Saying Goodbye to My Office

I'm still at the office right now. Yesterday should have been my last day, but it wasn't because I couldn't focus enough to actually finish everything I needed to finish. So I'm here and I was getting a lot done. I've got my iTunes on, I'm writing instructions for the new guy (who drives me crazy, but that's for another post) and then my boss, Debbie, comes in.

Debbie walks in and says, "Ok, I'm going home now." and walks over to my desk. NO! I don't want to say goodbye to anyone! Especially Debbie & Lesley. I get up to hug her, and I hate that I'm hugging her goodbye and I smell because the movers packed my deodorant. That'll be the last thing she remembers, Amy smelled bad. Anyway, she says that she's going to miss me, but that we're still going to talk and we're still working together it's just that we're not in the same location. I shake my head, and she gives me the same speech she gave at my going away party yesterday and during my annual review. She tells me that she's so proud of me because she remembers my first day here. I walked in the front doors without any experience and in the past 4 1/2 years I've gone from being the receptionist to being the Office Assistant to being a Program Coordinator for our second largest project and traveled all the way to Zimbabwe by myself to work with WHO and now I'm leaving as a part of the HR team. She said that she is so proud of my achievements, and I should be proud too. Seriously, I could never have done those things without her giving me a chance. I was 23 years old when I started working here, I had been working shitty retail and all I had was a high school diploma. She hired me and I worked my ass off, she promoted me to Office Assistant, and then it happened. See, after working as receptionist and as office staff everyone here gets to know you, and then they snatch you up if they like you enough. Well, we had recently won a new contract and the Project Manager wanted me to work as his Program Coordinator. Debbie called me to tell me the good news and although she didn't want to lose her assistant she knew that being a PC would be a great opportunity. I mean, a masters degree is one of the requirements for that job and I only had a high school diploma! It was a great experience, but I couldn't give them the kind of time that I needed to give to them when Howie and I started trying to have a baby, so I left. Debbie was now the HR Manager and hired me to be her assistant. She allowed me to work on a part-time basis so that I could take off whenever I needed to and not have to worry about sick leave. She's the best boss in the whole world. I really love her and I don't ever want to work for anyone else ever again because now I'm spoiled. Anyway, she started to cry again, as she has been all week, and I started to get teary. She said some other things but it's all a blur now. We hugged again and she left. I sat back down and looked around my office. I'm not coming back to this every morning. I'm going to miss my computer, tomorrow they're clearing it and giving to the new guy. He's going to have my computer, my ergonomic chair, my telephone extension (bye-bye ext. 5084), I won't have the balcony outside the HR office on the 11th floor, and I won't be entertained by the weird blonde across the way in the next building (bye-bye blonde woman). My desk is empty. I no longer have my big IKEA ZiZi plant on top of my file cabinet, or my silly family & friend pics on my book shelf next to my mini zen garden where I placed the little frogs that Les bought me in Puerto Rico, and my Russian dolls no longer sit on my other file cabinet with my fertility dolls from Zimbabwe. I still have them, but they aren't where they belong, in my office, where I belong from 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM everyday. Now they'll be cute little choking hazards for my baby to play with at home. I haven't yet thrown out the empty tissue box on my desk. I'm also going to miss the chair in the reception area where I was sitting when I found out that I was pregnant. Worst of all I won't see the two wonderful ladies, Les & Sun, who were with me when I found out and cried along with me. Les, I'm also going to miss sitting in your guest chair chatting loudly to irritate the hell out of your jackass of an officemate. I'm going to miss those long talks about nothing in the middle of a boring day at work and then being caught by Debbie. All I know is that I miss every single inch of this office, even the dirt nasty Ladies Room.

