| Dad's Diary |
| Archived Journal |
| Week 13 The Health Update Erika continues to feel pretty good, and we are approaching the second trimester, when nausea and fatigue are supposed to decline. Erika never had much nausea but has battled fatigure. So, in the meantime, we've been reading. There are some interesting side effects of pregnancy that we are learning about as we read our respective guides to pregnancy. Did you know that a preganant woman's brain can shrink by approximately 3% during the pregnancy? And, a preganant woman's feet increase by 1/2 a shoe size. And, this increase in shoe size is often permanent! Amazing! I don't think these things happen to everyone, but enough for the books to mention them, kind of like couvade. Day Care A couple weeks ago, I called up some day care centers and got us on their waiting lists. Now, we don't have any definitive idea what sort of child care arrangements we will seek out, or even how long Erika or I will take off from work, so this could all be moot. But, we have heard of year-long waiting lists for infant day care, so we wanted to be prepared, just in case. Our friend Chris DeMars referred me to a place in the South Loop of Chicago that would be very convenient for us and said she had heard good things about it. I also called the day care center for federal employees in downtown Chicago. We're going to take tours of each place in the next few weeks and maybe get on some other lists. But, each of the places I called did indeed have waiting lists of 6 to 12 months! Even though our child is probably 10 months away from going to any sort of day care (when you factor in the time Erika will be staying home), it's possible that neither one of these places will have openings by then. Stunning. I know I'm not telling anyone anything new here, but this really speaks to the lack of day care options in Chicago and probably all over. These places are pretty expensive, too. I mean, I'm not worried about day care. Erika and I are fortunate enough to both have jobs, we've got Erika's parents nearby, and we can afford to pay for child care. So, we'll figure something out, I have no doubt about that. But, what about someone who is a single parent, or has a horribly long commute every morning? What about people who don't know you have to get on a day care waiting list a year ahead of time? Or someone who can't take more than 6 weeks off work? We know a family that recently had a baby and they did not get on any waiting lists. Now, of course, they can't find any day care. So, they looked into hiring a nanny. $35,000 a year! I know plenty of groups out there are working on this, but why isn't this a bigger societal priority? OK, that's my rant. I promise not to make this journal a political statement. Next time: Telling the boss |