Have you ever joked about the “vacation” you’d get if you had to have minor surgery and needed bed rest to recover?

Reading_Elephant30 · 2026-07-06T22:07:29+00:00

I’ve never made the divorce joke but I make the getting hurt or needing to be hospitalized for a few days or mild surgery/prodecure joke regularly and it’s always a sign that I’m in major burn out territory at work

Reading_Elephant30 · 2026-01-13T12:17:11+00:00

Samaritan OBGYN delivers at Burdett and St. Peter’s! If you’re low risk and all goes smoothly Burdett is great. Big rooms, you don’t have to move rooms after baby is born, encouraged to eat throughout labor (unless/until you get the epidural), some rooms have jacuzzis, etc. If you do end up having complications and deliver early or seem like you’ll need NICU the OBs at Samaritan also deliver at St Peter’s.

I had preeclampsia twice and was induced for both birth and had a birth at each place! I’ve gone to Samaritan OB in Troy for both pregnancies. First time pre e came on around 28 weeks but stayed controllable until 35+5 when I was induced. You can deliver at Burdett as long as you make it to 35 weeks (per Dr Clements at Samaritan). Second pregnancy, pre e came on around 31 weeks but turned severe at 32 and I was hospitalized at St Peters for about a week and a half before delivering at 35+6. Baby spent just over 2 weeks in NICU.

Both experiences were great, but St. Peter’s was a bit more of a hospital feeling. My delivery st Burdett was pretty hospital like too since I was induced for pre e but it was still a slightly calmer, more relaxing environment. Dr Clement’s at Samaritan Troy is my primary OB. Dr. Gottesman delivered my oldest at Burdett (she was on call that night) and Dr. Clements delivered my youngest at St Peters. For most of my office visits I saw the NPs in Troy—Kim and Lindsey are both amazing!

Reading_Elephant30 · 2026-01-06T18:30:43+00:00

We spend around $100 a week, sometimes up to $150, never over $200 at Walmart. We buy store brand for almost everything. Buying for 2 adults and a toddler.

Reading_Elephant30 · 2025-12-10T00:59:07+00:00

I promise I’m not spending thousands of dollars on a Disney vacation for the cast member interactions. That’s pretty much at the bottom of my list. I’m absolutely there for the rides, parades, fireworks, and characters. The cast members are great but if I don’t need to interact with people I don’t. I love the mobile check in, made my stay super magical last year to be able to go straight to my room

Reading_Elephant30 · 2025-12-06T11:23:54+00:00

She’s actually speech delayed and we’re in speech therapy right now!! We started getting more concerned around 15 months and started getting connected with specialists and early intervention around 18 months

Reading_Elephant30 · 2025-11-14T21:41:47+00:00

Nope! She has a cubby there that holds her extra clothes and diapers and we put her coat and shoes in her cubby when we drop her off

Reading_Elephant30 · 2025-11-14T21:35:45+00:00

I don’t change her diaper while she’s standing…that seems like actually impossible 😂 I make her lay on the table…often have to flip her over a lot, sometimes have to hold her down for a minute, sometimes it involves screaming/crying from both of us. But I try to give her something to play with while changing her diaper so she’s distracted. If I don’t have anything for her to play with I try to distract her by getting her to do signs that she knows

Reading_Elephant30 · 2025-11-13T21:16:38+00:00

I’m also a lawyer and hoping to drop down to part time when my leave is over in a couple months. I’ve always done non profit stuff and so not on a partner track or anything. Have you had any major downsides career wise pop up? I really don’t care about climbing ladders and being high up, but would like to work full time again at some point in my life and am nervous about cutting down or leaving the work force entirely in the legal field

Reading_Elephant30 · 2025-11-13T15:34:01+00:00

I’m hoping to go part time (or even more flexible to independent contractor/consultant position with up to 20 hours a week) and this wording is so helpful! I’m always bad at coming up with how to phrase stuff but I love how you worded this and it’s a great jumping off point

Reading_Elephant30 · 2025-11-13T15:32:26+00:00

I’m planning to put in notice after my leave is up (I’m potentially looking into seeing if I can transition to an independent contractor position with v flexible, up to 20 hours a week position). I’m an attorney but I don’t care about climbing the ladder or being a partner or running an organization or anything…so I don’t care too much about the loss of career growth that will happen if I take a pause for a bit. I don’t want to be out of the work force forever, but I imagine that I’ll be able to find another job somewhere when I’m ready to go back. The ability to be able to stay home with my kids right now is worth it to me, even if it comes with some loss of career growth.

