When I Grow Up...

I've been spending a lot of time figuring out what I want to be "when I grow up." Once upon a time I wanted to be a teacher. I showed a knack for marketing and got a marketing/pr/communications degree instead. Subbed the second semester of my senior year and realized I probably should have gotten that education degree. Instead, I took a marketing and pr job. It was a GREAT job. But I was miserable. So I got another marketing/pr job. That was really more of a technical writing job for a field that bored me to death. I was even more miserable. At the time, my dying grandfather gave me some advice I've never forgotten. He said, "Christi, I worked in a job I hated my whole life because I didn't have a choice. You are smart. You are educated. You don't have to do what I did." Three months after he died, I quit the job I hated and started working on a Masters in Teaching and my teaching certification.

Six months into that, I found out I was pregnant. With an ectopic pregnancy. I consider myself incredibly lucky that we caught it in time to treat it with methotrexate instead of surgery. But the whole thing was a pretty dark time in my life. I ended up dropping out of the Masters program, subbing part-time, and focused on trying to conceive a viable pregnancy the rest of the time. 11 months later I missed my best friend's wedding in Mexico because I was in the middle of a miscarriage and the doctor didn't want me travelling out of the country. Fast forward a year to a new ob/gyn, a round of clomid, and my grandmother's funeral--and Chase was conceived. Getting pregnant with Cassie was even more involved: we moved from an ob/gyn to a reproductive endocrinologist and from clomid to injectible meds and assisted reproductive therapies. If I add it all up, for six years, getting pregnant was very much like a full time job for me.

So now I find myself at age 35 with a marketing degree I have no desire to use and a knowledge that when my sweet girl is in school all day that I'm going to need something else to do. I know I don't want to get back into the corporate life or work full time. That much I know--I've always known that. I'm slowly formulating a plan and am so excited about the doors opening for me--doors that I didn't even know existed until I finally made a phone call and gave voice to the thoughts I'd been afraid to speak for so long. More than that though, I'm finally at peace with what the future holds. Despite lots of logistical questions and a distinct feeling that Jamie thinks I've lost my mind, I'm feeling good about what the future holds and confident that things will work out how they're meant to work out. Once again I'm finding that God laughs when I make plans...but I'm also finding that his plans are always so much better than my own!