Being Sick While PG (aka At least i can still type)

I have little-to-no voice today, but despite the coughing I actually slept reasonably well. (I would cough 2-3 times each time I woke up and then it would settle down and I’d drift off to sleep, so I lost no more sleep than I would have had I not been sick. I’m up every 1-2 hours to waddle to the restroom regardless.) I wanted to call in (well, email-in) sick, but since I feel well enough to do paperwork, I figured I should be a good employee and come in anyway. I hope I don’t regret that decision.

Rant about pregnancy-approved meds: WHAT is the point of plain Rob*ituss*in? My list said I could take Rob*itus*sin DM which is listed on the bottle as both an expectorant and a suppressant (how does THAT work?) and it doesn’t seem to actually DO anything. I still cough and it doesn’t really seem to be any looser – maybe a TINY bit, but not enough to qualify, in my opinion. And if you’ve got a sore throat, forget it. Sure, they claim you can take Chlor*iseptic, but that stuff is so nasty (who wants half their mouth to be numb for 5 minutes and then to have it wear off and be useless again?) and pointless and bad for your vocal chords that I really don’t see the point. (I was a singer in high school and was forbidden to take any numbing spray or anything with eucalyptus in it since it does more harm than good to your vocal chords. If it hurts to talk, it means your chords are inflamed and you shouldn’t be talking/singing anyway or you could damage them). I suck on lozenges (in high school we were allowed to have jolly ranchers or lemonheads in lieu of lozenges as well) to keep my throat moist, but that does little for the pain. Having a cold while pregnant shouldn’t be possible.

Catch up, update and Homecoming

I’ve been slacking again. But I have an excuse! I got Mr. Moose’s cold and, seeing as I’m pregnant, I can’t take a lot of the medication to make me feel more normal. I never thought I would be jonesing for drugs, but I miss Tylenol Cold something awful.

Had my 23 week appointment yesterday and everything is as is should be. I still haven’t gained any weight – I’m technically up a pound – but the docs aren’t concerned as long I as I assure them I’m eating (I am) and not exercising too much (not a chance) and the baby is growing properly (she is). She has been very active for several days and I’m adjusting to the sensation much better now that it is more frequent and less of a surprise every time. Mr. Moose finally got to feel her kick on Sunday, which made us both very happy.

We’ll be going to our high school Homecoming game on Friday night – my husband was part of the school’s first football team and they are doing a special celebration of those team members this year and he was asked to come back for that ceremony. In the email that included all the details, it was mentioned that one member of the team (who happens to be my high school boyfriend) is serving in Iraq and won’t be able to attend. I said to Mr. Moose “well, at least I won’t have to worry about him grabbing my butt again,” referring to the last time we were in the same place (albeit, this was years ago) when he thought it would be funny to grab/slap my rear as he walked by. Mr. Moose agreed and said he was also glad of that (they had been very good friends back in the day) since he didn’t want to have words with a Marine. I also countered that he was less likely a few years older and now that I’m pregnant to be that obnoxious, but we wish him safety in his efforts in Iraq, nonetheless.

Weird Dreams and Naming decisions

I had the weirdest dream Sunday night. I dreamt that Mr. Moose and I were living in a house (not one that I recognized) with my mother and that my old dog was there and still alive. Our current dogs were also there and while my dog, Murphy, had lived with Tiki, Mr. Moose’s dog, buck never did. But anyway. One summer afternoon I let the dog outside and then, 5 days alter at 4am I realized that I couldn’t remember letting him back in – ever – and I hadn’t seen him in days. I think I may have killed him, though that was never determined in the dream. I woke up at 4am and couldn’t stop focusing on the dream thinking over and over “oh my gosh, I killed the dog and how on earth am I going to be a mother if I can’t take care of a dog?” Tiki died of old age and other related health problems nearly a year ago and I had nothing to do with it, by the way. The only other thing my mind would think about was an annoying line from a stupid Orbitz gum commercial – “Who are you calling a cootie queen, you lint licker?!” Very weird nights.

I also had dreams this week including borrowing a suit for Mr. Moose (who is a large man) from a gay male co-worker (who is significantly smaller) – when he brought in his suit, it was sour apple green. (My co-worker isn’t typically that flamboyant) and another dream that included kicking the butt of a high school classmate for cutting in line at a public restroom (like now, when I’m 6 months pregnant) – I haven’t seen or heard from/about this person in AGES, so no telling why she was in my dream.

