Things are Weird Right Now

Much has happened since I last posted. Most of it isn't particularly good or happy. Before anyone gets too worried, everyone in my family is physically healthy. It's not that kind of bad thing...

I've been following the Instagram account of a psychotherapist who is also a birth trauma survivor (@thebirthtrauma_mama) and listening to her podcast. One of her comments in a recent episode is highly relevant to what's been going on in my life lately: If you don't take care of your trauma, your trauma will take care of you. (I think I'm paraphrasing somewhat, but the gist is there.) 

I'm currently on medical leave from work. It's complicated. I'm definitely still processing everything since LB's birth, and I'm getting a lot of therapy and working with a psychiatrist. 

The entire situation wasn't that dramatic in some ways, I've still been able to care for LB quite happily, even in my worst times. But there've been days where walking around on sidewalks near typical NYC traffic - or even suburban car traffic in my somewhat quiet town - made me repeatedly flinch, feel the physical effects of fear. It's all been a lot. I feel like a mess. 

That's an awkward segue into saying I highly recommend the podcast series "The Retrievals." It's about a Yale-New Haven Hospital fertility treatment clinic where a nurse repeatedly diverted fentanyl intended for anesthesia for patients, refilling the vials with saline. Obvious content warnings apply, given that premise. 

By its nature, the subject matter can be extremely triggering. I personally recall reading a long-form article about this situation that included interviews with many affected patients back when I was pregnant. I remember that I found it viscerally painful to read about their experiences and pain. The podcast treats that side of things with a gentle hand. Given my current condition, I'm extra-sensitive to detailed descriptions about gynecologic or obstetric procedures that don't go well, but I didn't feel triggered in that way by this podcast.

Life Lately: Needlepointing

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Long time no blog, yet again! The transition back to full-time work in the office as a new mom has, naturally, been challenging. It leaves relatively little mental energy for writing about anything really, or even for thinking about clothes and accessories (much less shopping for them). Though I do shop - a lot - for baby supplies, things for the household, and also for my very recently acquired needlepoint hobby.

I've long been curious about needlepointing because a few bigger bloggers out there that I'm aware of are very into it. I only started needlepointing around two weeks ago, and I've found that it can be a relatively straightforward hobby to jump right in to. It's essentially paint-by-the-numbers using thread, and the most basic stitches are quite easy to learn. 

Given how mentally and physically exhausted I get by the end of each day between commuting, work, caring for LB, and other house chores - I'm often too tired to even watch television and follow a story that way - needlepointing feels like a particularly suitable hobby for me at the moment. I find the repetitive motions comforting. It's also fun to feel like I'm creating something, even if it's only in terms of executing someone else's design or art. 

Please note that this portion of the post contains affiliate links that could result in my earning a small commission - at no extra cost to you - if you click and make a purchase. Thank you for your support!

Because many of the needlepoint canvases one might like to start with are hand-painted, it is a fairly expensive hobby. This was my first canvas, which I bought as a kit including thread, a project bag, and a seam ripper for $65. With that and a pair of embroidery scissors and a magnetic needle-minder, I was all set to get started. In this hobby, one will mostly be shopping from small businesses and/or directly from the artist who designed the canvas, so that's nice at least. 

In other news, I was recently able to discontinue blood pressure medication at a little over seven months after LB's birth. I'm told that, in theory, the lingering hypertension caused by preeclampsia should end by around six weeks postpartum. In practice, many patients end up on blood pressure medication for quite a long time after, sometimes for months, sometimes for years. 

I've made no significant lifestyle changes since LB was born, whether in terms of diet or exercise, and for the first four or five months I required significant doses of blood pressure medication to control my hypertension. After that point, I started to need less and less, until I was finally able to wean completely off very recently. 

It's good to be off the medication because while the side effects were manageable, they were also quite noticeable throughout the day. During the weaning off phase, I would often get sudden bouts of fatigue and occasionally felt dizzy. I also got a persistent dry cough from an ACE inhibitor I tried towards the end, and that can actually take weeks or months after discontinuing the medication to fully go away. 

More Information is Better

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Big content warning on today’s post for discussion of various pregnancy complications, some potentially fatal. As always, this comes with a disclaimer that I am not a medical professional, so my understanding of these conditions is only that of a patient doing her best to get educated   

One of the many challenging things about my birth experience and hospitalization was a feeling that my OB-GYN practice really dropped the ball when it came to explaining any of the factors that started making my pregnancy with LB high-risk. When it came to gestational diabetes (“GD”), COVID, gestational hypertension, the labor complications I encountered, postpartum preeclampsia, and what to do or expect when I still needed blood pressure medication after my six-week postpartum appointment, I got basically no explanation about the implications of any of those things from the doctors in their group. 

