/Head Explodes

This week it became apparent that my end of summer is not going to be as relaxed as I imagined. Unless I work 24/7 from this point on. School starts on August 21. I have 20 hours of my clinic remaining, 2 bench trials, a 10 page paper, and a murder trial which I had previously been only slightly involved in and am now suddenly waist deep in it.

The good news is the case is exciting, (if not ridiculous) and I may get to go out to its location to help with trial prep for a few days. I am super excited about it. I just hope I can get it all done and keep my sanity. The paper is something that should (as per school policy) take about 50 hours. Whoo. I think I will spend all day tomorrow on it and hopefully get it at least researched. If I can get it done, the 20 hours on the clinic won't be so bad because the paper won't be hanging over my head.

I wish I could talk more about the big trial, but obviously that's not allowed. I can say that I've processed about 8k pages of discovery and just got word the prosecutor's office just sent more over. So we have that to look forward to. Hopefully the new pages explain some of the big holes I see in their case, but one can only hope. (Or not, given that we are on the defense.)

Abby has been particularly keen on playing Barbies and princesses with Mommy lately, so it breaks my heart to have to say I'm sorry and then tromp downstairs to my office for hours at a time.

Yesterday and today I have been super hormonal and my sense of smell is suddenly impressive. I also nearly thrown up when walking by Subway (I hate the smell of their bread baking apparently) and then today when helping Abby use the bathroom. I'm not normally squeamish, so I'm wondering if this is a good sign that our efforts this month with Clomid have paid off. I'll have to wait another week to find out!

New and Improved

This week I started working on myself a bit. Some little things, some pretty major. Here's a quick list:

My spinal specialist (I have L4 and L5 disc bulge) gave me a steroid injection in May and asked me to start physical therapy and get custom orthotics for my shoes. I didn't do either of those things because I had so much going on. I got the orthotics and I start physical therapy tomorrow.

I started exercising and have worked out almost every day this week. My back feels much better with the small bit I have done; we'll see how well we do with the physical therapy. I'm only a week into my (very very gradual) running program but I'm seeing huge improvements and weight loss.

I stopped drinking soda cold turkey. No alcohol (since we're trying to conceive) and only drinking water or milk. Mostly this is for the sake of my teeth, but the lack of caffeine dependency is nice as well.

I've been cooking meals and keeping the house clean, which has helped me with energy and motivation as well. I am much more likely to do healthy things like exercise and cook dinner if the house is clean.

I started taking regular vitamins (including prenatals).

I feel really good so far, although very tired. That may have something to do with the 1k or so pages of discovery I indexed today though.

We went to the zoo today, here is one of my favorite pictures:

We had a great time and since we have a membership now we'll be going back a lot. We caught the bird show and it was as fun as always. Abby got a kick out of the birds that could "talk." We went by the gift shop and while she could have gotten basically anything in the store (squishy stuffed animals, candy, science-type gadgets) my kid went with a helicopter. That's my girl!

Sound Off! One two...

A little sound off for today's reading pleasure.

Brian and I had a wonderful weekend date, we went to the local amusement park where we went on our first date. I couldn't believe it had been six years since we last went! We discovered (to our horror) that we have become "Those People". You know Those People, they are the super lame whiney people popping Dramamine and complaining about the heat. I felt myself being super terrified of going on rides (many of them I had been on HUNDREDS of times in my youth). I got shaky and nauseated at the mere sight of the newest additions to the park. Still, I pressed on, determined to not be one of Those People. I picked the newest, most scary ride EVER and we went on it. First. Here's what I subjected myself to:

This.

And this.

And this.

WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING? I pretty much felt like I was going to hurl for about two hours after that. Brian wasn't doing so hot himself, so we went on the ferris wheel and several other safe rides hoping my stomach would calm down.

We discovered another new ride in the park which is basically little jet airplanes which SPIN AROUND over and over while flying. PUKE. I opted not to challenge myself on that point. Here it is:

Yeah, no.