(TMI alert) Monday night my gastrointestinal festival finally got geared up and I had this incredibly painful session in the bathroom. It included lots of groaning and moaning and ultimately ended with me waking Mr. Moose out of a dead sleep to come take care of me when I got close to fainting. It was awful. I felt so bad for waking him and scaring him, but I was starting to panic that I would faint and knock myself out, or that all the pain and contracting in my body was distressing the baby, etc. We then fought over the toilet for several minutes (the problem with only having one bathroom) and I informed him that we were definitely getting the epidural during labor. It was so awful. The good news is, I’m feeling much emptier, the softener I took over the weekend did do a decent amount of good and I’m back to milkshakes doing their duty (add to that a combo of apples, raisin bran and anything else I could possibly think of to naturally get me moving). My various ways to keep conscious involve cold wet clothes on the back of my neck, purposely trying to even my breathing (easier said than done when in pain) and ice cold water to cool me down. By the time I finally got back to bed, I was exhausted and fell asleep quickly. (It didn’t last – the water came back to haunt me an hour later). But the baby was active this morning and I’m beginning to feel the little bump, bump on the outside occasionally, so hopefully Mr. Moose will soon get to feel it too.

My sister had her baby. It’s a girl (I’m so excited!) and her name is Rebecca. Rebecca was one of our choices, and I am now thinking I will have to put it aside. Mr. Moose hates that reasoning, but I stand firm that close family/friends shouldn’t share names of kids to avoid confusion – at least if they are close in age. It gets too confusing when they spend lots of time together. I’m bummed since it was going to be paired with my Grandmother’s name and I’ve been increasingly liking the idea of having a “Becca” around. But alas, we’re pretty much down to 2, though last night I started pouring through the books to see if I could find another. It seems like it’s too early to have the decision made or something. (We have a 3rd name that I have been yet unwilling to drop from the official consideration list. Meaning-wise, it’s the prettiest of them all, but it’s also the least common/popular of the group and the most likely to better fit a girly-girl than a tomboy, hence my reason for loving it.) I cannot decide if I am superstitious enough to believe that the child’s name will (at least help) determine the personality of the child or not. If so, I want to have a name that will encompass all my hopes and dreams for my baby girl and some of these names just don’t cut it. They’re nice, pretty, full of personal meaning to us, but less-so full of hopes and dreams for her personality, etc.

In case of emergency...

We are planning to ask Mr. Moose’s sister, J, to become the legal guardian of Kremit (and her future siblings) in case anything were to happen to both of us. We have many reasons for this, which I plan to list, but I also have my concerns, as well. We plan to ask (and actually have already) my father to become the financial guardian for the inheritance for the baby, deciding to spread the responsibility around on both sides of the family (and he’s EXCELLENT with money, so it’s incredibly logical). We got that idea from my co-worker, Fran, who has an only child who stands to inherit quite a bit of change if something were to happen to Fran and her husband. Fran’s sister is the physical guardian and her husband’s sister is the financial trustee. That way no one has too much power, you know?

We won’t be leaving that much behind (at least at this point), but we both have fairly substantial life-insurance policies now (which we got when we found out I was pregnant, just for this purpose). To us, our actions make a lot of sense. (To my mother, not so much. She was okay with my dad being trustee – I think even she knows that he is WAY better w/ money than she is, though I doubt she’d admit that formally. She had quite the objection when I informed her that we would be asking one of the girls to be the physical guardian of the baby should both Mr. Moose and I die. I know she’d do it in a heartbeat, but she really has no idea where she and her husband will be in the next 18+ years either health-wise or emotionally, etc. I know they would always love my child to the best of their ability, but logically… it makes sense to choose someone from our generation.)

So, J has been our choice, though we haven’t yet discussed it with her. We’d like to as soon as possible, so we can then tell his other sisters face-to-face at Thanksgiving what our choice is.