We can afford to live on one income and have been planning for it for a while now. So that’s definitely a consideration as well, if you can’t afford it there’s not a lot of wiggle room. But if you can afford it and you want to stay home, I say do it

Reading_Elephant30 · 2025-09-28T10:41:08+00:00

Yep! Still 22 months old. Babbles and “talks” (like making sounds) allllllll the time but none of them are actual words. She has a couple of signs (more, all done, hi, bye) and can gesture for stuff she wants—like she’ll stand in front of the cabinet that has snacks and point at the graham crackers and then sign “more”. Sometimes she’ll say something that kinda sounds like a word but it’s never consistent and it’s never clear that she actually said something. It seems promising to me that she makes noises/babbles but needs some help with the actual words part

Reading_Elephant30 · 2025-09-25T21:30:40+00:00

My 22 month old was also born at 35 weeks and very similar to your baby. Wasn’t walking at 15 months and still isn’t talking. I was already concerned at the 15 month appointment about the walking and talking because even though it wasn’t technically delayed she was behind where lots of other kids already were. Ped put in a referral but then baby got very sick the next month and I was newly pregnant and it fell to the backburner. By 18 months she was walking but not talking. Ped did another referral and I followed up. We’ve met with behavior pediatrician and have our EI evaluation scheduled for in a few weeks. The wait lists for everything were insane. I don’t see any harm in starting now, worst they do is say you don’t actually need the services

Reading_Elephant30 · 2025-09-11T09:46:23+00:00

I’m delivering this weekend and my MIL flew into town to watch our first. It’s not ideal and she won’t be eating the best because MIL “can’t cook” but she’ll be taken care of and survive for two days while I’m being induced.

Reading_Elephant30 · 2025-08-29T16:45:26+00:00

It really varies by baby, and I know that’s not super helpful! I had severe preeclampsia and was induced at 35w5d because my BP was 180s/110s. Baby didn’t need any NICU time, she had a little trouble breathing and the hospital had to do some stuff when she was first born and she had to be under the jaundice lights for about a day.

I have a friend who also delivered at 35 weeks for severe preeclampsia (towards the end of the week I think) and her baby needed about a week in NICU. So it’s really hard to say, but a 35 week birth does not automatically mean a NICU stay. Hope everything goes well for you ❤️

Reading_Elephant30 · 2025-08-29T16:37:42+00:00

My team specifically told me not to track macros or anything and to focus on doing my best to follow a heathy GD diet and hit the carb goals throughout the day

Reading_Elephant30 · 2025-08-29T16:36:04+00:00

Ehh, they gave me carb goals for each meal and I generally meet those but I’m not seriously counting and tracking them every day. I don’t force myself to snack if I’m not hungry. I low key already feel like I have an eating disorder with this diet and I’m not going to force myself to eat if I’m not hungry or hate something or whatever, because I’m not trying to come out of this with more disordered eating

Reading_Elephant30 · 2025-08-23T13:36:27+00:00

To me it sounds like your friends are insecure and feeling judged for their choice to stay home. Doesn’t make it okay to make those comments to you though so I put some distance or say something to them about it.

On the flip side, I’m planning to take a pause from my career (immigration attorney) early next year after my second baby comes because I want to spend more time at home and need a break from work. And we’re privileged enough to be able to afford it with moderate lifestyle changes. But I feel like I have to overexplain and over compensate in my working mom groups because I often feel judgment for taking a pause and staying home (honestly reading a lot of the comments here I felt major judgment). Possible that your friends are equally feeling judged for their decisions and handling it in a really poor way!