*Side note to Lesley... I just realized that those Girl Scout cookies are still under my desk!!! CRAP! Umm... I'm leaving them there...*

Anyway, I hate that the asshat that will be picking up the few things I can't do from home is getting all of my stuff! I'm totally giving my ergonomic chair to my other co-worker, Chitra, because I swear that her chair is unsafe, and the little punk ass 22 year old that thinks he knows everything doesn't need excellent back support. That little punk told me 3 times in 1 hour that HE needed ME to clear everything off my desk tonight because they're moving him there tomorrow and he needs the space! He also implied that I'm dirty by asking in a half joking, half serious way if I would be providing him with rubber gloves and wipes! What the fuck!!! I should have tossed his bitchy ass right off of the fucking balcony. I'm so not dirty, I'm not just saying that, I'm seriously not dirty. When I was the receptionist I was grossed out by the nasty keyboard they had at the front desk. I actually took all the keys off of the keyboard so that I could clean each one, so fuck you, you little punk ass!

Ok, I don't want to end on that note. I have really enjoyed working here, even on the bad days, because the people here are really awesome and it breaks my heart to leave them. I have been crying in private every day because I'm so sad that I end up going into the ugly cry, and I wanted to spare everyone from a sight like that.

There has been one good moment today, but it's unrelated to me leaving my office. We got a call from our loan office today. Our loan has been completed!!!! Wooohooo!!!!!!!!! Only 24 hours before closing! I have to say, I really thought they'd fuck it up and I'd have to throw rotten fish at their building.

Another Way That My Infertility Can Screw Me Over

As you know, Howie and I are moving to CT. Like I said before, we have a contract on a house in Southern CT and our closing is scheduled for September 1st. Well, our first issue was that I wouldn't be there for the signing because not only will I be here watching the movers move our stuff out of the apartment, but I am on pelvic rest and my doctor has instructed me not to travel without assistance. Plus, it would be just stupid to travel up to CT, waste money on a train ticket and then drive back down for our pets. Anyway, there was the whole issue of me giving Howie Power of Attorney. The notarized form really goes to our lawyer handling the sale, but the bank that's giving us the loan wanted the original. Instead of just having me get another POA notarized they wanted to fight with our lawyer over who should get the one that had already been done. Well, the stupid 22 year old girl that works at the loan office and writes emails in Barbie Bubble Gum Pink to clients and the bank thought, for some unknown reason, that we were buying the house in NJ. Since we are actually buying a house in CT they won't be needing that POA from us, so I was then able to send the POA to the lawyers after a week of doing nothing with it at all. Instead of the POA they needed me to get a letter from my OB/GYN explaining that I am on pelvic rest and I can't travel without assistance which is why I gave my husband POA and then I needed to write a letter saying the same fucking thing. Ms. Barbie-Bubble-Gum-Pink-Loan-Girl reminds me of Tiffany from Lovespring International on Lifetime.

Then we had the issue with the fact that we had to borrow some money from my parents and Howie's parents for the down payment of the home. We had to have gift letters signed, copies of the checks, bank statements. The fact that they wanted to look into my mother and my father-in-law's bank accounts just pissed them off to no end because both of them felt that their privacy was being invaded because they were helping their kids out. Things were calmed down when they realized that they didn't have to show off all of their personal bank transactions. During this time there was more evidence that Ms. Barbie-Bubble-Gum-Pink-Loan-Girl was not quite right when she wrote Howie an email telling him that she no longer needed him to get a gift letter signed by his father because she had talked on the phone with his dad early that day and he had already signed and sent the letter to her. It turns out that his dad had NEVER talked to this girl and had NEVER heard about any gift letter until Howie mentioned it to him.

Then they sent us a huge list of things they'd need from us. Like 2004 and 2005 W-2s, a shit load of pay stubs, supervisors name and number, 3 goats, 2 chickens and our first born child. Since I wouldn't agree to giving them our first born child (considering I was barely able to obtain one for myself) I counter offered with 4 goats, 3 cows, 2 chickens and my barely used ovaries. They agreed and we all moved on.

