hi there 2017.

a lot has been going on. i mean, clearly in 6ish months some things are bound to happen. writing has not been one of those things, but i do miss the exercise of chronicling our lives and whatnot, so i am going to attempt to catch back up and re-commit to this little corner of the interwebs.

i lost my job in november. it was a routine layoff, part of the divestiture of my company away from dell. they laid off something like 1/3 of the employees, so i guess i was in good company. it still sucked. i think i have made it through all the stages of grief with that whole thing - probably not in order, but i am working on it. anyway. i've run the gamut of emotions from relief to devastation to complacency to self-doubt (times a million) to anger to...well, you get the idea. i thought i would jump right back into the workforce without really having to try, but that hasn't been the case.

shortly after getting laid off, i found out i was pregnant. again. after four losses in 2016. so, needless to say, there was a lot of mental and emotional stuff there. i had switched doctors after my fourth miscarriage because i felt like my former practice (that i loved) was not taking my situation seriously at all and i knew i could not abide another loss. i had some tests run in september and everything looked fine, thankfully. my new doctor prescribed progesterone for when/if i became pregnant again. she recommended taking it beginning with a positive pregnancy test along with a baby aspirin. so i did. and it worked. and now here i am, 23 weeks pregnant with a healthy baby girl. it feels like a miracle, though i guess life is always a miracle, right?

anyway. between those two major events/shifts happening concurrently, public discussion of what's going on (i.e. blogging) hasn't seemed ideal. i felt pretty terrible and also quite terrified for the bulk of the first trimester. and then i was trying to get hired somewhere asap before i started showing in the second trimester. and now...well, now i am trying to get hired in the mid-late second trimester while sporting a sweet belly. the universe works in mysterious ways.

i have had some amazing support and solidarity (justin, many of the friends who've been "in the know", my family), and some disappointingly, very upsettingly unsupportive encounters. i waffle between the intense desire to explain myself (i know how babies are made; yes, this was planned - maybe not the timing, but the baby for sure; the layoff wasn't expected; i really do like/need to work and taking a year off BEFORE a baby is born is not ideal; how would you feel in my situation; etc.) and the very real feeling that it's nobody's business. i guess pregnancy is normally filled with all the feelings, and this one is no exception, even if the feelings are different/bigger than i would have anticipated.

so those are the big things. beyond that, we had some incredible holidays, hollis turned four, emme has rocked her kindergarten year, and we are generally extremely happy and healthy and thankful for everything that's going on in this sweet little life of ours. i'll back date some pictures and other updates soon.