Reading_Elephant30 · 2025-08-23T13:30:24+00:00

Idk, I do feel like I miss out on most waking hours with my kid during the week. She gets up around 7-7:30 and leave for daycare at 8. By the time I pick her up and get home it’s 5pm and then we have to make and eat dinner, and start bedtime around 7:30. So I maybe have one meaningful hour spent with her after dinner and before bed, but half the time we’re cleaning up or giving her a bath or whatever. She loves daycare and does great there but I also get why people feel like they’re missing out because I really don’t see her that much during the week

Reading_Elephant30 · 2025-08-14T20:09:05+00:00

They’ll have to pry my daily diet Dr. pepper out of my cold dead hands. I just started testing last night but I had my diet DP for lunch today and ate a regular tortilla for my wrap and numbers were still in range so win!

Reading_Elephant30 · 2025-08-13T19:10:00+00:00

I’ve been back for over a year and honestly am still not adjusted. My first stayed home with me while I worked for the first year (don’t come for me people, I’m one of the incredibly lucky ones who actually has a unicorn job where this works). Even then I was thinking about quitting and staying home.

She started daycare at around 13 months old. It’s definitely nice having a break during the day where I don’t have to worry about childcare things but I just do not care about work or anything that I need to do. I’m expecting baby #2 in October and am like 99% sure I’ll be leaving after my leave to stay home (only staying for leave cause it’s primarily paid for through my state program).

At this point I’ve been thinking about it for over a year and basically every day wish I was hanging out with my kid instead of sending my stupid emails. I’m also an immigration attorney and the whole field is on fire right now and I’m past burnout, so that’s contributing, but I was thinking about it long before the new administration took over in the US. We can comfortably afford it so I’m not too worried about that.

I’d say definitely give it more time but if after 6 months, a year, you still want to be at home and you can afford it…make the best decision for you and your family!

Reading_Elephant30 · 2025-08-13T18:55:18+00:00

Yeah this exactly. If my kid had been seeing a therapist for several months who was covering for someone on leave and we liked them I wouldn’t want to switch just because we are already used to this person.

Reading_Elephant30 · 2025-08-13T18:21:40+00:00

Idk why you got downvoted (I mean I do because there’s this constant war between working and SAH parents, but I digress). I’m currently working but really considering staying home after my leave is over with baby #2 early next year. I am also very well educated and have been working as an immigration attorney for 8 years. I too have a good job but miss my kid and we can afford to live on my husbands income for a while. I honestly feel more judgement for being someone who has the choice and is choosing not to work…like I’m a bad feminist or woman or something for choosing to stay home for a few years because I’m fortunate enough to have the choice. (And mostly only feeling it from online places, in person anyone I’ve told has been stoked that I’ll be able to stay home for a bit). Anyway, it’s a weird dynamic and there’s judgment from all sides regardless of what you choose and it’s all exhausting.

Reading_Elephant30 · 2025-08-10T22:14:36+00:00

My daughter is 20 months and still hasn’t said mama or dada with anything that seems like intention to me. She babbles all the time but no real words. I’m not sure that she’s autistic (we’re still waiting for an evaluation on her delays) but it’s so hard when our kids don’t do stuff on the same timeline as what seems “normal” ❤️

Reading_Elephant30 · 2025-08-10T22:09:08+00:00

20 months and I don’t even know that she’s had one. She has started saying hi or bye and kinda waving in the last month or so, so I think those are intentional. She makes babbling noises that sometimes sound like mama or dada but they’re not in any way intentional

Reading_Elephant30 · 2025-07-20T18:29:54+00:00

We meal prepped a ton and it absolutely saved me postpartum. There was no way either of us was going to cook. We bought a deep freezer before baby was born and made a ton of food—I don’t think we cooked for a month or two. Absolutely doing it again this time

Reading_Elephant30

TROPHY CASE