job update

Thanks for all the well wishes, everybody.

Interview was good, I think. Went on for 45 minutes, I think. It would've been even better in person - I interview well face-to-face - but c'est la vie.

They'll phone me within a week to say if I got one of the 3 or so available positions. I reallyyyyyyyyy want to be back at my last school.

This is going to be the most nervewracking 4 weeks ever. My whole future - or at least the next significant chunk of it - is on the table and will be mostly decided within the next month:

1) whether or not we're moving;
2) if yes to #1, we have to decide where it'll be (and start looking for a house);
3) whether or not I'll have a job in September, and what it'll be;
4) if yes to #1, DH must resign and then find a new job;
5) get my rough draft done on my thesis (I'm up to 72 out of 90 pages);
6) start packing; and
7) go through stims, endure egg retrieval, find out how many are mature, find out if DH has any normal sperm, find out if any eggs fertilize, find out how many embies don't die, see if we make it to transfer, if yes then wait an agonizing two weeks for the test, find out whether or not a critter is on board (never mind whether or not it has a chance of sticking around - that would be just stress overload for later).

Stress much? *Nods emphatically*

Actually, surprisingly, I don't feel too bad. Yet.

More potential stress: if the IVF works, and if worst came to worst (this is DH's version of the 'worst') in that DH can't find work (this would be less than ideal, actually, as our savings are depleted and I don't think I'd qualify for maternity leave benefits), I asked DH if he would consider being a SAHD, while I'd go back to work. Obviously this would be less than ideal for me in a million ways - and I am aware of the odds of c-section recovery, ppd, hormonal outrage, misery from being away from baby, plus what would happen with bf'ing, etc. - but you've gotta do what you've gotta do. Money's gotta come from somewhere.

I must sound crazy for bringing this up, I realize, but traditionally in my culture, women didn't stop what they were doing after they had a baby. They do now - in my parents' generation, it became 'normal' to be a SAHM - but my grandmothers and great-grandmothers certainly didn't: they had farms and businesses to run. Also, one of DH's brothers has been a SAHD for one of his babies, and was very good at it; SIL (who is an amazing mother) was recovering from IF-related stuff, including ppd, and really needed to be out of the house. And it all worked for them.

All the same, though, the SAHM notion has become a 'normalized' thing very quickly in my culture - as though it's always been this way, even though it hasn't, even in the rest of the world - and I laugh at thinking DH and I would never ever hear the end of it. So many people would be so furious with me.

Please, no comments about how naive I sound (and don't even think it! lol). I am not completely unaware of what newborns are like - I have experience. And yes, I know it's still not the same as having 'my own,' since I don't know what it feels like to have just given birth, but whatever. If one of us needs work, what can we do?

I don't WANT to have to return to work a few months after (very hypothetically) giving birth - especially not if that were my one and only chance to have a newborn - but if I have to, so be it.

(DH said yes to being a SAHD, btw. He'd be good at it - he is a nurturing soul.)