on the protein and calcium.  I have essentially been given license to eat cheeseburgers and milkshakes every day if I want to.  You would think this would be a closet eater's dream come true, but it's been so much harder than I thought.  My appetite has been smaller than normal since I got pregnant.  Even breaking the big meals up into smaller meals doesn't help that much.  Every meal feels like I've just eaten Thanksgiving dinner.  I'm not complaining, just surprised that eating has been the most difficult thing I've experienced in this pregnancy so far.  

I have no hang ups about gaining a lot of weight to support this pregnancy.  Despite my baggage about weight, I know what I need to do and am happy to do it.  But when I go into restaurant or bring an enormous lunch to work when not everyone who sees me knows on sight that I'm pregnant brings a lot of these weight issues to the front of my mind.  It's very strange.

And on the baby front, I had my 18 week scan today.  That's at least halfway for twins.  Yikes, where did the time go?  For the most part, it went well.  The doctor came into the room to go over my ultrasound and told me that my cervix is measuring perfectly, the babies have great heartbeats, etc.  I could tell from the tone of her voice that there was a "but" coming.  The ultrasound revealed that one baby has less fluid than the other baby- maybe.  The doctor said that a more sophisticated ultrasound machine might show that there is no difference in the fluid levels.    A different ultrasound tech might see things differently.  The doctor said that there is nothing to worry about yet, that the situation just needs to be monitored.  My 20 week ultrasound will take place at the hospital where they have better equipment.  I am trying to trust my doctor.  I am trying not to panic.  That means no Dr.Google, because I know it will only raise my anxiety level.  Still, I can't pretend I'm not scared.  

Second Parent Adoption

My mother is making me nuts! I made the mistake of venting to her the other day about how unfair it is that Elizabeth will have to adopt her own children. I mentioned that there are lots of other things that we'd like to spend our money on besides lawyer fees.

This morning, I checked my e-mail and she's sent me a link to la.mbda legal. She's very proud of herself because she thinks she's found the answer to everything. Suddenly, she's the expert on gay adoption law. I've been referring to that organization's website for several years now, ever since we got serious about starting a family. Still, I politely thanked her, let her know it was a great site and that it helped us to find the lawyer we're going to go with.

Her next e-mail is what really got me. She told me not to hire a lawyer, and told me that she had my aunt and uncle looking into it. My aunt and uncle who did a traditional domestic adoption 26 years ago. She also has her lawyer friend's daughter who lives in my state looking into it. She has a whole team of people supposedly "looking into things" on my behalf. She sent me a link for the state court adoption information. Basically, she is suggesting that the lawyers are tricking me into thinking I need them, and that I can do this all on my own.

Right now I am feeling a bit humiliated. Humiliated that there are at least a dozen people who think I've gone into this baby making thing blindly and have no idea how to handle the second parent adoption. Humiliated that there are people who now think I am turning to mommy for help and am probably too irresponsible to handle a child of my own.

I understand that my mother means well. That's probably the only thing that's keeping me from completely blowing up right now. This is where I need the expertise of all of you out there who've been through this, or are going through it now. Did any of you do second parent adoption without a lawyer? Would any of you consider it? Everything I've ever read stresses the importance of using a lawyer for this. So before I tell my mother that going lawyer-free is not an option, I'd love to hear from the real experts on the matter.

Who's your daddy?

Elizabeth and I finally got a chance to tell my younger brother he's going to be an uncle over the weekend. It was nearly impossible to keep the rest of my family quiet for an entire week, but I really wanted to tell him in person. We had plans to meet for dinner, so we used the same format we used for our parents- order food, then break the news. His reaction was quite funny and sweet. First he completely froze, with only his eyes moving from me to Elizabeth and then back again. He was waiting for one of us to crack and admit we were joking. After what seemed like an eternity, he said "really?" and I nodded. Immediately, he motioned for the waiter and ordered two glassed of champagne. I showed him the ultrasound pictures, and he got a little quiet. He pretended to be looking at something in the distance out the window, but Elizabeth and I could both see he was tearing up. We pretended not to notice.

Like everyone else we're told, the first thing my brother asked was about who the father was. We explained that it was an anonymous donor from a sperm bank who our children would be allowed to meet when they turned 18. He asked question after question about the donor- how did we chose, what do we know about him, what is he like. To be honest I wasn't expecting everyone to have so many questions about the donor right away, and I'm not sure how to go about answering them.

I've always been very private about our donor choice on the blog. I've seen multiple instances where a blogger with a particularly cute child will have random bloggers ask for her donor number! That's just creepy if you ask me. I think that giving out too much info about your donor on a blog just opens a door and asks all of the crazies to come in.

But what about my family and friends? I'm finding myself hesitant to give them too much information on the donor too. Maybe it's just a residual hesitation, from all those months of keeping quiet on the blog. Maybe there's something more at play. I think that some of my hesitation comes from the fact that I know so little about the donor myself. Sure I have a baby picture and essay and medical history, but that's really not much. If I start printing out the donor profile for my friends, they'll know as much about the guy as I do. I have to admit, I think I'd feel a little strange if a random friend knew as much about the donor as our own child did. I've been feeling a need to protect that information, so it will belong to my children before it belongs to anyone else.

Is this unusual? How has everyone else handled questions about their donor?

P.S. on a completely unrelated note, has anyone else had problems with the Lilypie tickers in Blogger? I finally felt confident enough to make a ticker, but it keeps getting stuck.