So Far So Good.....

Well, today is day 3 of Weight Watchers and I am STARVING!  Ha!  I so don't remember this from last time.  Maybe I was so excited to know that this was going to help me get pregnant.  Maybe I was so excited because I had been trying on my own to lose weight and it wasn't happening.....and then I lost weight on weight watchers.  Maybe I could see that it was all going to be worth it.  Or, maybe I chose to forget how unpleasant starting weight watchers was because it was successful!  

I don't know.....but dude I am hungry!  Ha!

Oh, well.  I'll make it!

Some good news is I have only had one slight headache since Tuesday.  Hooray!  Yesterday my right ovary did feel like it was going to explode!  For real!  And I'm not even exaggerating.  I almost called my OB and asked if they could do an ultrasound to make sure everything was okay.  I convinced myself that if it wasn't better today I would call.  Luckily it was better.

I did have a little bit of a disappointment yesterday.  My REs office called and said they had an opening come open for THIS Monday (2-21) at 9 am and wanted to know if I was interested.  Well, YES I was.  After I got a hold of the husband and his boss got out of her meeting and okayed him being off on Monday (a big day at work for him), the appointment was already filled.  Ugh.  Oh well.  I can wait one more week.  Although yesterday with my almost exploding ovary I wasn't so sure!  Ha!  Everything always works out.  Our appointment on the 28th is for 10 am, which 1 hour makes a big difference when you have to travel 3 hours to get to your REs office.  I can get up at 6 am instead of the 5am that I would have had to get up for for the 9 am appointment.  Gotta find the positives!

I want to share a little about my job.  I am bound by HIPPA (a privacy and confidentiality policy), so I am sorry if I am very vague.  I would LOVE to tell everyone so much more because I want everyone to understand just how awesome my job is!  Luckily I work with one of my best friends (and no, she has no clue I on the infertility journey) so we can chat about work without breaking any policies and that helps!

I am a social worker.  I work with children with special needs.  I have always loved children.  I had my first baby sitting job at 12, and I haven't stopped yet!  A friend of a friend worked at a child care center for children with special needs when I was in college and she heard I needed a part time job and helped me get hired.  I wasn't so sure how I was going to like it.  I had worked at a day care and a dance studio in the past, but those were absolutely spoiled rotten got everything they wanted kind of kids.  I knew I could work with them and keep their parents happy.  I wasn't so sure about these kids, but I REALLY needed a job.

It turned out to be the BEST job ever.  They worked great around my class schedule, and I really felt like I made a difference.  I liked that feeling.  Even when I went home in tears because sometimes I had done all I could do for a child, I still felt like I made a difference.  I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life.......I was a sophomore in college, had taken all the basics I could take and still needed 3 hours for the next semester.  The social worker there suggested I take Intro to Social Work.  I thought "what can it hurt.  I can use it as an elective if nothing else."  I had no idea how that would change my life!

That semester I decided to be a social worker, and I loved all of my classes!  I was so ready to be out of school so I could just work!  That social worker ended up moving on and I took her place when I graduated from college.  And here I am almost 10 years later doing the same job just in a different place.  I joke and say I have been working for 15 years and never worked any where but a dance studio or child care center!  Ha!  I don't know that I would know how to do anything else.  Just a side note, my dad always asked me to please not go into education when I went to college.  To please find something else.  He, my mom, and my sister were/are all teachers!  My grandmother even owned her own kindergarten before kindergarten was in public schools.  Education runs deep in my family.  His words to me were, "Rae, I can't believe you picked the one profession that works more hours and makes less money than teachers!"  Ha!  I told him I didn't care that I loved it and that is all that matters.  He agreed.

Anyway, back on subject.  All of the children at the center where I work have some type of Medicaid insurance.  Most forms of Medicaid (all but 1) are based on income.  I work with many (90 to be exact) low income families who have children with special needs.  We are just a day time child care center (open from 7am-4:30pm) for children 6 weeks to 5 years of age....we keep them until they go to kindergarten.  It is a multidisciplinary approach where the children have certified teachers working with them on specific goals for their development in the classroom and get pulled out of class to receive their physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, and developmental therapy.  It allows parents with special kiddos to be able to work.  We also have nurses on staff who give meds, do tube feedings, monitor children with seizures, give breathing treatments, check pulse ox, etc.  I think it is a wonderful program that I have seen be successful over and over.  I have worked for this specific facility for 6 years.  Some examples of the disabilities that the children I work with have are Autism Spectrum Disorders, Downs Syndrome (one of my personal favs), many different Genetic Disorders, Chromosomal abnormalities, Seizure Disorders, Premature babies (I love tiny babies!), children who are in the foster care system and have delays due to their environment, children whose mothers used drugs while they were pregnant, children with shaken baby syndrome, children whose parents are very low functioning so they are behind just due to genetics, children who were born without legs, children who are blind, children who are deaf, children who are in wheel chairs due to many different disorders, etc.  Okay, I know reading that list may sound sad, but it is SO NOT sad!  They are wonderful children and working with them is a joy!

My main job is to work with the families to make sure they have everything they need to care for their children.  There is a lot of assistance out there for children with special needs, and I make sure they know about it.  I tell the parents when they first meet me that the classroom teachers are there to take care of their children, but I am there to help them.  Raising a special needs child is tough, and if they don't have everything they need they will not be able to care for their children.  I also do not fun things like call the child abuse hotline on families, have to talk about the recent DNR orders they put in place for their child and what they want our procedure to be, call the police on parents who are in a fight in the parking lot, etc.

 

But, I do have to admit that I have questioned why this is what God wants me to do with my life.

Why would He want me to fall in love with this line of work and then go through infertility and want nothing more in this world than a baby and have to encounter parents every day who do not make good choices for their children, give their children up, beat their children, not love their children?????

Why???

And I have also questioned why do I continue to do this job???

How can I possibly love what I do so much when it hurts SO bad sometimes???

I don't know if I will ever know on this side of heaven.

But the thing that matters most is......I do still love it.  I love what I do.  I have to admit, sometimes I do think about my infertility while in certain situations at work, but more times not.  

Today was one of those days that I did think about it often.  We had a few staff members out and I was needed to help in out infant classroom.  This doesn't happen very often.  (But, it is my personal favorite!)  There are a few babies who are in foster care.  One in particular who is about to go back to his/her biological mother.  I wish I could share more on the situation, but just know that I would love to bring that baby home with me.  I spent a little extra time with him/her today, and the classroom teacher who I was working with has been there since the center opened years ago and is a stickler for how those babies are taken care of.  You are only allowed to hold the babies for a little while after they go to sleep and then you are to put them in their crib because there is always another baby who needs something.  I just held this baby while he/she slept today and said teacher didn't say a word about it.  (she does have a pretty big heart for these babies even though she runs a tight ship! ha!)  She did ask me if my husband and I were ever going to have kids.  I gave her the maybe some day answer.  She proceeded to tell me how great she thinks I would be with a baby.  And you know what......it didn't even hurt my feelings.  She was so sincere that I didn't even get the "think before you speak people!" feeling that I usually get.  She only has one son (who is older than me), and so she asked if we just wanted one or if we wanted more.  I told her one would be wonderful, but more would be okay, too.  The conversation ended there and soon changed to whose diaper needed to be changed next and who needed a bottle.  Every time I offered to put this particular baby in his/her crib and help she would tell me no, that she had it.  "Just hold that baby while he/she sleeps!"  

I was in heaven!