I was pretty annoyed at my body that it can't handle rides anymore (even with motion sickness medicine). I used to LOVE it in my younger days. Oh well, the price of getting old I guess. We still managed to have a great time, but Brian wrenched his neck pretty hard on one of the rides. Queue the sounding off...

Brian has been off work for the last two days because of his neck. It was causing nausea and pain (I'm guessing whiplash? but it's better now so it's fine) and he didn't want to go to work. He was a trooper and still dropped Abby off and picked her up from daycare. I was working from home, and while he was minimally invasive just having him around totally threw off my groove. I kept wanting to do things and couldn't because he was around, and he assumed my attempts to concentrate on the 20,000 pages of discovery I'm trying to catalog was me being "mad at him." Maybe he was partly right, but mostly I was just trying to do the work I had committed myself to do for those two days. Plus, he wanted to play video games and I like to watch Netflix while I catalog.

Basically I am not only one of Those People, but I'm totally ungrateful for my amazing husband who probably just wanted a couple lazy days at home to recover and my working from home threw off HIS groove.

*sigh* I feel like such a jerk sometimes.

Having a Baby in Law School (Again)

Lately I have been struggling with what to do about our little family. We would love to have another baby, but we've been trying for about a year and a half (with intermittent Clomid) with no success. It looks like we had an early loss this month, so at least we know it's possible but with the way the calendar is looking we are running out of time. If I am due during the bar it will bring impossible stress, so we want to avoid being due in July at all costs. Even June is iffy, given how much studying I will need to do (and sitting in a classroom during Barbri). Having Mommy Brain and a compressed bladder does not sound like a good plan for bar prep.

So what to do? We've decided to try the Clomid for a few more months and then stop, and then to be honest I just don't see us having more after the bar. I want to get in shape and start focusing on my career and having a baby (and trying to conceive) just takes so much out of me. At some point I would love for me and Brian to just focus on us as a couple again, and we all know that the more kids you have the longer it takes to get to Empty Nest. Not to mention I am not a spring chicken and I hate the idea of the risks going up so much due to my age, I'd rather just stick with our one amazing kid than risk anything going wrong.

Things at work are great. I've been practicing for a month or so now in a couple different jurisdictions, and I've really enjoyed it. Public defense is certainly different than private, I really had no idea how much so. I will get to do a couple trials in August, so I have that to look forward to. I'm also working on a big case out of state (working from home) which is super exciting (and I'm getting PAID!) and which keeps me busy but not too much so. Frankly, a lot of the work can be done while hanging out on my couch and I think that is swell. It's not stressful at all and I know that when I'm done I will have a nice check to apply to my debt or pay for our vacation next summer after graduation. Pretty soon I will finish up the hours for my clinic, which means I will be done at the public defender office. That will free up some time to enjoy my summer a bit more. Maybe we will head south and visit Brian's sister and do a bit of swimming, that would be super fun.

I'm sort of rambling here, but I've been out of the habit of blogging for so long now that I figure anything helps me get back into the swing of things. Hope everyone's summer is going well!

Time is Not on my Side

Oh boy, things have been nuts! I have finalized my schedule for the last year of law school (mostly). I've been working at the public defenders this summer for school credit, and have been practicing under the Third Year Practice rule, which has been completely awesome. I've drafted multiple motions and gotten some dismissals. I like everyone I work with and have been learning so much! I took a one week boot camp-style class in June and am waiting for my grade to come through. On top of all that, there is a (small) chance I may be pregnant. I have issues in that area and when I started having symptoms I got a blood test, which was negative but the level was 1, not 0. So I'm not sure if it's a miscarriage or what, but we're waiting another week to test again. Last time I was pregnant I had symptoms almost immediately upon conception, but didn't have a blood test then. It is possible I am just having symptoms so early that I'm ahead of the hcg test. I also know that I have low progesterone levels (hence trouble with conception) and so when the egg is fertilized I get a surge of progesterone and am more sensitive to it than other people. It's a mystery, and completely frustrating.

I'm absolutely exhausted, worried that this may be a pregnancy loss, but really happy with work and school. As soon as we know, I will either begin a new fitness challenge or a new parenting one! We'll see!