Nothing else about me is thinning up, though.  I had my last (last!) endocrinologist’s appointment yesterday, and he was so sweet.  So very happy to release me from his care.  Made me promise to bring the baby in to meet him.  Made me swear to have a marvelous time in Italy.

Um, if you insist.

Now, assuming my August vacation gets approved – and at this point, there’s no reason NOT to approve it – my last day of work will be in the last week of July.  That’s only like 2 months away.  Yeah, not minding this at all.  Thinking it might be kinda swell, actually.   Time to write at a time when I’ll likely be wanting to do nothing more than loll on a comfy couch and type, languidly.  Time to write and cook meals to put in the freezer and get settled into a being-at-home routine before my life gets taken over by Thor’s (OMG he’s going to be here in SEPTEMBER!) arrival.

I spoke with the Princess yesterday – the Boy was astonished at how civil I sounded! – and she confirmed my suspicion that the library system will probably not reopen the Realm of Pain.  Another bit of juicy goodness.  She also confirmed that managers are not exempt from the massive layoff that began yesterday, so I’ll be indulging in a bit of scheudenfraude simply because I AM that nasty.

Otherwise?  I’m feeling good – other than the headcold.  Thor’s moving around a lot.  I got a ton of sleep last night thanks to this being a late night and hence, a late morning.  Acid reflux is still destroying my esophagus no matter what I eat or don’t eat/drink or don’t drink, but I’m getting better at sleeping while sitting up, so it’s working out.  And the heartburn always goes away after a couple of hours in bed, so by 1am or so, I can sleep in any position at all, which is nice.

Moisturizing religiously.  Enjoying the comfort & freedom of my new giganto-bras.  Making friends with my belly-button.  Talking to Thor.  Feeling him kick-kick under my hand.  Daydreaming about baby expeditions.  Eating salad so he’ll be strong and healthy.  Day dreaming about what the heck he’s gonna LOOK like, because it sure as hell won’t be me he takes after.

I’d mentioned when we first started looking into DE that I’m not vain, and I don’t necessarily feel the need to pass along my face/hair/eye color/DNA structure, etc.  But last night when Thor was stomping on me, the Boy said without thinking, “Well, it’s obvious he’s going to have his mama’s hobbit-feet.   “Um, probably not, actually,” I had to say, and it kind of killed the warm&fuzzy moment, which made me feel sad and unnecessarily sensitive.  I should’ve just nodded noncommittally.   I think I’m going to need to come up with something to say – something polite, but not an outright lie – when comments about how much he resembles me come up in the course of casual conversation with folks not in the know.

Ramble ramble ramble.  Going to go in to work now and get laid off.  Maybe during the big “we’re so sorry to let you go” meeting I can get a few blog posts organized in my head so that there’s something worth reading here tomorrow.

Or maybe I’ll just ramble for a while.  It seems to be what I do these days.

Library systems can be funded in all sorts of ways.  Many small communities fund their libraries through a tax-percentage.  You know, .000000045% of everyone’s property taxes go to support the library system.  Which is a good system when you have people in the communities willing to vote their approval of, and then hand over, the $1 or $2 a year to work it that way.  My library system – actually all the systems in NYC – are sort of odd in that we have boards of trustees like NFPs, but we are funded on a year-to-year basis via state & city budgets, just like the fire department or the police department.

If you’ve been paying attention to the news for the last few years, you know that NY state is practically broke, but even more than that, our state legislature is completely non-functional.   We still don’t have a state budget in place for FY 2011, which, of course, affects how much money the city will have to allocate to all the services like, say, libraries, firehouses, and police stations.  So, being the Bloomdude that he is, our Mayor just said, “what the hell” and created a budget based on numbers he pulled out of his ass his best guess as to how much cash Albany would likely send downriver.

Oi.  Ouch.  Damn.

We knew it was going to be bad.  I mean, the financial crisis of 2008-09-10 has hit NYC pretty hard for obvious reasons.  Tax revenues are waaaayy down.  Organizations like the one I work for have already implemented cost-saving measures up the wazoo.  We figured we were going to take a hefty cut in funding but that it would be manageable, maybe.  That most of the funding cut would be restored, perhaps, as it usually is (in a burst of cynical political maneuvering, because that’s how it works here.)  But actually, the numbers are even more dire than we’d all been fearing, and our FearlessLeader announced two days ago that we’d be cutting our workstaff by 44% in Fiscal Year 2011 (which begins July 1).  Yes, forty-four percent.  Yesterday he announced that we’d be receiving our lay-off notices this week.

