One week later

Last Monday at this time, I was in the hospital with contractions, debating how soon I would need an epidural. One week later, I'm sitting here with Baby 3 - now officially Baby Z - asleep in the swing. The surreal part is that Baby Z's birth wound up being the most dramatic yet. After a textbook 41 weeks of pregnancy, right down to even being Group B Strep negative, my body even started having contractions on its own Sunday night - no Pitocin required!

And then suddenly, Monday afternoon, everything took a bad turn. My blood pressure plummeted - the husband says it's a common problem with anesthesia, but it's never happened with my prior two epidurals - which several people ran in and out trying to correct. It stabilized for a bit, and then, when it came time to push, it started to go wonky again, AND Baby Z's heart rate dropped. And stayed down. So of course I am freaking out - and trying not to freak out, because surely that won't help the baby - and nurses and doctors keep appearing and reminding me to breathe and moving things around, and then they rush us down the halls to the OR so they can prep for a C-section. I'm trying to remember to breathe and praying I don't wind up delivering a dead baby. It's not a worry that's crossed my mind much this pregnancy, but now it's real and staring me in the face.

Thankfully, for whatever reason, Baby Z stabilized. He still couldn't come out, though; apparently he was in an awkward position and got stuck on my bladder, sunny side up. So they did wind up doing a C-section, and pulled out a very alive and pretty healthy Baby Z.

It's taken us a solid week to get settled at home. Last Monday at this time, I was thinking I'd deliver a healthy baby by 2, have some visitors in the evening, get home Wednesday, and be ready to take care of three kids by Monday. One week later, and nothing's gone "according to plan;" yet, I'm still a little in awe that we're both here - Z and I. There's a very good chance we might not have made it to see the sun rise this week without those doctors and nurses. And for that, I'll forever be grateful.

Yesterday and today I had some interviews. This is complicated by the fact that I am three months pregnant. I'm not exactly waddling into the interviews (yet), but it minimizes my clothing options significantly and also means that I have to find a time during the interview process to insert the information that I am expecting a baby to pop out in August. I know that there is no legal requirement for me to say anything about my pregnancy, but I just feel it's starting off on the wrong foot with a potential employer to not mention it.

The consensus I seemed to find in the online community was to mention the pregnancy after having discussed the position and qualifications at length. And then to follow up the pregnancy mention with a qualifier about my plans for returning to work postpartum. At interview one, this worked out very well. The third individual who was interviewing me asked me to tell him a little about myself, so I threw out there that I had a daughter and was expecting #2 in August. He then asked about my plans postpartum and I told him, and it all went very smoothly. At interview two, however, there wasn't an opportunity for a smooth transition into the pregnancy mention. I also got the vibe throughout the interview that they were either A) in the preliminary stages of the process and there would be more interviews or B) not that interested in me. So I didn't put it on the table, and will have to deal with it if I make the cut for their "round two" in two weeks.

All in all, I feel that the interviews went no better or worse than any other interviews I've been to, some of which have resulted in job offers, and some of which have not. So I feel a little more confident going forward with the job search at this point.