With regards to the GD diagnosis, my OB did at least refer me to the Maternal-Fetal Medicine (“MFM”) specialist at the major hospital system where I would deliver. The hospital had a structured GD program to ensure I could get all my questions answered promptly while receiving closer monitoring of my blood sugar results. There was no such help for any of the other things. 

Additionally, communication from my OB’s office about who exactly I was supposed to contact to get enrolled with the hospital GD program was almost nonexistent. I got a referral for that first conversation with the MFM, but no other guidance. I only learned weeks after my diagnosis that the OB-GYN actually intended to refer me for continued monitoring throughout the rest of the pregnancy, not just for a one-off conversation with the MFM. I then needed to call (and MyChart message) around at the hospital myself to figure out who I should talk to. 

Things That Are Different Now

LB was around 4.5 months old here. We love the Copper Pearl burp cloths (also here) and the Crane Baby quilted playmat (affiliate links).

As I mentioned recently on Instagram stories, I’ve finished my maternity leave and am back in the office. I'm also hoping to get back in to blogging, now that I'm a bit more adjusted to being a new parent. And let me just say, it's all been an incredibly wild ride. Among other things, K and I moved out to the NYC-area suburbs a few months earlier than originally planned. We've had tons of help from my in-laws, both with the move and with caring for LB, but it's still been intensely difficult to get everything done. 

For obvious reasons, I'll probably be writing mostly about things related to parenthood and baby care items in the near term. There will be a fair bit about personal finance management too, at times, and some talk about fashion and shopping as well. It’s probably not surprising that my clothing-related needs and preferences have changed significantly, given everything that's new in my life! 

It's been surreal going back to the office, walking to and from the train station, when the last time I was in any of these places was in late November, before LB was born and before my long hospitalization. My life has been completely transformed, in more ways than I can count, but the office and its immediate surroundings are still largely the same. I sort of can't believe I'm no longer living in NYC, and I feel like I never really got to say a proper goodbye to my old life. 

The Cost Of: Prenatal Care, First Two Trimesters

Coach wristlet (affiliate link) 

With any medical care-related expense in the US that's billed through health insurance, it's not necessarily that meaningful to hear about anyone else's experience. So much depends on the vagaries of one's own health plan, something I personally find nearly impossible to decipher or predict before my bills after insurance actually come in. (That's as someone who litigates multi-million dollar commercial contract disputes at my day job, no less!) 

Nonetheless, I always like to read about how much things cost, including American healthcare. I was originally hoping to do a post like this earlier in pregnancy, potentially one for each trimester. As it turns out, the billing department at my OB-GYN's office can be quite slow, so it was only recently that what I think(?) is the last bill from before the end of my second trimester - nearly 7 weeks ago - was finally processed with my insurer. 

This kind of timing isn't necessarily a huge shock in the American system, either. For instance, it was only this June that I finally saw a record pop up with my insurer for a PCR COVID test I took last December, during the start of NYC's Omicron surge. (That length of delayed billing is pretty unusual though, in my experience. There wasn't actually a bill to me involved either, because COVID testing in NYC was generally still free to the patient with government support back in December 2021.) 

For my prenatal care throughout the first two trimesters, through 26 weeks of pregnancy, the amounts I paid out of pocket for expenses that were - or could have been -  put through insurance was: $1,827.68. 

Unfortunately, I think this solidly establishes my health plan as being "not very good," in terms of the extent and quality of my coverage. Which is something I did already know beforehand. Many biglaw firms are known for offering associates extremely expensive health insurance plans, sometimes with poor coverage. My health insurance premiums aren't as bad, but the co-pays and other terms keep getting slightly worse by the year. For one random data point of comparison, a YouTube vlogger I follow who also lives in NYC only paid around $366.00 out of pocket on her insurance for prenatal care through roughly the same point in her pregnancy.

Early Third Trimester

Pact Maternity Airy Long-Sleeve Tee: Finally ordered some maternity tops, and Pact's are pretty good.

Things have quieted down considerably for me at the office, just in time for my third trimester pregnancy symptoms to escalate! I have noticeably less energy now and am definitely much less physically comfortable, and I still have around seven weeks of pregnancy to go. I can't even imagine how much bigger this bump can get, and how much more unwieldy it will feel... 