So our reasons for choosing J are logical, practical ones. 1)
At this point, she is the most stable sister who lives here. Mr. Moose’s little sister, LP, also lives here, but is still in school (college) and no one really knows what her future will entail. Where will she get a job? Will she get married (she hasn’t ever seriously dated someone to our knowledge), etc. His older sister, LB, is married and expecting her own child, but she lives in North Carolina with the stated fact of “no intention to ever move to Florida” coming from my BIL. 1b) We would prefer for Kremit to not have to move away if something were to happen to us. 1c) We would like for her to be able to be around both sides of the family and since my family isn’t likely to move away too far, this is the location we would prefer to have the guardian in. 2) J is responsible – she is a teacher with strong values, and while I cannot say that she would raise our daughter the way we would (she is significantly more conservative than either Mr. Moose or I) I know that her guidance would be stable, loving and very consistent with the way they were brought up as children (J seems to be the most like her mother in that department, with LB a close 2nd). 3) Though she might not raise our daughter exactly the way we would, she has always been incredibly maternal and we know that she would be an excellent mother. (LP, for example, is going to be a great Aunt, but since she claims she never wants children… why would we ask her to be saddled with ours?)

My concerns are that she is single, and while I think she would ultimately like to get married, she has no immediate prospects and I don’t know what her future husband might say to this commitment. I’m sure that a man who wouldn’t want to care for her (theoretically) dead-brother’s children likely wouldn’t pass muster with her, but you never know what their situation would be looking forward to an unknown future. I am also saddened that we don’t have an option for which I could confidently say “this person will raise my child the way I would,” but I have every confidence that J would do an excellent job.

We discussed the possibility of asking my sister to be the guardian, but with she and her family in another country, I get concerned about the logistics. Plus, the she’s-got-4-kids (almost)-already issue, and we chose to ask J first.

We were planning to get with her one-on-one over lunch today after church, but Mr. Moose has come down with a severe cold and we had to stay home. We want to make sure we talk to her and she is able to think about it for a bit before she has to make a decision and we’d like to talk to his other sisters over Thanksgiving (likely, the last time we’ll see LB before each of our children is born and we think it will be better coming from us face-to-face than via phone).

What are your plans for your child's future in a situation where you are no longer around to handle it?

Without Communication I go crazy

This morning my company is without communications (no phones, no email, no network access and no printing to network printers) and so I have nothing to do until out service provider gets off their rears accept write a long, newsy post. Aren’t you lucky?

I have past the 21-week mark and am feeling very pregnant. I slept poorly the night before and ended up too much on my stomach – then the baby seemed to have a sleepy day and wasn’t moving as much – I was beginning to freak out. She started moving later in the day, but not as much as usual, so I’m still at least slightly concerned. If I don’t feel much movement today, I’ll be calling the doctor this afternoon (as we’ve been planning to leave town tomorrow morning and spend the day at Disney). How bad is it, if you put too much weight on your stomach?

My co-workers have been randomly (actually alphabetically) choosing names of the day for the baby lately. We’ve come up with a system of “nice” names, silly names and names pertaining to liquor. Today’s liquor name is Limoncello (one of my favorites) and my co-workers choice of a “nice name” happens to be one of our 4 choices (which surprised me, since it’s not overly popular). I found it amusing that she chose that name out of the blue.

On the names subject: Our top choices originally included the name Cathryn Alexa, but that has since been dropped. I still like it – it’s actually a family name on my/my mother’s side (my great-grandmother was Anna Catherine) and my mom is Alexa. I’d still like to consider it for the future – maybe daughter number 2? – but I’d like to come up with something a little less directly connected to my family and my family alone for our first child. I did find out in passing that my SIL J likes that name and was bummed that we rejected it, but I don’t think any of our names are so far out there that anyone will hate them.

Well, the baby has made the occasional kick this morning, but not the persistent rumblings that she was doing as recently as a couple of days again. I also haven’t had as much sugar or caffeine today as usual (I’m trying not to stimulate her too much) but I may change that later today if she still isn’t jumping this afternoon.

Love that Baby

Some women talk about having an immediate attachment to the growing baby inside the moment they find out she is in there. Some don’t feel it until a little later – at an ultrasound, when the baby first starts to move and they feel it, etc. Some women care for the baby, but that unequivocal love doesn’t happen until she is born.

I find that I have moments where I go back and forth. Sure, I’m truly attached to this baby – she is very really to me (especially when she starts to dance around in there) and I’ve always thought of her as a baby, not just some tissue with potential. She became both more real and more surreal to me when “it” became a “she” last week. I have trouble imagining certain parts of how she will come to us (having no idea what to expect w/ labor for instance), but he feelings that I have are strong – and I know that I would be devastated if something were to happen to her. But there are moments when it is clear that I love this little person, and moments where it’s more of an idea – she’s not completely real yet.

