Career: introspection part 2

I am an attorney. Actually, I quit my job in February and recently deactivated my law license, so the previous sentence proves that I am in denial. I wanted to be an attorney, and a litigator, from the time I was about 10 years old. What they do not tell 10 year old girls who want to be lawyers is that litigating is not a family-friendly profession. However, there has never been any question in my mind whether I chose the right career. I LOVE litigating.

After Caroline was born, there was no question that I would go back to work. Going back after maternity leave remains one of the hardest things I have ever done, but our family adapted, and everything went fine. I reduced my hours in early 2010 to go "part time," which meant that I "only" worked about 37 hours a week. This was not the fault of my firm: it's just the nature of litigation. Although no career or law firm is perfect, I loved both my job and my firm. I still miss them every day.

Things went along fine for a couple of years. The stress was getting to me, but that's just life as an attorney and as a working mom. Around Christmas 2011, literally almost out of nowhere, I decided the stress was just too much, that I missed Caroline too much, and that I needed to take a few years off. We also knew our family would be expanding. For a while, I wondered where that relatively sudden urge was coming from. Now I know God was preparing me for this journey with Weston. I had six trials on the calendar from February 2012 to January 2013. Three of them were scheduled for March, May, and July. Bed rest began April 18 (and that March trial got moved to April), so if I had still been working, it would have been complete panic for myself and several other attorneys at my firm. (You like how I still call it "my" firm? Yep-denial.)

The plan was to give notice in January 2012 and stay on through mid-February so I could complete a jury trial for a case I had been working on for a couple of years. I was convinced I was pregnant in January, which was what I wanted, because I was EXHAUSTED and generally feeling crappy. I had a doctor's appointment in mid-January and took a test, which came back negative. No matter, I thought, it's just too early. A few days later, I got pretty sick and went to urgent care. I took another test because they were going to put me on antibiotics, I think. Also negative. By then, I had taken a couple of home pregnancy tests-all negative. I kept wondering how in the world all of these tests were wrong. I probably wasted half of Caroline's college fund on pregnancy tests. Finally, it became quite obvious that I was NOT pregnant. Bummer.

Giving notice at work was incredibly difficult. Big surprise: I was a complete emotional wreck (another topic for another blog that I will probably never get to). I put pregnancy thoughts out of my mind and started getting ready for trial. The trial went really well: February 13 was the last day, and I gave closing arguments. A few hours later we got a defense verdict. Yippee! Then I went to happy hour with the other attorneys and had a martini (in retrospect: oops).

February 14 was my last day at work and Caroline's last day at her wonderful daycare. Also in retrospect, my overly emotional self should not have scheduled both of those things to occur on the same day. When I picked Caroline up, her teachers and all of her little friends hugged her and said goodbye. Oh, my heart! She and I had a blissful rest of the week together.

On Saturday, February 18, the pregnancy test came back positive. Turns out I was pregnant during trial, but not far enough along yet to feel nauseous and fatigued. It was another instance where God's timing was better than mine.