Alas, given my current lack of physical and mental energy, including for blogging, I think I'll be a lot quieter here until after my mid-December due date. I think I'll check in intermittently with my monthly shopping reflections and pregnancy-related posts. Not much room in my brain for thinking and writing about anything else!

Gestational Diabetes 

Fortunately, my gestational diabetes ("GD") remains well-controlled without medication, or even any particularly onerous changes to my eating habits or the limited physical activity levels I'm currently able to sustain. I'd always gravitated to a somewhat lower-carbohydrate diet just due to my personal tastes and preferences, and I'd also generally craved sweet foods less during pregnancy than at other times, so I'm really not eating that differently from how I was before the diagnosis. 

The only real changes I've needed to make so far are: 

• (1) Like many GD patients, I have significantly more trouble digesting carbohydrates without blood sugar spikes in the early morning than later in the day, so I do need to be careful about breakfast. Strangely enough, half a regular white flour English muffin works better for me than a similarly small slice of whole-wheat bread for breakfast, even if the two items have the same carb content. Milk also contains carbs - which I never needed to think about before my diagnosis - so morning lattes are not an especially good idea at present. (This isn't a big deal because I also seem to be back to my first-trimester issue where coffee just doesn't taste right anyway.) 
• (2) Only a few foods I enjoy are probably too difficult to successfully work into my lunch and dinner diet at present. One of those is pizza, which is unfortunate. (I could probably have a small slice or two with some non-carbohydrate side dishes for lunch or dinner, but that doesn't quite fit our habits on days that K and I feel like ordering pizza. It's easier to just avoid pizza for the next few weeks rather than try to make it work with my GD.) 

And that's it, really, at least for now, which isn't too bad! I'm starting to notice some of my fasting blood sugar readings are now a little higher than in earlier weeks - though they're still a margin below the typical cutoff for an abnormal reading at that time - which is consistent with the experience of many GD patients around 32 to 36 weeks. Fingers crossed things don't escalate to the point of needing medication or insulin, because those things are more complicated to manage and would also make the pregnancy somewhat higher-risk. 

Physical Symptoms

Oh lordy, things have continued getting significantly more uncomfortable as I progress into the third trimester. It almost feels like each week unlocks new levels of previously unknown discomfort. These days, getting dressed and putting on pants and socks is a big chore that can sometimes leave me feeling a bit winded. It also feels like there's less room in my torso now that the baby has grown considerably, which accounts for both some mild shortness of breath at times and being less hungry or less able to eat larger meals. That also causes a bit of heartburn or reflux.

Please note that this post contains affiliate links that could result in my earning a small commission - at no extra cost to you - if you click and make a purchase. Thank you for your support!

Sleep is becoming difficult, since it's becoming impossible to get comfortable, even with my trusty pregnancy pillow. Whenever I try to adjust my position while laying down, my belly feels so heavy and unwieldy.

At the moment, my most severe third-trimester ache or pain is that I get especially sore in my ribs, always on the right side. (Our little bean tends to kick and move in that area more than any other, maybe that's a factor.) Earlier on, I didn't start feeling rib pain until late evening some days, but more recently it's starting in the mid-afternoon. A pregnancy support belt helps, but not as much as it used to. 

I'm now seeing my OB-GYN for routine appointments once every two weeks. With my specialist referral for GD, I also have a separate remote video visit with either a nurse or a MFM roughly once every two to three weeks. Everything still looks healthy and on track, which I'm very grateful for. Fingers crossed that everything continues to go smoothly for the remaining weeks of pregnancy! 

Life with Gestational Diabetes (Part 1)

I've now had my gestational diabetes ("GD") diagnosis for almost three weeks. It's been a bit of an adventure, and definitely not an especially fun one. The good news is that - at least for now, and hopefully also for the next few weeks or longer - it seems likely I can manage the condition fairly easily with relatively small diet and lifestyle changes. The bad news is I'm finding that the standard of care for gestational diabetics at my OB-GYN practice and the specialists they refer to is not especially high, so there's been little support from my medical professionals. This isn't an insurmountable problem at present because my condition is luckily uncomplicated for now, but it doesn't feel great to navigate it mostly by myself.

Because today's topic is completely about a potentially serious medical condition and the management thereof, an important and necessary disclaimer: I am not a medical professional, so for all things to do with GD, please consult with your doctor first and foremost. Sadly, it does seem like my experience with feeling somewhat left in the lurch by one's medical team is not that uncommon with GD, so I think many people end up finding lots of guidance and help from other people who have been there. (In the past few weeks, I've been on the r/GestationalDiabetes subreddit for much of my education about how to manage the condition.) 

