Awaiting Baby

It is now the fourth day past my "medical due date," and still no baby. Actually, I always figured that this baby would arrive "late" according to that calculation. Family members have been calling asking how the baby and I are doing, and it is kind of disappointing to say, "No news, but it cannot be too much longer now." There have been some signs that labor is imminent, but it is not here yet.

I found myself wishing that labor would hurry up and start earlier today. It is not that I am tired of being pregnant (honestly, I am not). I am ready, however, to meet our baby, to begin my new life as a mother, and to stop receiving comments from others on the baby's current lack of arrival. Today I have an appointment with my CNM, when I made the appointment last week, I assumed that: 1. The baby would be here by now, or 2. I would be at the hospital preparing to have the baby, so either way I would not need to go to this appointment. It appears that I was incorrect in making that assumption. At least I am finished working now until our baby is about two months old, though we are still hoping and praying that J.R. finds a good enough job that I will not have to work.

Of course, there have been advantages of our baby coming after the actual due date. Since we did not know when the baby would come, J.R. and I had not made any real plans from the beginning of last weekend until the beginning of next weekend. This has enabled us to truly enjoy our final days of married life, pre-children. We have had the time to get several last-minute items of business in order. No, our apartment is not spotless, nor will "the baby's room" be completely in order until after we move, but things have come leaps and bounds toward me feeling better about our overall preparedness over the past week.

Come what may, I think that we are about as ready as we are going to be. We are, needless to say, really looking forward to meeting our little one, whether it be sooner or later...

Working Woman Woes

Yesterday my supervisor spoke with me concerning my position and maternity-related issues. The maternity issues did not strike me as being the meat of the conversation so much as, "We were thinking that maybe we need to find a man to fill the position, so let us know whether you think you are capable of doing x and y." "X and y" being fleet-related tasks.

So questions began racing through my head: If I decide that I am not capable of doing "x and y" does it mean that I "quit" this job, thereby making me ineligible for unemployment? If this is not the case, will I be eligible for unemployment although I would have been going on maternity leave? I am getting a feeling that I may not be able to win in this situation. J.R. thinks that it sounds like sexual discrimination, afterall, I have been doing the job for over six months without having ever heard a complaint concerning me (or my abilities) over the course of my employment. I had a whole mess of questions going through my mind related to the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) as well, but then I realized that no amount of worry is going to help the situation. God will take care of J.R. and I, one way or another, He always does.

When I spoke to J.R. at lunch time, he could tell that something was bothering me. Since the something that was bothering me was work, and I was sitting in my cube (where anyone nearby could hear me), I would not tell him what was bothering me. J.R. went through a list of things that could possibly be wrong: "Is work getting to be too much for you?" "Do you think that you're in labor?" "Did something happen to someone in your family?" He guessed lots of different things, and by the time he guessed correctly, I had realized that even if the morning's conversation with my supervisor was bothering me, my life was not looking nearly as dreary as it could be.

So, here I sit, pondering an uncertainty that I would rather not be pondering, particularly with everything else that is on my plate right now. I had planned on working up until my due date, taking my maternity leave, and returning to my job afterwards, should J.R. be unable to find something more stable and better paying between now and then. Actually though, I am doing pretty well. Sure, I'd rather not have to establish myself in a different occupation if needed - but I knew from day one that this job was only temporary. Sometimes we become motivated to move on to something else (another part of God's plan for our lives) only when we are forced to, and if our lives had not had the upset with which to motivate and teach us, we may have never bothered. Yes, I find myself in a inconvenient situation potentially, J.R. and I may face a great deal of stress before everything is said and done, but I know that God will provide; we will be fine in the end.

Concerning My Job

Today I was working on my computer at work, and though I did not feel inspired particularly, decided that it was time to post on my blog again. You may be wondering, "Amanda is at work and has time to post on her blog, how does she manage that?" Thus, I will tell you exactly how I manage it: I am an administrative assistant, I have tasks that I am assigned to do every day, but once I have finished with those, so long as there is not anything additional to assist with, I have free time on my hands. I like to think of my job as being similar to an insurance policy: sometimes it gets used and sometimes it does not, but you want to have it in case you need to use it. At first, it would drive me crazy to have free time on my hands at work, since there was always something to do at my previous jobs, but in the three plus months that I have worked here I have learned to adjust to my down time at work by finding things to keep myself busy. My cubicle stays pretty clean and the storage shelves are relatively organized, all things considered. Though it may sound like a terrible waste of my employer's resources to some, I am at peace with my use of time at my current job since I am accomplishing everything that is expected of me and everyone is content with the quality of work that I am doing. I have received glowing reports on my progress as an employee even.

Although I cannot know for sure yet, since spring has only been giving us peaks of herself so far, I have a suspicion that the most difficult aspect of this job for me is going to be the fact that I work indoors. The other jobs that I have held for any length of time were related to horticulture (well, this job is too, but it is administrative so the link is not as visible), so there was a healthy dose of the outdoors included in my work. I have a feeling that as the weather gets warmer and the sun shows itself more, I will start yearning to spend more time outside and less time inside. At least my job is part time and not strenuous work, two factors which should give me more time to enjoy outside than my previous jobs have allowed.

In other job-related news, J.R. and I are planning on starting a landscape design, installation, consultation, and maintenance business this spring. Landscaping businesses tend to be quite successful in our area, so we are hopeful that ours will be as well. Success should not be a problem considering that we both have horticultural experience, attended Michigan State University, which is one of the top-ranked horticulture colleges in the country, and many people with out horticultural knowledge are able to run lucrative landscaping businesses. Now, I realize that some people are getting concerned probably at the thought of a pregnant lady working in landscaping, but I promise not to do anything that may endanger either my or the baby's safety, and I doubt that J.R. would let me do so anyway. Besides, there is nothing potentially harmful for me when it comes to creating landscape designs or recommendations, so hopefully I will have plenty to keep me busy with those and will be able to help with the less physically-demanding landscaping activities outside sometimes. Additionally, in all likelihood I will still be working part time at my current job until July, so that will be a time-limiting factor when it comes to how much time I have to put into the physically intense jobs that go along with landscaping.