Who in the Heck was I Before This Started?

I have been thinking a lot about the person that I used to be. The person that I was before my first RE appointment. The person that I was before stopping birth control.

I have had my current job for a shorter time than our TTC time. So I feel like a totally different person. I changed jobs in large part because I was planning to have a baby and my previous job was immensely stressful so that was not particularly conducive. I figured that by now we would have a baby or at least be preggo so I would be staying home soon anyway (our plan is for me to stay at home with the baby for at least the first year).

But now looking back, my life barely resembles the life of the woman I was before TTC. I was the director of a preschool. I love kids. I love teaching. I fell into the director position by accident. I was originally a teacher at the school. I volunteered to be a teacher representative to the Board of Directors. In the end, knowing all the behind the scenes stuff from the Board led me to volunteer for the job. In many ways I loved it and in many ways I hated it. I mainly hated it because I had staff members who essentially set out to make my life a living hell (I'm gonna leave it at that because it still makes my blood boil).

It was a real job. A job that I was proud to tell people about. Now I say "I'm just a bank teller." I went to school to be a teacher. I am not using my degree at all. Two months ago my teaching license expired. I will probably never teach in a public school setting again. And that makes me very sad, but my feet just hurt too much when I teach.

I don't really like my job. It is not challenging at all (well dealing with the customers is challenging, but not in the way I want). I want to find something different. But I don't want to get a new job and then quit after 8 months because I had a baby. I am sort of embarrassed to talk about my job to extended family on my dad's side. All of my cousins have degrees, some bachelors and some graduate degrees even a couple of MDs. So being almost 30 and a freaking bank teller is depressing. I changed jobs when we moved to New Mexico because there were no teacher openings at the time. I moved from art to preschool. I was still doing something that I loved.

Now I am so consumed by my desire to have a baby that I have no clue where I would look for another job. I just keep thinking, when we have a baby I can stay home, then I don't have to figure out what I want to do.

Totally aside from my job, I'm having a hard time with how I spend my free time. My best friend locally is due in a month. She is not crafty at all so I have been helping her make decorations for the baby's room. I have also been making baby quilts. I have a lot of close friends who are either due within the next month or just found out that they are preggo. I guess that's what happens when you are nearly 30. My cousin who is closest in age is also preggo so I'm making her a quilt too.

So in recent months almost all of my time has been spent on baby stuff. Just not my baby. All I want to do is prepare for my baby. But then I also don't want to jinx myself. I have all of these ideas of stuff to do, but I don't want to do it until I'm actually preggo. So what do I do now?

I am trying to reclaim myself. The self that used to exist. I need to get back to doing art for myself. I need to stop making baby quilts and start working on my own quilt again. I need to figure out who I am, just in case we don't get preggo. Just in case my world crashes down around me, I need to know who it is that I need to rebuild.