The Emotional Side

As I mentioned last week, I probably wasn't as shocked or upset about my diagnosis as many might be. I have huge genetic risk factors for Type 2 diabetes in my family, and already had a right-on-the-edge of prediabetic blood sugar reading at a physical last year, which means that many of the scary implications of GD for the pregnant patient were things I already knew to be true for me long before my diagnosis. 

That being said, once I finally got in for my specialist consult and officially received medical counseling about the potential very bad side effects of poorly managed GD for both baby and pregnant person, I did feel emotionally distraught for a few hours while I processed that. (This first appointment happened nearly 10 days after my diagnosis, a not uncommon time gap.) My understanding is that much of the severity of GD - particularly around weeks 32 to 36 of pregnancy - is basically not in the patient's direct control because it's mostly driven by the placenta and hormones. Thus, the medical advice can sound a bit like "hey, all these super-bad things can happen, but you really can't control if it happens." Which, yikes...

The Second Trimester (Part Two)

I'm now close to the start of the third trimester! Alas, in the past three or four weeks, I've started to experience bigger challenges from certain side effects and symptoms of pregnancy. I'm maybe a little - or a lot - worried about what the entire third trimester will feel like, if I'm already starting to have a hard time. 

Physical Symptoms: Thank goodness, the itching I mentioned in late July went away by itself pretty quickly in the following three to four weeks. I've asked the doctor about it, and they aren't worried. My acne is a bit better for now. Most of the disruptions to my digestive system have also improved, though are still noticeable. I've been very fortunate in that the worst nausea I've had during this pregnancy in the first trimester still wasn't that bad, definitely not enough to throw off my eating habits. That symptom seems to have disappeared now in the second half of the second trimester.

Sadly, what is more difficult for me now in terms of physical symptoms is that I've started experiencing all kinds of aches and pains. I currently live walking distance from my office, with my commute on foot taking 18 to 20 minutes each way. As of three weeks ago, I've started taking public transit to and from work instead of walking - even though it doesn't actually save me any time - because I was experiencing too much pain and discomfort. 

I normally love grocery shopping - it's my favorite chore and never feels like an imposition - but I've found I pretty much need to stop running that errand alone as well, as I can't really carry a not-particularly-heavy full bag of groceries - and definitely not two such bags - for 10 to 15 minutes while walking home anymore. I end up sore all over for more than a day afterwards. I'll really miss doing this basic task on a whim for the rest of my pregnancy. (I can still maybe grab a few lighter items at a time from the nearest grocery store to home or work in a pinch, but no more big shops unless K is there to carry most of what we buy.) 

Please note that this portion of the post contains affiliate links that could result in my earning a small commission - at no extra cost to you - if you click and make a purchase. Thank you for your support!

In order to try and manage the discomfort, I've been using a fairly large pregnancy pillow, the LeahCo Snoogle, for quite a while now, since week 12 or so. I didn't really need it at first, but now I definitely do, and I've particularly appreciated having the pillow since week 15. I also bought a much smaller and more easily packable Boppy wedge-style pregnancy pillow (also here or here) for K and I's recent vacation, which also worked fairly well to keep me sleeping on my side and was reasonably comfortable. When I'm laying down and using my computer in bed, I use both the Snoogle and Boppy to lay down on an incline. 

Much more recently, I've also started wearing a pregnancy belt under my clothes, and it definitely helps a lot and is even necessary for me now, even with a bus commute and sedentary desk job. I picked one fairly randomly on Amazon, sizing up to account for how I have a few months of pregnancy and growth to go, and it works pretty well. 

One-Hour Glucose Test: My OB-GYN's office has patients take the one-hour glucose tolerance test ("GTT") for gestational diabetes during their 24th week appointments. A lot of people say the glucola drinks used for the tests taste gross - the one-hour version contains 50 grams of sugar in 10 oz, compared to, say, the 39 grams in a 12 oz bottle of coke - so I felt some trepidation, especially because I basically never drink soda or juice and only rarely get sweetened lattes. They also instruct you to drink the entire thing in five minutes or less.

