NG '08

Please go send some love to JJ. Astoundingly, she just got some bad news regarding her recent FET. When will this woman catch a break?!?

Also, go wish some luck to LJ and Lea Bea who should be having their retrievals this weekend. Go, follies, go!

There are many, many other things going on right now with my blog friends, so it's clear one of my long lists where I beg you to drop by and visit them is in order. Look for that coming soon.

In Spidey-related news, I had an OB appt this week. It was blissfully uneventful. I'm up 7 lbs which still isn't too bad for 22 weeks, but I'm feeling like a beached whale nonetheless. They just weighed me, took my BP, and listened to the heartbeat via doppler. We chatted a bit, and then Kevin and I left. The whole thing took about 12 minutes and I didn't even get naked. Ah, how nice.

Now, on to NG '08.

What a week. The thing that's been stressing me out has almost nothing to do with Spidey, but it has been horrible nonetheless. Well call it NannyGate '08.

When Megan was born, we started looking for a nanny. Previously, I worked full time at a hospital here in Baltimore (although I'm not clinical, I work in IT). However, they agreed to let me come back just 3 days a week once my maternity leave was over. I think they were so thrilled that I was coming back at all, that they would have agreed to anything. So, we looked for someone to care for Megan in our home on Mon, Tue and Thu. We interviewed a bunch of crazy people, but eventually found a truly wonderful person named Jessie. She was only 19 at the time but she was calm (I am not), serene (I am not), and had experience caring for babies (which I did not). We hired her, she became like a member of our family, and she stayed for 2 years. She only left because she and the boyfriend that she was living with broke up, so she moved back to PA. We are still close with her. We'll call her Nanny v1.0.

Once Jessie told us she was leaving, we started looking for another person. Again, we interviewed a lot of crazy people, and some that said just silly things. I asked one of them, "What would you do in an emergency?" She responded, "I guess I would call the AM-BA-LANCE." Yes, she referred to that wonderful place with the books as a LIE-BERRY too. Not exactly the person I want teaching my daughter her grammatical skills. Anyway, we finally found another nice girl named Kelly who was 22. Since my best friend is also named Kelly, it got confusing for Megan so we named her Nanny Kelly. NK was going to the community college here in town, and finally graduated in December. On Monday (in 3 days) she starts at a 4 year college here in MD. But she's going full time and living on campus. So we set about to replace her. We'll call NK Nanny v2.0.

At the beginning of December, we started looking for Nanny v3.0. Within the first week, we found a wonderful, amazing girl named Erinn who seemed just wonderful. She was 23 and really had a level head on her shoulders. She worked 1 week with Nanny Kelly and 1 week with me, learning the routine and whatnot. We all had a teary goodbye with NK and were excited for Erinn to officially start full time. Megan LOVES Erin. Well, on the very first day that Erinn was supposed to work by herself, she didn't show up. Didn't call, didn't text, nothing. She was supposed to be here at 7:30am, and we finally heard from her at 9:15am the. next. day. Via text message. With some lame excuse about a stomach ache. Needless to say, my response to her went something like, "Unfortunately, it's not going to work out. I'll mail you a check for the hours that you worked." We'll call her Nanny v3.0.

Thankfully, NK hadn't started school just yet so she was able to come back for a few weeks. We started feverishly looking for another nanny. We found an 18 year old girl named Jennie who, despite a couple of things she did or said during the entire interview process, we agreed to try out for a test period. She agreed to come this past Tuesday from 12pm - 2pm and work with Nanny Kelly. It was a total disaster. She only stayed 1 hour, and the ENTIRE time she was here, she either talked on her cell phone or texted people. At one point, Megan was trying to get her attention, "Jennie, play with me!" and Jennie's response was to talk LOUDER so that her friend on the phone could hear her over Megan's request. What was the topic of such a hot conversation? They discussed some sort of drink that you can buy at G.NC which will flush drugs out of your system. Greeeeeeat. Within 3 hours of leaving my house that day, I called her up and fired her. She was stunned, and had a million excuses, but too bad. We'll call her Nanny v3.1.

I immediately started calling more people. The next day (Wednesday), we interviewed a 23 year old girl named Shannon. We liked her a lot, and she was great when she interacted with Megan. A couple of the questions that we asked her yielded strange answers, but it just seemed that there was more to the story, not necessarily anything sinister. (Like why did she graduate in the top 10% of her class from East.Carolina with a nursing degree in December, yet she's back home looking for a job as a part time nanny?) So we decided to give her a try. Since we were in an obvious time crunch, I asked her to come the next day (yesterday) despite the fact that I hadn't checked her references or run her background check. But yesterday was NK's for-real last day and I wanted NK to spy on Shannon. Shannon agreed, and planned to be here at 10am. We were optimistic, but had been burned too much to get overly-excited. I'm sure you guessed what happened -- at 8:15am yesterday, Shannon texted me to say that she couldn't come that day, and wouldn't be able to take the job after all. I replied and asked if there was any particular reason why, but she didn't respond so I guess I'll never know. We'll call her Nanny v3.2.

So now? We are screwed. NK is gone and we have no one. We do have some short term options, though. Option #1 is that Jessie (Nanny v1.0) is seriously considering taking a 1 month leave of absence from her job in PA (where she only works 1 day a week anyway, it's a long story) to come and help us out. While we figure out if that's going to work, here's option #2: we've lined up NK's Mom (who we also dearly love, as does Megan, and she just adores Megan in return) to come on Mondays. Then my neighbor Lynn will watch Megan on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Then Kevin and I will each take one of the afternoons off (either Tue or Thu) and stay home. It's sort of cobbled together, and will have a serious impact on our work schedules, but NOTHING is more important to us than Megan's safety and happiness. So we will make it work while we continue to search.

There are 3 other women (ranging in age from 24 to 61) who weren't exactly terrible, but I'm hesitant to settle. Kevin is okay with them short-term, but I feel like we've already messed with Megan's head enough. I feel like the divorced Mom who parades around a new boyfriend each week, and it's got to be confusing for Megan. That just breaks my heart.

We interviewed someone last night. When I asked her what her greatest weakness was, she responded with a long explanation that can be summed up with, "crying babies stress me out." I said, "Um, you DO realize we're having a baby in May, right?" She said, "Yeah." Thanks, but no thanks.

Hopefully we will either find someone spectacular soon or we will be able to limp through until my maternity leave starts in May. (Look at me all confident and optimistic that I'm actually going to have a real, live baby in May. Aren't you proud?) Then I can spend that time off looking, yet again, for Nanny v3.x.

Sorry for the long-winded whine. It's just been such a laborious, stressful process that I had to do something therapeutic to get it out of my head. Oh yeah, did I also mention that I just finished tapering off my Zoloft? The perinatologist and OB both recommened that I go off it by the 3rd trimester if I can (based on a brand new study about Zoloft and some other anti-depressants which links their use in the 3rd trimester to fetal persistant hypertension). So I took 1/2 a pill for 2 weeks, then 1/4 pill for about 2 weeks. I've been Zoloft-free for a week, and I can't tell if the recent (albiet brief) crying jags are a result of NannyGate '08 or the lack of Zoloft. Good times, I tell you. These are some good times.