The hardest thing about working during my second pregnancy — aside from the fact that I had four kids at home for a good chunk of it — was my morning commute. I was constantly tired from either getting up in the middle of the night with my toddler (or, in the third trimester, from getting up to go to the bathroom every 37 minutes).

The second hardest thing about my second pregnancy was the way I felt that the size of my expanding body was indirectly proportional to my value as an employee. That is to say, I worried that people would see my enormous belly, notice that I was no longer walking so much as lumbering, and assume that I wouldn’t be able to do my job properly because I was pregnant. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m sick. Again.

(Of course, I’m at work. Why do you ask?)

The other night, my husband remarked that, in the past few months, both he and I have been sick more frequently than ever before. But why? Sure, we’re overworked, but not any more than we’ve always been. We’ve been eating more healthily, exercising more often — OK, that’s a lie, he’s been exercising, I’ve been, um… look over there! Something shiny!

Really, though, we couldn’t figure out why we were caught in this cycle of sinus headaches and hacking coughs. We feebly tossed around a few more ideas (is it the weather? Do we need vitamins?) while my husband reminded L. to cover her mouth when she sneezed and I wiped O.’s streaming nose for the umpteenth time, and then it hit us … Read the rest of this entry »