I assume that this is the way many/most women feel when their babies are forming.

Be mean or clean?

Is it terrible that I plan to refuse to let my daughter go to visit at my MIL and GmIL’s houses? Both houses are a total mess. There is “stuff” piled in my MIL’s house and I’m afraid that one day my then-crawling or walking baby will be crushed in an avalanche. I am seriously terrified of what could happen to my baby in that house.

Most of the time, I like my ILs – Sure I complain about the lack of warmth in my MIL (her husband used to say she could freeze anyone out) to me, but I’m sure she’ll love her grandchildren, etc. She’s not an irresponsible person, but I am truly scared of the “what-ifs” of leaving a child there to roam around the room for even a split second. And my husband agrees. Is there a way to kindly ask her to clean up the junk in her house before I allow my baby to visit for more than a few minutes, safely in my arms? At this point, there is no room to even put down a blanket (not that I would, since that floor hasn’t seen a mop or broom in at least 10 years and they have animals) or set up a pack’n’play that would at least be a contained, safe, clean environment. There MIGHT be enough room to set down the infant carrier, but her dogs aren’t that well behaved and I would want to be very cautious about that.

My mom used to have a sign in her house that declared “A clean house is the sign of a misspent life.” Growing up there was always clutter and we rarely did one of those spic and span type cleanings which would include dusting every surface, etc. So sure, our house was far from “clean” but it was never like this house. There is always room for multiple people to sit down, to set your things, and I can’t picture a time when we couldn’t have set up a pack’n’play for a visiting child (not that we had many, but we could have.)

So if I want one of my SILs or MIL to babysit (which they have all implied they are most willing to do) I will have to have them come to us – but I’m picturing that coming up as an issue at some point. How will we handle it? I have no idea.

Money, money and less money

A finance-related post (mostly).

We’re doing this budget thing – the Dave Ramsey system involving a budget and steps and most of all envelopes earmarked for the usual expenses. I think it’s brought our random spending down quite a bit. I haven’t really been paying close attention to our debt going down, though I know most of our furniture is paid off, and the cards and student loans are being paid regularly, etc. It’s sometimes frustrating – I get so sick of cooking/cleaning and want to just go out to dinner (even something extraordinarily cheap) where other people do the dishes, but we budgeted and bought our meals for the week, so that’s a no-no. We’ve been going to my mom’s each week for dinner because we budget that way. Sometimes it’s a productive evening (last week he showed them how to use their website he designed for them, this week she and I are going to pour over her maternity medical books for details she’s long since forgotten about labor and delivery), sometimes not, but overall a good time is had by all and we don’t have to spend $ or clean up dishes.

Because of the budget, we’re able to more clearly see our monthly financial situation and what our options for post-baby are as far as my working and how much and where. Neither of us really wants me to return to my current employer. I’ve been given a head’s up on openings in a national company’s credit headquarters in Tampa. Mr. Moose’s boss’s wife works there as a supervisor and with her reference, I could easily get a job there. It would mean a longer commute (by quite a bit), but more money per hour and really great benefits for me, the baby and Mr. Moose if he chooses to drop his old plan and get on mine. (We would supplement his, but mine and the baby’s would be no cost after the first 90 days. He already supplements his at his current place of employment, and this would be cheaper). But I’d lose 6 of my 12 weeks of maternity leave and I’d be forced to leave work pre-due date in order to not risk the commute if I went into labor, etc. (Did I mention that I’m less than 10 minutes away from the hospital if I stay where I am now? That’s a good 25-45 minutes closer than home depending on traffic. If I were to go to work in Tampa, I’d be close to an hour away depending on the bridges, etc.) I think we’ve decided to not have me go for this job until after the baby is born, if we do decide it’s best.

It’s the insurance that kills us. To add both Kremit and me to Mr. Moose’s plan would nearly cut his take-home pay in half. I have to find alternate insurance, that’s really all there is to it.

I had always assumed that I would have to return to work after Kremit was born – we have too many student loans to pay off for me to stay home, though we can easily get household expenses down to just his salary. (and we mostly do). But recently, in talking about the possibility of not returning to work, or at least not returning full-time, I’m now bummed that I can’t do it that way.