Pregnancy and Body Image

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Before I got pregnant, I was worried I'd constantly be extremely anxious about all kinds of details, including but not limited to the health of the baby; my health; everything I needed to do to get ready for baby's arrival; starting to plan out future childcare for after my parental leave; money and the many expenses associated with raising a child; how to parent and take care of an infant, etc. etc. In reality, "pregnancy brain" has, for me, seemed to come with a pervasive sense of calm. 

My mind feels newly hard-wired to not worry excessively about much of anything, really, particularly things that aren't immediate concerns or that aren't meaningfully in my control. Among other things, I've faced our recent busy period at the office with minimal extra stress or anxiety, I've become really good at taking it all a day at a time and being almost absurdly zen. That's quite out of character for me! 

I'm admittedly noticeably below average when it comes to Type-A personality tendencies relative to my typical law school classmate, and to most other attorneys who started their careers in biglaw. But historically, I still tend to get highly anxious about almost all of the many super-stressful things that come up in litigation practice and my work.

Please note that, as the title suggests, today's blog post is all about body image and will also mention some things to do with weight-related numbers and pregnancy symptoms. Along with that comes the usual important disclaimer: I'm not a medical professional, so please keep that in mind whenever I discuss health-related details. But I am guided by the advice of the team at my OB/GYN's office.

The First Trimester

Our little bean at 12 weeks.

Some personal news: I'm pregnant, due in mid-December! When this post goes live, I'll be in my 15th week of pregnancy, just past the first trimester. K and I are so excited to become parents. I also feel incredibly fortunate that everything's been going smoothly so far, according to my OB/GYN it's all proceeding as expected and low-risk.

Today's post is about my first trimester. Be forewarned, I mention some detail about things like ovulation tests, irregular cycles when coming off the pill, side effects of pregnancy, and that sort of thing. Along with that, an important disclaimer: I am not a medical professional, but I always take seriously the advice of the team at my OB/GYN's office.   

Life Lately: A Spendy Month (or Two)

The green chickpea hummus at ABCV, which is quite tasty and also a suitable dish for my current health and fitness goals!

As of last week, NYC now requires restaurants and many other businesses to check for proof of vaccination before allowing guests over the age of 12 to participate in various indoor activities. K and I have been indoors at a few restaurants since the new policy took effect, and we've seen... a range of different levels of verification. 

One restaurant checked our vaccine cards - using the New York state Excelsior app, because K and I both got our shots from state-run sites - and our photo identification. Another asked us to self-attest to our vaccination status, but waved away our attempt to pull out our phones to actually show our vaccine information in Excelsior. Yet another restaurant didn't ask us anything at all. We'll see whether restaurants become more uniform in checking vaccination status in the next few weeks. 

Since I officially finished paying off my student loans last month, I've sort of been spending money like it's going out of style. There was that substantial jewelry gift to myself, which was planned out ahead of time, and then a round of orthodontic treatment, which was a bit less planned out. (I'd had a vague notion since the accident in 2017 that I'd seek out an orthodontic consult for it eventually, but had no concrete idea of when that should actually happen.) Our recent trip to Crested Butte, CO was also on the pricier side. 

K and I have also decided to move forward with a small, immediate family-only courthouse wedding ceremony, leaving any bigger celebration and reception for an as yet unknown date down the line - only after the COVID situation has calmed down both domestically and internationally - so there are also quite a few expenses related to that. For instance, K bought my engagement ring so I'm buying our wedding bands. 

I think K and I may have left it far too late to successfully book a photographer now for a late September date - even if it's on a weekday and we'd only need the photographer for two hours max because it's going to be an extremely informal and quick wedding - but if it's possible, we'd like to arrange that. It was probably extremely foolish on my part to have waited until last week to start looking for a photographer. Everyone I've spoken to so far is already close to fully booked through the end of the year. (I may have been lulled into a false sense of security by my own line of work. Clients who are willing to pay can easily arrange to retain a team of biglaw or biglaw-ish lawyers for significant, urgent work with barely a week or two's notice... Obviously, the legal business is very, very different from most others, which I should have realized, duh.) 

Also, I now have my new braces on, for a round of treatment expected to take four to six months. It's been quite an adjustment! I had braces when I was a teen, but I'd completely forgotten they come with restrictions against eating certain types of food. I never experienced much pain, discomfort, or other problems with my braces as a teen, but I think my teeth are slightly more sensitive this time around. My speech is somewhat affected, I can't pronounce some words well because the braces are in the way. 

After barely a week of wearing my new braces, I swear I can already see some movement! So I'm currently feeling reasonably optimistic that my treatment timeline might be closer to four months than six. Either way, because I'll likely be wearing a mask in all indoor public settings for the next several months - except when actively eating or drinking - barely anyone outside of close friends and family will ever actually see my braces. 

