Halfway there (and part 2 of anxiety post)

I am 20 weeks today! Halfway through this pregnancy. I am getting so excited :) :) I have my 20 week doc appt tomorrow and the big ultrasound on Friday. Please, please, let us find out the gender. I cannot wait to see the baby. It feels like forever since I had a peek. I have a very busy week so hopefully time will go by quickly.

OK. It's time to post part 2 of my anxiety post.

Now that I am no longer constantly anxious over losing the baby I have become constantly anxious over Rob's unemployment. I really thought he would have found something by now.

Here is the background:

On April 26th I found out I was pregnant. Two days later Rob lost his job. About a week after that I started spotting and then had the miscarriage. So the 2 have been intertwined in my mind as they happened so close together.

Rob worked for the same company for over 15 years. He was a specialist on the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange). His job was on the floor trading for his company. In February, Barclays Capital bought his company, (and pretty much bought him). Not much changed for awhile he didn't get laid off at first, he just suddenly worked for a different company. THEN in a bit of a confusing twist, Barclays sold his division and split it up and laid of 80% of the employees working there. So in the end Rob is out of a job.

See computers are basically taking over the work Rob did with logarithms. Basically he used to decide which to use and now computers generate how that works. So his entire field is disappearing. He can't just get the same job at a different company, or wait it out for another firm to hire his kind of talent. He has to do something different, hopefully related, but most likely he will have to learn something else. If he did end up getting a job in his old field we would probably be in this same position again in a year or so.

He was given a good severance package and we have a good savings. Also I have a decent job and our medical insurance is through my work. We won't be really hurting for some time, but my salary is not enough to support a family of 3 when the savings does run out. He did make more then me. Also, it SUCKS because all the plans we made are now either on hold or just not going to happen.

Plan 1 - Get pregnant, go house hunting, buy house and get out of city. This can't happen until he has an income.

I have selfish reasons as well. I would give anything to be a stay at home mom. Financially it won't work. We could have swung it for a few years but now it's not even close to being an option. And the selfish part is that Rob may not have a job when the baby is born and thru my maternity leave an after. If that is the case;

1) I won't even get to experience being alone with the baby for what I thought was a guaranteed 3 months of that.

2) He very well may GET to be a stay at home dad by default. I was prepared to be jealous of whoever got to watch my child while I was at work, but I wasn't prepared for it to be Rob! I don't know if I can emotionally handle him getting to stay home with the baby while I have to go to work every day. I'm scared I will start resenting him. I get jealous now at his stay at home husband status, even though I know he hates it.

3) I don't know what to do about daycare or nanny research. Why bother if he won't have a job. Then again what am I going to do if he gets a job and we have nothing set up! See how everything is so up in the air.

4) Living in NYC is expensive. I fear that when the baby is born just living in this city will eat up our savings quickly and by the time he does get work we will have to start our savings all over and we won't be able to buy a house. However, we can't get a house loan now because we don't know our future income. Catch 22.

I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about these things. It helped to get it out here. Rob knows and understands how I feel. He is trying so damn hard to find work but nothing is panning out. He hasn't even had an interview yet. It's been 6 months. He does everything around the apartment to make up for his lack of work. He cooks, cleans, does laundry, shopping, everything! He is cleaning out the apartment and painting the nursery. We are almost out of things he can do around here.

What really kills me is that I can't help him. I don't know how. I've put him in touch with anyone I can think of who might be able to help him, but other then that I can't do anything. That is what makes the anxiety so bad. Having no control.

When Rob and I decided to try again after our loss I honestly just assumed he would have a job by the time I got pregnant again and reached the halfway point.

I am complaining now and voicing my fears here, but to Rob I do my best not to bring it up. I don't want him to feel worse then he already does. But I worry that he will never find a job. We have even talked about him going back to school and starting over, but he has no idea what he would even go for.

It's a shitty situation and a crappy economy.

This was longer then I intended. Oh well, I got it out and needed that.