We’re still looking at options: that medical transcription thing is still on the table and I recently thought about seeing if I could return to my current employer part-time for a few months at least (though I haven’t voiced this thought to anyone). I’ve requested that I have the chance SOON to sit down w/ my bosses to discuss my maternity leave details. I also want to see if there is a way that I can convince them, just this once, to allow me to roll my accrued vacation time past December, seeing as we know exactly WHEN I will be using it, early on in the following year.

Wish me luck.

Baby Love (names, the room and the stuff)

We have 4 name pairs (first and middle names) picked out that both of us like. I’ve stuck with these pairs for awhile now, though the order of preference changes regularly. I remember doing that with my dog, as well, alternating the 2 names I’d chosen during the drive back from getting him. I’ve been trying them on for size, alternating each day. We are not sharing our choices IRL because of the opinions of our family (we have different tastes and offense is often taken when their advice isn’t) and we don’t want it getting back to them, so… I’ve shared with a couple of online communities, though I’m not sure if I’m ready to discuss it here. Part of me wants to as a record of everything in my pregnancy, part of me is constantly afraid of family members finding this blog, though I’ve done my best to hide my identity.

I have 4 names – each evoking a different feeling in my own mind – my Southern belle name, my Irish lass name, my sophisticated tomboy name and my classic lady name. I have nicknames picked out for 2, but for one, I think I prefer using the nickname more than the full name. In theory, I’m not sure how I feel about that. I did not learn my own full name for years – and was almost never called by it. I essentially had to switch schools (college) to get people to consistently call me by my full name instead of my childhood nickname. Even my husband and my in-laws refer to me by my childhood nickname, since they met me before college. Do I want to saddle my daughter with that? Of course 2 of my best friends (my childhood best friend and my current best girlfriend) actually prefer their younger-sounding nickname to their full name and even in their late twenties, they go by these names – who is to say my daughter won’t prefer that as well?

There is always one name (and it is consistently the same name) that is my 4th choice. I love the names in general, but it has always been more of my “fall-back” name. Like “well, if we can’t come up with something we like, this will do.” I’m thinking of bumping it to the background and replacing it with another option. I may have even found one, but I really only recently proposed it to Mr. Moose (and by that I mean this morning, via email though it’s been brought up before).

We registered over the weekend – it was long, a little stressful (as Saturday’s at Babies’R’Us tend to be very busy) and a lot of fun. Mr. Moose got burned out well before I did, but once he finally convinced me to stop and settle down, I realized how amazingly tired I was, too. I bought a sleeper that is very girly and yet incredibly practical. I will be an ideal “going home” outfit if I don’t find something else, but no matter what, I bought her the first girlie outfit. Maybe that’s silly – but it meant something to me.

I’m quite excited about the preparation of getting ready for baby. We began looking at the guest room/soon-to-be nursery over the weekend. I’m frustrated because we’ve been using the guest closet as a catch all for storage since we moved in – extra blankets/pillows/wrapping paper, games, trinkets, decorations that are too delicate to be left in our sweltering garage, etc. I have no place to put these things yet (obviously, some of them will be discarded in some way) and therefore I have no place to put the baby stuff, either. I’m ready to get organized and I can’t. I’m raring to go and get the space ready for the baby.

Sugar and Spice and EVERYTHING nice

It’s a girl!
After a lengthy wait (my sonogram was scheduled for 11, with a follow up midwife appt at 11:30 – we got into the sonogram room around 11:50) and quite a bit of time convincing her to uncross her legs enough to see what was there, we saw our little lady had lady parts. I was so thrilled, since I wanted a girl so badly to start with. We got a few 4D pictures, which I’m hoping to post soon for you to see. I cried twice during the sonogram this time – everyone always asks if I cried and I always think, “why on earth would I cry?”

It took what seemed like forever to get to “that part” of the u/s. I remember thinking “okay, I’m glad everything seems to be formed right, but this is a little baby, how many parts are you going to check? Get on with it!” Finally the tech said, “ah, there’s the problem…” and typed on the screen after she pointed out two little lines “A DAUGHTER.” She explained that the 2 little lines she showed us were the bones under the labia or something of that matter. She was pretty confident that it was a girl.

That night our little lady started tapping around a lot more, much more regularly and much more definite. She’s pretty consistent in her movements now, especially when I have something sweet/caffeinated to drink.

