Time to be Honest with your Employer?

Nice article on The Pool yesterday (which is an excellent website, by the way), on new research that shows it ‘pays to be honest’ about what we want with potential employers – particularly related to flexible working and childcare.

Earlier this year, a CEO from Deloitte admitted they were losing talent because they were not giving young women what they needed. A chat with my fellow blogger The Eco Feminist highlighted the rather pathetic situation in the US related to mandated maternity leave, described in this New Yorker article as ‘America’s Family Leave Disgrace‘. Despite our own issues we’re still pretty lucky in Europe compared to the US – that’s for sure.

The Pool article links to an interesting campaign called ‘Hire me My Way‘ , which has been launched to ‘offer candidates visibility on who the UK’s best flexible employers’ are. This is good news not just for parents, but also for employees who look after relatives, are disabled or who have mobility issues. Most new jobs are not advertised with part time or flexible options – perhaps this campaign will help fill the gap.

 

25 weeks – Monster Trucks R Us

I completed my last work trip PB (pre babies) yesterday – 36 hours in Germany, done! Boom, yay, Ka-ching etc

Very pleased not to be doing any more flights. I’m not worried about flying; I’m just getting big and lazy and not in the mood for faffing around at airports. My tolerance levels have plummeted to an all time low. I got irrationally angry with a man eating soup in airport lounge last night. It went like this:

• SLURP soup
• DUNK bread
• CHEW wet bread with mouth open
• REPEAT

I was fuming. I stared at him but he didn’t care. He was in a soup stupor.

Anger management issues.

We had a scan last week and both babies are doing fine. They don’t really like to be photographed but this pic of twin 1 is a good’un:

You can see lips! And a hand waving! She looks pretty crammed in there. Whenever I look at this picture I can hear Adele singing ‘HELLO FROM THE OTHER SIDE’. Aww. Not long now, squashed little baby.

We haven’t really bought much for the babies yet but we have chosen a pram. We don’t have a car and we use legs, two wheels and the bus as our transport so it was a tough decision. Most twin prams are enormous side by side monster trucks.

What is the least annoying pram available? How can we take up the smallest amount of room on the pavement and on the bus? How the bloody hell are we going to get an enormous twin pram up the Victorian stair cases of London tube stations? How…in fact…are we going to fit a twin pram through our front door?!

I introduce you to the Peach Blossom 3:

Yes, one of the twins (our least favourite one?!) will have a rubbish view. That’s ok…they can take it in turns. We’re buying it in a darker colour of course, to hide the inevitable stains. Prams are ridiculously expensive, this one costs about as much as a second hand car.

However no need to feel down. Just imagine the alternative! We could be expecting quads! No way you could get this bad boy on the 137 bus without attracting some very British tuts and eyerolls….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

23 weeks – big foot

I’m learning a few things about pregnancy they don’t tell you in the movies:

• My feet have got bigger. Why? Who knows but I am developing sausage feet. Birkenstocks are my new friend – I have decided they are appropriate for work, home, weekends, shopping, going out, staying in, basically all aspects of life.
• ‘Restless leg syndrome’ is a thing. Unfortunately I have that thing and it is keeping me awake at night like a mad, twitching lunatic.
• I have dropped a few IQ points. Today I panicked at the cash point because I realised I had lost my bank card. Guess where it was? Inside the cash machine. Where I had put it 5 seconds beforehand.
• Having a massive belly and humungaboobs hurts your back.

Anyway aside from all of the above I am feeling good. Had another cervical scan this week and my rubber ring/pessary is doing its job. Cervix is still 27mm which is short, but it’s not getting any worse. Ha! In your face, cervix! You cannot defeat my giant bright blue rubber friend.

Speaking of enormous, check me out. The horizontal stripes probably don’t help.

I still can’t quite believe we’ve made it to 23 weeks. This is really happening. The doc says we need to get to 28 weeks which is ONLY 5 MORE WEEKS. Obviously I’m determined to get to 37 weeks or thereabouts but I guess it’s time to get serious and buy a pram and stuff. There will be no Pinterest nursery mood boards from this blogger – our twins will be sharing a cot in the corner of our room until they are 16 or something. Space is at a premium in London, folks 😐

On the non-baby front my husband and I spent a fantastic weekend in Amsterdam last week. The weather was fab (27c) and we had a lovely time wandering around the canals and eating great food. Unfortunately we had to forgo bikes due to my dodgy centre of gravity but it was still nice. Check it out:

The myth and misappropriation of the ‘biological clock’

Great long read article in The Guardian today on the ‘Foul Reign of the Biological Clock’. The term was applied to female fertility in the late 70s (by way of a single newspaper article) and has been manipulated and misused ever since.

There’s so much bogus bad science related to IVF and infertility. Why does nobody talk about age-related male infertility?  Why aren’t men pressured to freeze their sperm in the same way that women are encouraged to do so with their eggs? How has infertility become linked to selfish ‘career women’ and women desperate to ‘have it all’?

Anyway, good article. Made me annoyed, sad and depressed all rolled into one.