It’s a creepy feeling, waiting to be sacked.

And I know I don’t have it bad at all.  I’ve been at loose ends at work this entire year (as I believe I’ve mentioned here once or twice!)  I’ve been planning on going out on maternity leave at the end of August, and never coming back.  As it stands as of this week, assuming I do get the axe, my last day will be August 15.  And I’ll be eligible to collect unemployment and remain insured under COBRA for quite a while.  And my husband owns our house, and can afford to keep me in the cheap-ass manner to which I am accustomed.

But it’s still weird.  And it’s really going to be hard for my friends who don’t have a support system in place.  And it’s horrific to imagine – what if I were just going through IF treatment NOW.  As it is, the timing couldn’t be nicer for me, but what a difference a year would have made!  Trying to keep my head together through a job loss while going through IVF would have been awful.  I have friends who will have to leave NYC almost immediately.  NYC librarian wages are among the lowest in the country, despite the unbelievably high cost of living here.  No one has any savings.  They’re going to have to find a job elsewhere and hie themselves hence.  Others are looking at moving in with in-laws, taking a few odd jobs to make ends meet.  Maybe going back to school, because if you’re in school, at least you don’t have to pay back student loans…

This is really going to suck.

Meanwhile, the off-color jokes at work continue – if only a LIBRARIAN had noticed smoke coming from the car, we’d have gotten all of our funding restored just like the cops did.  Hey – is it too late to rent an SUV?   Bemoaning our own ineffectual reputation – why doesn’t anyone ever worry about someone going all Library when they get laid off?  Why should the post office get all the glory?

And, being librarians, we research.  We check into COBRA benefits, and we look up hiring statistics in nearby states.  We trade Job list forum addresses, and we wonder out loud if this is the year to concentrate on finding an agent for our novel.  We write down the addresses & home phone numbers of our friends & even our acquaintances, like seniors in the last week of high school, because we know we’re going to be jonesing for some library gossip in another few months, and who knows who’ll be around to provide it?

It’s strange times in the library system.  If you’re in NYC, stop into a branch today and say something nice to someone who works there.  Trust me – we all could use a sympathetic pat on the back today.

Things like:  “Oh, once your baby is here you’re never going to have a full night’s sleep again!”

Or: “OMG, labor sucked so much!  I was in so much pain before my epidural!  I would never go through that again!”

Or, my personal favorite: “You don’t know, because you don’t have kids, but they really make living worthwhile!  If I didn’t have kids I’d just wither up and die!”

Um yeah.  Um yeah times four-hundred, because most people have a version of one of the above that they like to utter at really inopportune times.

And usually, I try to take them in stride, because, hey! it means that casual observers don’t know that my world has been shattered several times during the time they’ve known me.  Yay for me and my powers of dissembling! 

But.

The Romanian Princess, certainly knows what’s been happening with me for the last year & a half or so.  She also knows that I had a big scare last week.  I know that she knows this, because I wrote her a fairly detailed email so she’d understand why I skipped out of work three hours early last Friday.    So how does she greet me this morning?  By congratulating me on my twins.  Um yeah.  “Ooops!  I must not have read your email very carefully!”  Then she went on to tell me that during her pregnancy, she was calm throughout, just knowing in her soul that everything would be ok with her and with her baby. 

How nice for you, lady. 

Understand, she also offered this observation after both of my miscarriages that she’s witnessed.  Does she think that I’ve lost babies because I’ve been afraid of losing babies?  Does she think that hearing a story about her well-rewarded serenity is going to comfort me?  Console me in my grief?  Why would a person insist on saying  something like this (at length) when it’s obvious that her experience is not the norm, nor, specifically, has it been my experience at all.

Can I write it off as a rarely-mentioned pregnancy symptom that all I want to do is smack her when she replays that stupid observation, any time she’s forced to acknowlege that I’m having a difficult time?  Because really, I’m not a violent person.  Really. 

But it would be so satisfying…

Hah.

And then I went to the bathroom after dinner and had a small heart attack.  I am starting to wonder if it’s cervical irritation, rather than anything else.  I sure am shoving a lot of medication up there on a thrice-daily basis, so maybe I’m just not being careful enough to steer clear of Ms. Sensitive Cervix.

Bitch.

Bleeding bitch.

