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.

Breathe...

For the past two weeks, I have been a bad blogger and a bad commenter. I was so nervous about the 12 week appointment and breaking the news to my family that I was instantly hit with writers block anytime I tried to think about anything baby related.

The ultrasound on Friday went very well. Though I'm glad they took my blood pressure afterwards, because I'm sure it would have been elevated due to nerves had they taken it before the ultrasound. Both babies were mellow through about half of the exam. Then the ultrasound tech announced that Baby A seemed to be waking up. Let me tell you, A was not at all happy about being woken up. It scratched it's little head in confusion, and then flipped around a few times trying to get comfortable again. Once again, Baby B had a much quicker heart rate- 178 bpm and A was a bit calmer at 160bpm. Everything looked perfect, and we confirmed that the babies are fraternal and not identical.
For the first time in 12 weeks, I feel like I can breathe. I know that there is no magic date you can cross off the calendar and be guaranteed that everything will be okay. Still, I'm taking a great deal of comfort in passing this milestone.

(another poor quality picture for your viewing pleasure!)

Immediately after the scan, Elizabeth and I packed up the dogs and drove up to Connecticut to break the news to our families. We tried to use some of the creative ideas suggested, but in the end nothing worked. (We couldn't find frames we thought they'd like, the dogs wouldn't sit still for a picture, etc.) We arranged to meet both sets of parents for lunch at a place of their choosing. Fortunately, they get along remarkably well and it didn't seem unusual that we'd be meeting them together for lunch. After everyone had ordered and there was a lull in the conversation, I confessed that we had a motive for bringing them all together, and just came out and said that I was pregnant. As predicted, they were all shocked. Our mothers got very teary and high pitched. My stepfather smiled and gave us a congratulations. Elizabeth's dad sat in stunned silence for a moment. Every time he looked like he was going to say something, he couldn't get the words out so he just smiled and shook his head. They asked a few questions, and then Elizabeth's mother asked if we had heard the heartbeat. No, I told her, we heard heartbeats. It took her a moment to realize what I was saying, but my mother got it right away. So did the waitress, who jumped right into the conversation and told us about her own twins.

Once we told our parents, the news spread faster than an STD on prom night. Our mothers had to call all of their siblings and friends. After keeping this such a closely guarded secret for so many months, it feels strange to have so many people know. There are still a few people who don't know because we're waiting to tell them in person, but for the most part our secret is out.

In other big news, we've finally come up with nicknames that we think will work. It was actually my stepfather who came up with them. Upon hearing about their wildly different heart rates, he said "It sounds like you've got an espresso and a decaf". So from now on Baby A with the slower heart rate will be known as Decaf. Baby B, the little overachiever with a fast heart rate who tried to make an identical twin for him / herself will be referred to as Espresso.

The Big Tell

We still haven't told anyone I'm pregnant. Unless you count the doctors of course, but I'm sure they would have figured that out on their own. We didn't tell a soul we were TTC, so nobody has been watching me carefully for weight gain or sudden food aversions. I'm 11 weeks along, and realize that we need to start telling people soon. It's only a matter of time before I start showing. After keeping this secret for so long, it's going to be strange finally tell.

I'm pretty sure that the parents have no idea. I was on the younger side when I realized I was gay- about 12 years old. It was the early 90's, and I didn't know of any gay people who had children. I decided that as a defense mechanism, I should just pretend that I was indifferent to children. That way, it would hurt less when I never had any of my own. As I grew older, I saw that some gay people did in fact have children, but they seemed very few and far between. Knowing that there was no guarantee I'd end up with someone who also wanted children, I kept up the act through college. My mother has started referring to herself as "grandma" when she talks about our dogs. I think I played the part so well that she's given up any hope that I'll ever have kids. I'm a bit worried that I kept up the act so well that my family sees me as someone with no maternal instincts- the kind of person they can't picture with a child.

Elizabeth and I are planning to drive up to Connecticut one week from today to tell our parents. We will have had our 12 week ultrasound that morning, so hopefully we'll have some good pictures and good news to share. We're lucky that they only live about 45 minutes from each other, and they get along incredibly well. It won't be a problem to get them all together and tell them at the same time. The problem is, we're not quite sure how we're going to break the news. Do we just come out and say "we have something to tell you" and then give them the news? Do we try something cute or creative? How did you break the news to your family? What about friends? Did you put much thought into the order you told people? Did anyone know you were trying? How far along were you when you told? I know, that's a lot of questions, but I'd love to hear from anyone who wants to share!