Sunday, January 6, 2008

Operation "Mama, JD"

I guess I need a plan...I feel like a world-sized junk drawer has been turned upside down on my head and I have to organize my way out of the mess. Not that it isn't a pleasant mess.

If I play my cards right, there will be ONE baby in August (god, I hope there is just one). :)

I need a total of 90 credits to graduate. So far, assuming I pass all my classes from fall, of course, I will have 47 credits. I added an extra class for spring once I found out I was pregnant (makes complete logical sense, right? Add EXTRA classes when you discover that you will soon be large and tired and craving Chick'n Patties every waking moment). After spring semester I will have 63 credits, and if I can get a full summer schedule, I will have 70 credits under my belt by the time August rolls around (along with me, because I'm pretty sure by August the most effecient means of tranportation for me will simply be to roll down steep hills of Seattle to catch my ferry). So after baby Indiana Jones Palmer (just kidding Husband!) is born, I will only need 20 credits to graduate.

The rest of "Operation Mama, JD" goes like this:

Take next fall semester off. No work. No school. Just me and baby bonding over messy diapers and the Baby Mozart series...oh and Justin Timberlake- no, it's never too early. Next spring I would like to take a couple night classes and find someone who can watch the baby on campus while I rush in and out of class. By summer, I hope to work part time again- if my law office will have me. Hopefully between fall '10 and spring '10 - if not sooner, I will get all my classes out of the way in time to graduate just one year behind.

After that, is the bar exam of course, but then I have no idea what I will do. I would like to work part time but I have a feeling its not easy to find part time attorney positions. I worry that if I take off a couple years to wait until the baby is in school then it will be too late to find a legal job because I would have missed out on valuable work experience right out of school. On the other hand, I do not want to have a baby just to let someone else raise it. I love babies and if I have to go through all the work to have one, dang it, I'm going to enjoy him/her while he is still little, cute, without weird body piercings and not asking me for money all the time.

2 comments:

newduck said...

Have you considered staying in school the whole time, but going part-time and graduating just a semester late? One thing that's helped me tremendously throughout law school has been independent research credits. I don't mean being a research assistant to a professor - that's a huge pain in the ass. But most schools let you get a ton of independent research credits, you just have to find a professor who will sign off on it. Most require you to do a little research during the semester (on a topic of your choosing) and turn in a paper at the end. There are no class hours so you do everything at home, from your computer - perfect for baby raising.

Butterflyfish said...

Newduck has good advice.

When I was pregnant last summer, I had worked out a deal to do that for this Spring. If I manage to get and stay pregnant again, that's my plan.