happy new year!
Happy new year! I guess I'm due for an update. Things are going well with the pregnancy. I'm about 32.5 weeks. We finally picked out a name for our baby girl-Amelia Iris Cade (Amy for short). This time around I'm feeling pressure similar to how I felt about a week before Teddy came. I asked the doctor and she said it's normal for a second baby since everything's stretched out already. No clear contractions yet, Braxton Hicks or otherwise. Planning on giving birth at Rex Hospital again--love their food!
I defended my PhD in biochemistry on October 25th and graduated December 18th. They make you have your defense super early so they can check your dissertation for formatting errors and such. The defense was much easier than I thought it would be--we had some practice defenses in which my labmates grilled me, and they were much harder than the real thing. The past week and a half or so I've been staying home with Teddy. I plan to stay home with the kid(s) until at least 6 weeks after Amelia is born, possibly longer depending on if/when I find a job and what kind of job it is.
Back in May I was promised an interview with Liberty University for a professor position that would start in January. They said they only interview one candidate at a time, so I was the only one they were looking at. From the way they were talking, it seemed the interview was mostly a formality and the job was basically mine. They ended up going on summer break and then there were scheduling issues, so I didn't up having my interview until about a week before my defense. Not ideal. Then, after stringing me along for months, they turned me down and all they had to say was I wasn't a good fit. They knew about my pregnancy and were willing to work around it, so I don't think that was the main factor. There were two main parts to the interview--a talk with the doctrinal committee and a sample lecture. I think the lecture went pretty well, so it was probably something I said to the doctrinal committee. I got the feeling they were taking everything the wrong way, even when I tried to clarify. Also, maybe they wanted me to mention Jesus a couple times in my lecture and I didn't. Oh, well. The good news is that I'm not trying to move, start a new job, and have a baby all at once. The bad news is I don't have a job and things are going to be really tight financially for a while.
The main financial complication is that my health insurance through the school is ending (though it can be continued through COBRA), so in addition to the premium I was already paying for Teddy, I also have to pay my own. Also, we want to have a bump on Lars's tongue biopsied and he doesn't currently have insurance, so we'll probably also be adding him to mine at additional expense (as soon as I make the switch from my school's insurance to COBRA). Ideally, we will just use COBRA for a few months while we have a lot of medical expenses (the birth and Lars's biopsy especially) and then switch to a Bronze (60/40) plan through healthcare.gov which we should get for free due to our now low income. The problem is that the website doesn't factor in our whole situation (it considers us covered so it doesn't want to offer us any plans) so it may be complicated to make the switch. Also, I might qualify for Medicaid, but I think I have to be completely uninsured first (or at least it won't qualify me until I am). I can't find enough information about what birth costs would be even if I do qualify, so I think the best I can do for now is use COBRA which is 80/20 and my deductible has already been met. If for some reason we can't switch to the free bronze plan after the birth, I think we're going to all have to drop health insurance and pay the fine. :-P Otherwise, we'll have to eat up all of our savings on paying for health insurance, which I'd rather not do since it would mean we wouldn't have a downpayment for a house to use if/when we end up moving.
I also had a job interview for a lecturer position at University of Maryland, which would also start in January. Due to the start date and the high cost of living there, I wasn't extremely excited about that job. However, I really enjoyed my interview. Oddly enough I felt more comfortable there than I did at Liberty. I didn't get the job, but it got me looking for other positions that are strictly teaching. They don't pay nearly as much as one that involves research, but I think it would be worth it to not have the pressure to get grants/publish. However, I need to make enough for Lars to be able to go back to school. He's thinking of doing an online Master's in human-computer interaction or possibly doing an in-person PhD, but we'd have to be able to afford day care. I've applied to a bunch of lecturer positions that start in August, and might hear back from them in a few weeks when their application deadlines pass. I've also applied for post-docs (mostly at UNC so we wouldn't have to move since a post-doc salary isn't really enough for us to live on in most of the places where post-docs are prevalent). I applied to a national lab and to several biotech companies near Raleigh. Haven't heard back from any of them--it probably doesn't help that I've said I can't start until at least the beginning of April. So I get to wait and be a stay-at-home mom for a while. It's nice not worrying about assignments and research and such, plus I get to spend more time with my favorite little boy :)
Oh, and since money is tight, we're trying to find ways to trim down our budget even more. We've quit going to our dance studio, we've cut cable (and only use Netflix and Hulu Plus to get our favorite shows), and I've started doing a little extreme couponing with online coupons to get some free/cheap things at drug stores (we still do most of our grocery shopping at ALDI which is cheaper than sales at most grocery stores). I'm having trouble making myself buy a newspaper subscription just to get coupons, so we're a bit limited in what deals we can get. We did just add an expense--we switched from my family's Verizon plan and regular phones to Republic Wireless and smartphones (and not mooching off my parents). We pay $10/month/phone for unlimited calls, texts, and wi-fi data. We can upgrade to 3G or 4G for more, and might do so for vacations and such, but mostly we're fine just using wi-fi. If you're interested you can sign up with this link and get a $19 credit for you and for us http://referrals.republicwireless.com/a/clk/203hw6.
