Would you like fries or a hosted server with that?

When I was a kid, I never said I wanted to be an astronaut or a beauty queen or anything glamorous. I always wanted to be a "hair cutter lady" or a waitress or work at McDonald's (so I could make sure the orders were right). They were the jobs I saw in my day to day life and those people seemed nice, so I wanted to have one of those jobs. As I became a teenager, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to be. My parents always focused on getting an education that would gain me some marketable skill that would allow me to always have a job. Ever the pragmatics, they focused on jobs like accountants or engineers. Someone would always need their taxes done or a bridge built. People don't need to pay for poems to be written for them.

The year I graduated college was the same year Mom got breast cancer and Dad lost his job. It was a rough year for all of us. I only applied to two schools - Old Dominion University and Virginia Tech, with the idea that I could live at home if need be and both were less expensive state schools. I find it ironic that I do so much writing now when I never had to write a single college entrance essay.

I started out as an engineering major until I actually took engineering classes. Oh, how I loathed those classes. I loved math, even calculus, but suddenly vector geometry and linear algebra weren't really doing it for me anymore. After my first semester, I quickly changed over to Communication Studies, much to my father's dismay. I think he was convinced I would get that childhood dream of working at McDonald's after all. I remember him saying on the phone, "what does a communications major even do anyways?"

But fate smiled on me. I took incredibly easy classes that I was really good at. I finished my degree in three years versus four. I was able to work at least 20 hours a week in the library in addition to my coursework because it wasn't a strain. And that work in the library got me my first full time job, which led to my second full time job where I am today.

I'm not sure if people focus anymore on a particular occupation they want to be. I took those classes having no idea what I would do with them. I could have gone into journalism, but I'm not sure my heart would have been in it. I maybe could have become a speech writer but again, not sure if that would have really wowed me. And I'm not sure they have a college major for what I do now.

What I do now is about as close as I can get to my dream job and still make a living at it. I get to do technical things like help maintain web and database servers and write complicated queries for statistics. I get to talk to educated, genuine, kind-hearted librarians on a regular basis with a passion for learning and information sharing. I get to wear yoga pants to work. I have a pretty high level of control over my own work environment and policies so I'm not mired in bullshit. I have the flexibility to work from home if need be for random issues but a fine office to come into the majority of the time (I hate working from home). I can't remember the last time I wore panty hose for work.

But more important than all of those perks, I do a job where I feel like my talents are put to the best use. I do things in my job that I'm not sure any of the other employees could do but that come naturally to me. It's the best of all possible worlds, to feel appreciated for who I am. I use my powers of empathy and humor and troubleshooting and organization for Good and not Evil. And I've had a lot of practice in how to be a parent just from problem solving issues in my work environment. Everyone wants a pat on the head and to feel like they belong and their voice is heard.

I'm in the midst of the longest break from work I've ever had in my life, and we're barely at the beginning of week three of maternity leave. Work and I need this break to rekindle the romance of why we chose each other. I'd still like to be a writer one day, but that might have to wait until after we've won the lottery (which we don't even play). And really, I don't think I'd enjoy being a full-time writer since it involves a lot of alone time with a keyboard and that would slowly drive me insane.

So while I'm not sure that a true "dream job" exists, my gig is pretty good. My mother told me once years ago that Confucius says if you love your job, you'll never work another day in your life. I think about that all the time, particularly when faced with frustration. Really, I have just taken it to mean that no matter what I do, make sure it's something that I am passionate about or else it will never last.

Much anticipated arrival

I have so much to tell you all, but we've barely been home longer than I was in labor so we're still playing a bit of catchup. The short version is that after 49 hours of labor (23 at home and 26 in the hospital) we finally got to meet our beautiful baby boy on Thursday, October 22, 2009 at 6:14am. His name is Ian Jacob Stryker. He was 8lb 12 oz at birth and 22 inches long. He is absolutely perfect.

Everyone is healthy, happy and home. I'm not sure I've put him down for more than five minutes since we came home. I can't imagine life without him.

More soon!

Calling the city on this baby

I'm typing this between contractions while sitting on a giant rubber ball. Forgive any typos. I wanted to give a little background on how my OB appointment went yesterday. We knew it was going to be a bit of an ultimatum (I'm so impressed I just spelled that right just now) appointment but figured we would just see what everyone had to say.

When Dr. D checked me, my cervix had softened/thinned a bit more and moved anterior/forward but I still hadn't dilated past that one centimeter. She also was concerned that baby boy's head had not fully engaged in my pelvis in that she could touch him but could still push him away.

So I was given two options:

1) wait another week and if he didn't come on his own go in for a c-section. I pretty much knew this is not what I wanted since I would always wonder if I could have done it and the stress would have made me a giant ball of snot and tears walking into the hospital.

2) Schedule an induction date for this week and see if he would come out on his own either before then or with a little prodding.

We decided to go with option 2. They looked on the calendar and scheduled me for Wednesday morning at 7:30am. When the physician's assistant (more words I'm stunned I just spelled/typed correctly) told me that date, I asked if she had something a little later. "We normally do all our inductions first thing in the morning." "Well, I meant do you have something later in the week?" I smiled sheepishly.

Nope, Wednesday was the best day because of which doctors would be on call and who would be most agreeable to let me try to birth this baby on my own and not skip straight to surgery. In the end that seemed like the best idea. We all agreed on that and left the office.

And as Rich drove us home, I cried the whole way.

I just needed to mourn a scenario that I really wanted to happen that was having its door closed. I knew I could still stand a good chance of having this boy vaginally and without medication but it was not my ideal situation. I would literally have to pick my last meal that morning, drive in to the hospital and be given Cytotec to encourage dilation and hope that contractions started up on their own before folks got impatient. I really dislike hospitals so the idea of spending at least 24 hours there with no food and no baby and possibly no progress was not very appealing.

Over the course of the evening I started feeling kind of crappy. At one point I had convinced myself that I had contracted swine/bird/moose flu and would have to suffer through contractions in that condition. We called it a night around 11pm.

Around 5am I woke up to pee and felt a little rumbly-tummied (don't even ask me if that's spelled right). Once my body decided to reboot its digestive system, I felt worlds better and curled back up in bed. That's when I noticed those tell-tale signs we talked about in birth class. My back would tighten up, then that tightness would wrap around to the front. I could feel my whole uterus pull forward for about a minute and then it would slacken up. This kept up the entire time I was lying in bed and I must say I was napping with a huge smile on my face.

Throughout the day my contractions have been picking up speed and intensity. At the moment they're about 3-4 minutes apart. I'm obviously still able to type, but that may not last much longer. And as Rich says I'm not finishing my sentences in a timely manner anymore so it's a bit like charades in our house.

My family has always had some sort of crisis that kicks our collective asses into gear to do something. The yard will be a wreck until someone reports it to the city and then my father moves mountains to clean it up. The roof will be in disrepair until it leaks and risks ruining the rafters underneath and then suddenly we can empty the attic in a weekend and replace the roof in two days.

So when things started picking up this morning, I told Rich that this baby was just like all the other Powells and wasn't going to do anything until someone gave him a hard deadline. As Rich said, we called the city on him.