Then came the big issue. The fact that my pay stubs from this year weren't reflecting my current salary or matching what my last W-2 showed is a major problem. Well, yes, I understand how that can look sketchy, but I had to move to part-time so that I'd have more flexibility with my hours during my fertility treatments because I had already used up all of my time off. Then once I was pregnant and had trouble keeping food down, bleeding, whatever, I had the flexibility and stayed home when I needed to. Anyway, I'm doing better now and I'm able to work more hours, things are fine. I'm also going to be working from my home in CT and I won't have to use sick days because if I'm sick I can sit in my bed in my pajamas with my laptop. It's all good. That doesn't help anything right now though. The bank is having issues because I wasn't working full time due to my fertility treatments so now they're asking all kinds of questions. I had to have my boss write THREE letters about why I was out and that after I move I will be working full time again. Because of the time I had to take off for my fertility treatments the bank was considering re-doing our loan based on my part-time salary instead of the real salary that I will now be earning!!! WTF!!! Not only do I feel like shit that I had to bother my boss three times to write three different letters I feel like shit for being infertile and fucking up our loan. We only have 9 more days until closing and I'm worried that this stupid issue will never get cleared up. Never would I have imagined (though I should have) that my infertility has any baring on wether or not we are granted a loan. Oh, and why did my boss have to write THREE letters to the loan office and bank? Because Ms. Barbie-Bubble-Gum-Pink-Loan-Girl was not able to properly communicate with the underwriter about what EXACTLY they needed my boss to say. When she told my husband that they were going to need a 3rd revision I went off. I told my boss and she nearly lost her fucking mind because, well, she has REAL WORK TO DO!!! Her job is not to write letters about my infertility issues and current job status for this stupid girl at the loan office. I told Howie that this was it, she had one last chance to get it right. That she better call that underwriter and write down EXACTLY what he needed the letter to say and then WRITE the letter and then SEND it to me so that I could forward it to my boss who would then sign the letter for the VERY LAST TIME and then they were to NEVER bother her again. So, she wrote the letter and emailed it to us. It's signed and a PDF copy has been sent to them. Let's just hope this is the end of it!

My First Baby Shower!

Yesterday Les threw me a baby shower with our Virginia friends, since I will be moving away in two weeks. It was really sweet of her. My mother and sister flew down Friday night so that they could attend. The baby shower was beautiful, the games were lots of fun, and the food was fabulous. It was at a really cute restaurant in Old Town Alexandria called Union Street Public House. Les had placed little rubber duckies at every setting around the table and five balloons were tied to my chair (one with a picture of a cute rubber ducky). Howie crashed the shower towards the end. He was right in time for dessert and opening gifts. I really enjoyed spending time with everyone, especially because I will be moving away at the beginning of next month. It breaks my heart to know that in a short time I will have to say goodbye to everyone.

My mom had ordered some maternity pajamas for me but they hadn’t arrived in time for the shower. She brought me a few small gifts, a Winnie the Pooh brush and comb set, an all-in-on bathing brush, and a tube of Balmex. My mom swears by it (Balmex) because when my sister was a baby she had a serious case of diaper rash. She tried everything, even the hardcore cream from the hospital, but Balmex was the only thing that worked. So, there you go.


My brother’s girlfriend, Jen, gave me the Fisher-Price Aquarium Bath Center (my sister recommended it, she has the same one and my niece loves it), Johnson’s bath time gift set, and a super soft white plush blanket. It’s so cuddly that if it was large enough I’d keep it for myself.


My boss and her husband bought me the Classic Pooh towel & washcloth set, 4 pack Gerber flannel burp clothes (2 with little paw prints and 2 with yellow and white stripes), 3 pack Gerber tagless zip front sleep ‘n play sleepers, a 4 pack Classic Pooh flannel receiving blankets, and a Classic Pooh fleece appliquéd blanket.

