Ouch

Tuesday morning I woke up and got my first pregnancy leg cramp. The cramp went away but I have had muscle pain since then, so I called the clinic and guess what they told me? Go to the emergency room, it could end up being a blood clot. So Eric and I spent an hour at the hospital tonight getting it checked out. More like, 10 minutes walking through the hospital to the emergency room, where they promptly sent us to labor and delivery to see the nurses there, who then had me lay down and monitored the baby's heart for almost 1/2 an hour before the midwife came in to check my leg. Which of course took about 2 minutes before she told me it definitely wasn't a blood clot, I was fine, it's just some residual muscle pain that should go away, and here are some things to do to avoid leg cramps and to deal with them when they happen again, which they most likely will since I'm pregnant and that's what happens when you're pregnant. Which is what I originally thought, but since I've never been pregnant before and the pain lasted so long and all the stuff I found online said to call if pain persists, so that's what I did. At least we were only there for an hour, it could have been much worse. To top it all off, we had to pay for parking, and they wouldn't take a credit card so we had to write a check. I'm not kidding. A parking ramp that doesn't take credit cards. At the very least, we were able to see the hospital where I will most likely be giving birth, and we got some information from the birth center, so one positive thing came out of our trip to the hospital tonight!

Goodbye, Holy Rosary

Tomorrow is my last day of work at Holy Rosary. I will no longer be a volunteer coordinator. In fact, I will no long be employed. This is the first time in 6 years that I won't have any kind of job. It is going to be so weird. I've been looking for full-time work but haven't had much luck with it yet, unfortunately. I was hoping to have a job lined up by the time the semester finishes in 2 weeks but I don't even have any interviews. It's scary. Add that to my sadness about leaving Holy Rosary where I've been for almost 2 years and made some good connections with people, and it's going to be a bit of a transition. I have enough to keep me busy, that isn't the issue, it's more of an issue of finding a new rhythm and not having any form of employment which will all take some getting used to. So if anyone knows of any parish jobs or other theology-related jobs, any leads would be helpful...

As I said, I will have plenty to fill my time this summer as I look for a new, hopefully full-time, position. I have my comprehensive exam at the beginning of August, so my summer will be spent reading through my book list and studying, studying, studying. I'm trying not to get too nervous for it yet since I still need to finish this semester and then I have a million books to read, and it's 3 months off still so there isn't really much I can do about it. It's hard not to think about it though because it is the final step in getting my Master's degree. It also happens 3 weeks before the baby is due (the written portion anyway, the oral portion is going to happen only a week or so before the baby is due) so there is quite a bit going on in my life during that part of the summer. Actually, there is a quite a lot going on for the whole summer, with weddings and family reunions and traveling to California (for a wedding, actually) and moving and getting ready for the baby and studying. It is going to be quite an eventful summer I'm sure. I hope I have time to focus on me a little and getting ready to be mom. Life will never be the same once the baby is here, and I want to make sure I am as prepared as possible, whatever that means. At the very least Eric and I want to make sure we have some time to ourselves this summer to just be married before we are married and parents.

With all that's going on in my life right now and coming up over the summer, it might be good for me not to have a job. At the same time, it is going to be weird and a little scary, and I would really like to find a job that uses my degree sooner rather than later. It's strange to think that when I go to work tomorrow I have to turn in my keys and clean out my office. I hardly even have any work to do because I've taken care of as much as I can, and since I'm leaving there isn't much I can start to work on. It's going to be an interesting and probably a sad day at work tomorrow. I hope I am moving on to something great, because Holy Rosary has been good to me and the teachers I've worked with are wonderful people. Goodbye, Holy Rosary. Thank you for everything I've learned while working there and for all of the support I've received.