October 24, 2006

Baby Olive is crawling and growing at an impressive rate. Not so profits at my current hedge fund at big bank employer. So I'm looking around at other opportunities. My question: when in the interview process do I mention that I need privacy to pump twice a day and that I need to leave work at 5:30 to relieve the nanny at 6? I thought it was hard negotiating work during pregnancy, but as a mother of a young infant, it's certainly worse.

I do always have the option of staying put, yet there are a few problems with this:
1. The fund may be going down: CEO is madder than ever, asking what the hell the lawyers are doing and fighting with his only portfolio manager who is up.
2. The pay is paltry: I was hired as a 6 mos temp to perm through an agency which I assume takes a big chunk of the pay. Budgetary pressures means I have to "wait til year end." To me that just sounds like another Christmas without a bonus.
3. The fund is in London. I have not met most of the people, other than on the phone.
4. My ideal job is on Wall Street. I'm ready to be downtown.
5. I am constantly making lists about the reasons of why to leave.

I explained this all to Olive and she lit up in a big smile. She also said Hi to me this morning and waved bye bye when I was leaving. She's so darned beautiful I wonder how she will fight off the suitors.

October 16, 2006

Hello one year later. I had a baby, am back at work, no big deal really, except that life is completely, utterly different. A wee nursling lives in my house and laugh-cries when I get home from work, calming only in my arms. She's so excited for mama milk. I take her to the dressing room and place her down on her dotted mat to play with her stuffed sheep while I unsuit. She doesn't sit still but crawls around, climbing into my closet and waving the dry-cleaning plastic around.

In sweats, I carry her to bed and she nurses while I kiss her little hands and stroke her red head. Some days she's ravenous and slurps audibly, others she just sips for a few minutes and then looks up at me, smiling. After the milk, the giggling begins. She's in the mood to laugh. We heckle at each other. I tickle her belly, chase her and she runs away, though she knows she can't get very far. She respects the edge of the bed now, after that nasty fall she had smack on her nose. Daddy heard it from one floor above and rushed downstairs. Her nose was bleeding a bit, but we all recovered, healed by a bit of nursing.

Story of an Incubation