In other craptastic news, I got called on my day off to go into the Realm of Pain today.  I am not pleased. Actually, I threw what could only be called a tantrum yesterday, both on the phone to the assistant manager who was tasked with making the call, and then after I all but threw the phone across the room, in front of my poor, long-suffering husband.  The Princess is being vindictive and making me pay for admitting that I’d rather be anywhere than in her reach.  I just want out of this situation, internets.  It’s only getting worse.

Going to go analyze toilet paper one last time before I have to go ride the Train of Doom to the Realm of Pain so I can take abuse and witness the craziness of the Princess of Romania.

It sounds like more fun when I type it out like that.  Humor me.  This is my life.  Sheesh.

I’ve decided to put my trust in nausea and boobs that I swear to god grew a cup size overnight.  I’m thinking of going to buy some cheap get-me-by bras today, but I’ll probably be too lazy to actually stir myself to do so.  That’s ok.  It’s good to have some long-term goals around here besides “try not to lose your mind.”

It’s my day off, so I’m going to try to make an appointment to see the OB my doc recommended – yes, I believe he is the OB to the stars! (or at least Brooke Shields.)  But my insurance claims he honors my plan, so what the heck.  And my doc vouches for his personality, which is, to me, almost as important as his qualifications (or his ultrasound capabilities!)  I wonder if he’ll let me come in every week til 13 weeks?  I’ll have to ask. If nothing else, it would get me out of the Realm of Pain for a few hours each week.

Which at this point would be worth almost anything to me.

Work has gotten unbearable again, with my return to the demesne of the Romanian Princess.  In a way, it’s reassuring to realize that I don’t actually hate my profession, just my current work environment.  Being in a branch where sanity is the rule of the day instead of the exception has really clarified a lot of things for me – namely that I need to get out of the Realm of Pain.  The problem being (for of course there has to be a problem) that all transfers have been frozen due to big budget issues that are not likely to be resolved anytime soon.

And if all goes well, I’ll be dropping out of the librarian-game in late summer anyway.

And so that’s what I’ll try to keep focused on.  I’ll try to remember that this – like so much – is temporary, and that I can endure it, get past it, ignore it if I will.

And, barring that, I can bitch and moan until everyone knows just how unhappy I am.  Because I’m generous with my moods like that.

You’re welcome.

(Hoping of course that this is not real action I’m talking about.  Crappy-embryo-pregnancy is not the optimum outcome, here.)

I think the new job is going to be less stressful – exponentially less stressful.  Sounds like the manager here is more of an Empress, than a princess, and she rules her basement desmesne with an iron hand.  Since I only, however, saw her on my way to & from the staff room for lunch, I think I’m going to do just fine.  At no time did she call me into her office to bitch about my co-workers, so I’m thinking big improvement.

The customer base for this branch is Chinese & South Asian, and while racial/cultural stereotypes are a bad thing, there can be a grain of truth to them as well, so long as they’re applied generally, and not specifically.  To wit, Eastern Euro branches have a lot of belligerent customers and even the non-aggro ones are quarrelsome.  Asian branches tend to be busy, but very polite, rule-abiding customers.  Um, yeah.  So far, SO TRUE.  It really makes it a much different job.  I answered reference questions yesterday.  And when I gave someone an answer, they thanked me instead of arguing with me.  A nice change.

And then there’s the food.  Oh my.  And the co-workers who immediately tried to make me feel like I’d been there forever, just one of the gang.  Plus they all knit.  Unfortunately – or maybe fortunately – for me, this branch is closing in a few months, so I can’t get too comfortable here, either.

I told the assistant manager that I was “undergoing treatment for a condition” and would be taking odd late mornings and days off in the next few weeks.  ”No problem” was his response.  Oh yeah.  This is what it’s like to work with people who are good at their job.

So I’m mentally hovering around my lower abdomen, hoping that the cramps progress rapidly, signaling a new period, signaling that we can get back on track sooner rather than later.  Hoping that working for an Empress really is better than working for a princess, and hoping that this time next year I’m only working for my own little dictator-in-arms.

(And in the meantime:  PHO!)

Weird-ass scene, though.  Internal security came and interviewed everyone one at a time for like a half-hour to an hour each.  Then they talked with him for 2 hours.  Then they took off, saying they’d send someone back to help me close the branch down at 8 (and to, you know, make sure we weren’t all lying dead in pools of blood.)  So much for “removing him permanently”.  Word is, he played nice during the interview, and in the absence of any visible frothing-at-the-mouth, they’re afraid of infringing upon his rights by transfering (or firing) him.