Once we finally got out of the office (we had a rushed meeting w/ the midwife, had issues w/ the DVD of the session recording properly, had to schedule an appointment w/ a receptionist who was on a personal phone call…) we started making calls. Mr. Moose called his mother and two older sisters and got voicemail repeatedly. My mother answered quickly, got the “it’s a girl” news, squealed with joy and then informed me that she was with a patient and would call me later. I tried my BFF (who I later remembered was in her first day of practicum student teaching and couldn’t answer the phone) and called my grandmother. Meanwhile, Mr. Moose had tried his grandmother and finally his little sister. As LP’s phone was ringing he said, “if no one from my family answers, then I’m not telling any of them”, but she did and was the first on his side to hear the news. His sisters and eventually his mom called later. My grandmother was thrilled beyond belief, though I know she would have been happy either way. I was concerned that Mr. Moose’s sister J would be disappointed, as she has been the most vocal about wanting him to have a son to carry on the family name, but ultimately, I think she was thrilled either way. My dad, who rarely shows any emotion, seemed pretty excited, as well. He told me “I like girls best!” and the email he sent to my aunts was pretty happy, too.

We have bought the base coat and the main color of paint for the nursery (a shade of sage green called “Christopher Robin’s Swing”) and Mr. Moose seems to be in project mode regarding starting the painting and clearing out of our little girl’s room. I am so incredibly happy and yet, in some ways it seems a little surreal to me that

I am going to have a daughter.

Work rant and plastic issues

Do “real” parents worry about packing their kids lunches in Ziploc baggies? Seriously? My mom never did and she’s pretty environmentally conscious. Maybe there is some new info out there that I haven’t seen, I’m just trying hard to picture my mom (or myself) getting worked up over tossing my pretzel stick snacks or grapes or whatever into a Ziploc instead of something “safer” and reusable. I’ve heard the thing about not microwaving plastic, and, okay, maybe – but for basic stuff? I’m so confused! More research to do, I guess, but I’m having trouble getting behind this being an issue. Maybe when my child is born my sense of safety will change or something?

I just learned that my vacation time will not carry over into next calendar year. I had been carefully hoarding my nearly 2 weeks of PTO all summer long, despite the fact that Mr. Moose has nearly a month coming to him and we could have, in fact, taken a vacation. When I began here, nearly 3 years ago it was unclearly explained and my review of the employee manual fed that assumption that while sick time doesn’t roll over, vacation time does. Ironically, I am the benefits specialist at our company now and have explained it improperly to many of our current employees as well. They pay 50% if you cash out in December your remaining time, but they want to clear the books for the year, so they won’t roll it over. This gives me 2 months to use or lose my vacation time and I am TICKED. I was planning to use that time for the early part of my maternity leave. There is no way I can accrue very much time in 2 months (13 hours, approximately is the total of what I will have if I go into labor on my due date while sitting at work), which is going to put an even bigger financial strain on us during my maternity leave. What really frosts my cookies is that if you quit, they pay you in full for your accrued time off – not 50%. They’re treating ex-employees better than current ones. I’m stressed and ticked off and Mr. Moose is now more than ready to get me out of here. We’re going to test run in November what life would be like without my income (we’ll sock it all away for baby expenses and the like) and I’m discussing my options for other work, etc.).

I know most people rarely ever feel like they are paid what they are worth – I truly don’t even have a number in mind for a salary that would make me feel like I was getting paid what I am worth – I’ve never bothered to try and figure it out and I know I create a lot of down time for myself because I have trouble focusing for long periods of time on one thing. (and I like it that way) But lately, I feel that not only don’t they want to PAY me even close to what I’m worth (for example, there is only one person at the office that has been here longer than me – their first employee when the company began under it’s current ownership/name 5 years ago. I am also the LOWEST paid person in the entire company – which includes the girl they hired to replace my old position who does less than I do and has an attendance problem), but they don’t respect the amount of work I do, the amount of info that I have on their company and what they would do without me. Seriously, the President of the company’s favorite phrase lately seems to be “Mrs. Moose can do it.” (Of course, he doesn’t call me Mrs. Moose, but you get my point.) If I were to stick it to them and walk out (as Mr. Moose as suggested a few times), they seriously would be up a creek. Even if I took my two weeks notice to write out the info that would need to be passed on – I’d run out of time to do it. I remember trying to do that for my old position replacement – and she was only taking 1/5 of my jobs – the info took 5 pages! I don’t know what they’re going to do when I’m on maternity leave - I seriously expect multiple phone calls over my 12 weeks off.