My friend, Lisa, made me a diaper cake. Yes, you can buy those online, but she actually made it. I like to pretend like I’m Martha Stewart sometimes, but Lisa wins. I could never construct a three tiered cake made out of baby items. Pfffft! I couldn’t make a three tiered cake out of real cake! Anyway, it was super cute. It has all sorts of things. There are Pampers Swaddlers diapers inside each tier, around those are blankets. Tied, pinned, or wedged in around the tiers are bottles stuffed with burp clothes, comb, brush, small Gerber Grins & Giggles body wash & lotion (lavender, oatmeal, and aloe), pacifiers, pacifier clip, rattles, little caterpillar toy, nail clippers, tweezers, teether, socks, onesies, and topped with a little plush lamb. So cute!


And Lesley, she gave me the shower and is knitting me the softest, cutest, yellow blanket, which I am also considering sharing with the baby. I love it! I showed it off all weekend, but I have to return it to her on Monday so that she can continue to knit. She apologized that it wasn’t finished yet, but that’s totally fine. I still have another 23 weeks to go, so there is plenty of time. I’m really thankful that Les is my friend. Not only is she an awesome knitter, she’s a wonderful, caring, giving friend. It breaks my heart to know that I won’t be seeing her every day. We were friends before we both began our journey along the dark path of infertility. I would never wish infertility on anyone, least of all Lesley, but if the two of us have to go through this I’m glad that we had each other. I’m going to miss our trips to Starbucks every day, wasting time chatting in the office when we should be working, going out to eat, wasting money we don’t have on spa treatments, and our occasional snark-fests. Thank you for the wonderful baby shower, Lesley.

Remember Me?

I’ve truly sucked at posting lately considering I haven’t posted at all. A lot has been going on and when there was nothing going on I was sleeping. I’m ALWAYS tired these days. The only time that I’m semi-functional is at work, so that’s where I’ve been trying to blog. Unfortunately something always comes up because, well, I’m at work. That seems to take over because I’m trying to do my best to please my boss so that when I move she’ll still gives me plenty of work to do rather than giving all of my work away to someone in the office. The whole working from home thing and still having the kick ass insurance and benefits that my company provides is a rather sweet deal. Only the golden children get to move away and keep their jobs, so I don’t want to get on anyone’s bad side.

Anyway, what’s new? Where do I start?

P News

Last Tuesday at 4:30 pm I felt the baby kick for the first time. I know… I thought it was a bit early to feel it too, but it was the baby. It felt like little flutters and twitches. I shrugged it off at first, then it happened again and I paid more attention to it. It was strange to feel the baby moving inside of me. It was strange but wonderful. It’s all starting to seem more real, but I think that I’m still mostly in denial.

I’m a bit chubby, so the baby bump isn’t really showing… if there is one. Well, I could say that up until last week. I couldn’t actually see a change in my belly or even breast size, but my clothes started to look really stupid on me. I’m not worried about getting large and having a big belly. I’m actually looking forward to that because, like I said, I’m already a bit chubby so at least this round belly has something better in it than fat. My pants were starting to get kind of tight and hugged my lower fat roll/possible baby bump and my shirts were looking shorter which only showed off that lower fat roll/possible baby bump some more. This is the awkward stage that I don’t like. I’d like it if I went straight from being chubby to being hugely pregnant and just skip over that weird awkward stage where I look like I’ve been eating too many bags of potato chips and candy out of the vending machine at work. This week it’s about the same, I look silly, but I’m kind of able to see that it’s not just fat that I’m carrying around. I can see that I’m getting bigger, but it’s only clear to me when I’m naked. Others will still just think I’m pigging out on junk food.