It may still happen, or they may wait to see if he has another episode.  Whatever.  I’ve already put in for a transfer.  Crazy co-workers & Sprogblogger do not mix well.  I’ve, um, got enough shit going on in my life right now without that sort of nonsense.

Ahem.

So since it was a day to get absolutely nothing done besides watching the exits at work, I spent my day online.  Bad Sprogblogger.

I’ve been looking into donor egg programs where the clinics offer “shared risk for shared donor” cycles.  ie: 3 recipients split the eggs from a single donor, and you’ve got 6 tries.  No live baby, 100% refund.  

Sounds about right to me.  

Shady Grove in MD is one of the main contenders at this point, & if anyone’s heard anything good or bad about them, I’d love to hear it.  I spoke with the coordinator on the phone today, and she seemed really with it, able to answer all my somewhat techy questions without a break in her stride, and basically seemed easy to deal with.  

And you can’t beat their odds/prices.

Because at this point, yeah, I’m buying young-thang eggs.  What’s it to you?

And this is sort of funny:  I was looking on their donor listings, and they have potential “donors” answer questions like “Why do you want to donate your eggs” and NO ONE I saw said anything like “Because I’m healthy, young, and fertile, and you’re paying me $10,000 for one month of ovarian discomfort and I’ve got a kidof my own whose college fund needs plumping!”   It was all “I feel called upon to help others achieve the dream of motherhood!”  Hah.  I have to say, I’d totally choose any donor who ‘fessed up and told the truth.

I’m really ready for tomorrow to be over with.  I’m really hoping it goes well, and that I recover as easily as I did from the last one, though I realize that there’s more to be removed this time than last.  Still, I can hope.  And at least I know what to expect from the center & the procedure itself, which was the scariest part for me last time – having no notion what would happen once I took off my shoes.

Now I’m going to be waiting to get back the results from the testing.  That’s the next big hurdle in my mind.  Get that over with, so that I can start figuring out a concrete next step.   Have I mentioned that I’m ready to move on in my life?  Ready to stop dealing with conceiving a baby, and really ready to start, well, changing shitty diapers?  I’m ready to be frustrated with the lack of a good night’s sleep instead o the lack of a single good egg.  Ready to be bemoaning the insensitivity of people who diss my stay-at-home-momness instead of the insensitivity of people who assume I don’t have kids because I don’t want kids.  

Ready to move on.  Been here, done this.  Next!

Seriously, today really really sucked.  Not only because I got to schedule my second D&C this year, and then was left completely unable to control the streaming tears produced when my manager left a cup of flowers on my desk, but also because a co-worker who’s been getting scarier and scarier kind of turned a corner yesterday and started threatening us all with grandiose revenge and retaliation-for-perceived-slights plans.

He’s been sort of whacked for a while, but hey, he’s Russian (apologies to any Russian readers, but if you really are Russian, you probably know what I mean), he’s got a thing for the glory days of the KGB, and – most telling – he’s a male librarian, ferchrissakes, and even other librarians don’t expect normalcy from that combination.  Plus he’s been getting progressively wonkier for a couple of weeks, enough so that he finally scared the manager.  And then he flipped this morning, started claiming that “tomorrow you’ll all see how he really is.  tomorrow he’ll have his day”.  Which is bad, in that I think we’re all half-expecting to be under attack tomorrow, but good in that internal security is coming to “remove him permanently” tomorrow.

(I don’t think that means they’re going to cap him, but hey, it is NY.)

The boy offered to come in with me, but since he’s shaped like a bean pole, I told him he’d be a crap shield, (kidding!) and instead he should just keep his cell phone with him all day in case I start texting him frantic “CALL 911!” messages from under my desk. (serious.)

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I’d much rather be thinking about postal-variety-crazy co-worker scenarios than what happens on Friday morning, and how sick is that?  (The windows are barred, so I can’t leap dramatically from the window, breaking an ankle, but able to hobble to safety, but I’m thinking that a barricade of library carts & maybe the safe would be a good way to blockade the office if we hear gunfire.  I’m also thinking that I’m going to be staying out of the office (only one exit) as much as possible, and finding lots of reasons to be working in the Romanian language section (all the hell the way across the library and sort of hidden from the front desk).  That Romanian section totally needs to be weeded.  A lot.  Really.  Like all damned day long.

Anything for a distraction, da?