Friday, February 24, 2012

My job does not work for a pregnant woman.

I love my job.  I get to help people.  I work with SUPER cool people.  I get to create my own schedule.  I can work from home.  What's not to love?  The bathroom issue.  And unfortunately, this is a big deal for a preggo woman.

I work as a Child and Family Therapist and even though I am fortunate enough to have an office, I often see my clients in their homes, at their school, or elsewhere in the community.  What I did not anticipate was how difficult being pregnant and working this job would be because I have to pee constantly.  I am talking multiple times within the same hour.  I think part of the problem is that I have started having an unquenchable thirst so I am also drinking water like a camel.  But when you are scheduled to meet with a client for one to two hours, how embarrassing is it to be like, "sorry to interrupt but I have to use the facilities."  "Ummm again, gotta go to the restroom..."  Also, it's not like I can say, "Yeah, my uterus is enlarging and pushing on my bladder, sorry about this" because we are not telling people we are pregnant yet.  Instead, it's "yeah, I should not drink so much coffee!" (ps. I don't drink coffee).

Also, before pregnancy I would NEVER use my client's bathrooms.  I think it's sometimes awkward enough being in their homes and something about using their restroom does not sound particularly appealing.  I still try to avoid this and because of this problem I have become BFFs with every gas station/fred meyers/starbucks bathroom in the greater Portland Metro Area.

Completely unrelated to this issue, I am getting a new job.  I accepted a position as the Clinical Director for a non-profit similar to where I have been working.  In no way is this related to my bathroom issue but it will make life a little easier for the next 7 months.  I have three more weeks at my old job.  Read: three more weeks of "how long can I really hold it" thoughts/sweats/panics.  I will miss my old job a lot (especially the schedule and all of my co-workers) but this was an opportunity too exciting to pass up!

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