I defended my PhD in biochemistry on October 25th and graduated December 18th. They make you have your defense super early so they can check your dissertation for formatting errors and such. The defense was much easier than I thought it would be--we had some practice defenses in which my labmates grilled me, and they were much harder than the real thing. The past week and a half or so I've been staying home with Teddy. I plan to stay home with the kid(s) until at least 6 weeks after Amelia is born, possibly longer depending on if/when I find a job and what kind of job it is.
Back in May I was promised an interview with Liberty University for a professor position that would start in January. They said they only interview one candidate at a time, so I was the only one they were looking at. From the way they were talking, it seemed the interview was mostly a formality and the job was basically mine. They ended up going on summer break and then there were scheduling issues, so I didn't up having my interview until about a week before my defense. Not ideal. Then, after stringing me along for months, they turned me down and all they had to say was I wasn't a good fit. They knew about my pregnancy and were willing to work around it, so I don't think that was the main factor. There were two main parts to the interview--a talk with the doctrinal committee and a sample lecture. I think the lecture went pretty well, so it was probably something I said to the doctrinal committee. I got the feeling they were taking everything the wrong way, even when I tried to clarify. Also, maybe they wanted me to mention Jesus a couple times in my lecture and I didn't. Oh, well. The good news is that I'm not trying to move, start a new job, and have a baby all at once. The bad news is I don't have a job and things are going to be really tight financially for a while.
The main financial complication is that my health insurance through the school is ending (though it can be continued through COBRA), so in addition to the premium I was already paying for Teddy, I also have to pay my own. Also, we want to have a bump on Lars's tongue biopsied and he doesn't currently have insurance, so we'll probably also be adding him to mine at additional expense (as soon as I make the switch from my school's insurance to COBRA). Ideally, we will just use COBRA for a few months while we have a lot of medical expenses (the birth and Lars's biopsy especially) and then switch to a Bronze (60/40) plan through healthcare.gov which we should get for free due to our now low income. The problem is that the website doesn't factor in our whole situation (it considers us covered so it doesn't want to offer us any plans) so it may be complicated to make the switch. Also, I might qualify for Medicaid, but I think I have to be completely uninsured first (or at least it won't qualify me until I am). I can't find enough information about what birth costs would be even if I do qualify, so I think the best I can do for now is use COBRA which is 80/20 and my deductible has already been met. If for some reason we can't switch to the free bronze plan after the birth, I think we're going to all have to drop health insurance and pay the fine. :-P Otherwise, we'll have to eat up all of our savings on paying for health insurance, which I'd rather not do since it would mean we wouldn't have a downpayment for a house to use if/when we end up moving.
I also had a job interview for a lecturer position at University of Maryland, which would also start in January. Due to the start date and the high cost of living there, I wasn't extremely excited about that job. However, I really enjoyed my interview. Oddly enough I felt more comfortable there than I did at Liberty. I didn't get the job, but it got me looking for other positions that are strictly teaching. They don't pay nearly as much as one that involves research, but I think it would be worth it to not have the pressure to get grants/publish. However, I need to make enough for Lars to be able to go back to school. He's thinking of doing an online Master's in human-computer interaction or possibly doing an in-person PhD, but we'd have to be able to afford day care. I've applied to a bunch of lecturer positions that start in August, and might hear back from them in a few weeks when their application deadlines pass. I've also applied for post-docs (mostly at UNC so we wouldn't have to move since a post-doc salary isn't really enough for us to live on in most of the places where post-docs are prevalent). I applied to a national lab and to several biotech companies near Raleigh. Haven't heard back from any of them--it probably doesn't help that I've said I can't start until at least the beginning of April. So I get to wait and be a stay-at-home mom for a while. It's nice not worrying about assignments and research and such, plus I get to spend more time with my favorite little boy :)
Oh, and since money is tight, we're trying to find ways to trim down our budget even more. We've quit going to our dance studio, we've cut cable (and only use Netflix and Hulu Plus to get our favorite shows), and I've started doing a little extreme couponing with online coupons to get some free/cheap things at drug stores (we still do most of our grocery shopping at ALDI which is cheaper than sales at most grocery stores). I'm having trouble making myself buy a newspaper subscription just to get coupons, so we're a bit limited in what deals we can get. We did just add an expense--we switched from my family's Verizon plan and regular phones to Republic Wireless and smartphones (and not mooching off my parents). We pay $10/month/phone for unlimited calls, texts, and wi-fi data. We can upgrade to 3G or 4G for more, and might do so for vacations and such, but mostly we're fine just using wi-fi. If you're interested you can sign up with this link and get a $19 credit for you and for us http://referrals.republicwireless.com/a/clk/203hw6.