I have, however, lost 16 lbs. total making pregnancy the best diet I’ve ever been on. I read an article about how it’s not ok to lose weight even if you are overweight when you get pregnant and then begin eating better, like I did. I’m still not giving the baby enough calories and that means that the baby is living off of my stored fat which means that the baby isn’t getting enough glucose and that is apparently really bad. So, I panicked and made my husband bring me shopping when he came back to VA for the weekend. I spent $350 on an ass load of fruits, veggies and other wonderful healthy things. I planned out meals and forced myself to eat more and drink at least one 8 oz. bottle of water every hour and a half at work. I ended up spending most of my day eating, drinking, and peeing. This was extremely disruptive and I really felt beyond full all of the time. Yes, I’d do anything for my baby so I sucked it up. Honestly though, I get full REALLY fast now that I’m pregnant. I want to vomit from eating so much, and that would just make all these eating pointless. So I’ve taken it down a notch. I’m eating more than I used to, but not eating as much as I as when I was obsessed about how many calories I was taking in. I’ve had a lot of people tell me that they lost weight during their pregnancy and worried about it too, but in the end everything turned out to be fine. I can’t spend my entire day eating, drinking, and peeing. I have to work, I have to go out and do things, I have stuff to do in general and those things are impossible when you pee literally every 5 minutes or less, or when you are eating every 2 hours, or when you are drinking water every moment of every day. I am not starving and I doubt the baby is either. I just want to relax because it’s something that I haven’t been able to do since I found out that I was pregnant.

I’m extremely efficient and am perhaps too eager to plan pretty much everything that comes my way. I should really be a wedding consultant but I don’t want to work on the weekends. I’ve hired a birthing doula and will be starting birthing classes on September 6^th. It’s a bit early, but the next session would run past my due date and what good would that do me? I feel a bit silly that everyone else will be clearly pregnant and I’m going to walk in looking like I eat too much at buffets. I’m considering stuffing my shirt with a throw pillow before heading out to class but it would be pretty embarrassing if it didn’t stay put and I gave birth to a pillow. Kind of like middle school girls stuffing their bras with tissue and someone seeing it in the locker room. It’s just uncool. Anyway, I thought it would be nice to try to have the baby naturally and to have someone there that can help me with that, which is why I’ve hired a doula. I honestly don’t feel strongly one way or another about drugs vs. natural labor. I think that every woman should do what she is most comfortable with. I’m looking at it like my little adventure weekend trip in the wilderness that I went on in 7^th grade. One of my teachers talked me into going. There wasn’t anyone else on the trip that I really hung out with, most of them were older. I didn’t have a lot of confidence at the time and I think that my teacher was hoping this trip would help. Anyway, I am afraid of heights, large bugs, and I used to be really shy. During the trip I had to climb rocks, walk across a really high rope tied to two trees and sleep on the bare ground (LARGE BUGS CRAWL ON THE BARE GROUND!!!) with a bunch of people I’ve never socialized with before. All of those people cheered me on when I was climbing the rocks and walking on that rope and I got through it. Not only did I get through it but I was really proud of myself at the end of it all. I thought that with the doula and my husband there to help me and cheer me on that I could get through labor without the drugs and when, not if, I do I’ll be really proud of myself for being so strong. Of course if I opt for drugs I’ll be able to get some rest during the labor or maybe even play some scrabble. I’ll bring my doula and scrabble so that I’m ready for either scenario.

I think that’s it for P News. Let’s move on…

House Hunting/Moving News

We found a house, we have signed a contract on that house, and our closing date is scheduled for September 1^st. YAY!!! I will officially be leaving the DC metro area on September 2^nd and moving up to CT with all of my pets. The best part is that I will be able to see my husband all the time rather than just weekends. I’ve only seen pictures of the house, I haven’t actually been there yet. My husband and my in-laws have been to the house and they all say it’s great. I trust them and the pictures look fine. Right now a bird’s nest would be fine as long as I can live with my husband again.

Bad News

My friend, Les, needs some love. She’s going through a hard time, to say the least. My heart is just breaking for her. ::hugs & kisses:: to you, Les.

No News, Just Thanks

I wanted to say thank you for all of your comments on my last blog and all of your support. It was a bad day and I was pretty upset. I’m really glad that there hasn’t been any pregnancy drama since then and hopefully there won’t be anymore in the future.