Money Life Lately: Less Biglaw-ish Than Before

Kate Spade "Buzz" Small Slim Bifold Wallet (affiliate link)

Today's post is a bit of a grab bag about some of the smaller things going on in my financial life recently, outside of the really big thing - fully paying off my law school student loans! - that just happened. 

Less Biglaw-ish Than Before

Throughout the years since starting my current workplace in 2017, I've always described my job as "biglaw-ish." This made sense because our attorneys are similarly credentialed; typically have biglaw work experience; sometimes have similar work hours; and also because we were on the same salary scale, even if our year-end bonuses were typically ~25% of what our biglaw peers were earning and we also never got any part of the "special bonuses" that started appearing in recent years.  

After a bit of a market-wide slowdown in the first month or two of COVID-driven shutdowns in the US, business has apparently mostly been booming at many American biglaw firms. Early this year, a round of new special bonuses were announced. I understand that assurances were also given by certain firms that these special bonuses would not result in the reduction of year-end bonuses later on. Given typical practices at my workplace, I naturally expected the biglaw special bonuses would not have any effect on my total compensation. 

A few months later, I was rather shocked when biglaw firms also provided a new round of across-the-board raises for associates, on top of the special bonuses. So, uh, business is clearly still extremely good at some biglaw firms, to say the least. 

As for me, my workplace is officially no longer on the biglaw salary scale. This isn't too much of a surprise because we're a much smaller entity, and accordingly, our practice is far less diversified than that of any given biglaw firm. Instead, we got smaller raises across the board, and it's unclear what will happen the next time biglaw firms decide to increase associate salaries again. Anyway, I'm not worried about this change, though obviously, more total compensation is always nice. I had a lot of reasons for joining my current workplace rather than returning to my original biglaw firm, and I've never truly regretted that choice. 

Pandemic-Era Health and Fitness Changes

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As you can probably tell from the title of this post, there's definitely a content warning on this one, as I'll be talking about weight changes (as a broad concept, I'm not going to refer to my weight in specific numbers today but I also can't guarantee that any websites I link to, including one of my own older posts, won't include more explicit discussion of weight-related numbers), diet, exercise, and certain health conditions. Please do not continue with this post if you do not wish to read about any of these topics. 

Reentry Thoughts

Maya Lin's Ghost Forest at Madison Square Park. Some days, the lawn is open so people can sit on the grass under the trees.

Completely unexpectedly, my workplace still doesn't have an official return date after which attorneys need to work full-time - or even part-time - in the office. But because of some projects on my plate through the end of the month, I'll probably still be going to the office four or five days a week through the end of June. After that, we'll see what my work schedule looks like for the rest of the summer. It's very strange to me that we don't have an official return date yet, though in practice most of my colleagues are back in most days of the week regardless. 

For those of you in parts of the US or other parts of the world that are almost fully reopen, how are you feeling about it all? K and I are comfortable with indoor dining, with my return to the office, and with whatever social gatherings or visits our close friends or family - nearly all living in fully vaccinated households - want to do. Our first plane trip will probably be in August, to a friends' wedding in Colorado, though we have no objections to traveling now if we had anywhere to go. (It goes without saying that I'm happy to continue wearing a mask whenever and wherever it's requested or required, especially indoors. In NYC, I've seen that most people continue to wear masks indoors everywhere, except when seated at a restaurant or bar.)  

But even though I'm pretty much back to the office full-time now, I still don't feel fully "normal." It takes me so much longer to get ready to go to the office than in pre-pandemic times, and I'm always completely exhausted in the evenings if I went in, even though I have a fairly easy 15 to 20 minute walking commute. I'm also not fully back to wearing my "real" work shoes yet, I've mostly just been in sandals and sneakers.

Please note that this portion of the post contains affiliate links that could result in my earning a small commission - at no extra cost to you - if you click and make a purchase. Thank you for your support! 

I've been dragging my feet on some of my many reentry-related errands. I still need to schedule appointments for long-delayed routine checkups with my dentist and primary care doctor, just to make sure everything's in order. I may also need to make an appointment with the optometrist, as my vision is noticeably slightly worse off now than after my previous visit in early 2019. (I spent a lot more time staring at screens than usual when working almost fully from home. Normally, at the office, I do a lot of my reading on hard copies.) 

It may also be high time to refresh my makeup collection, as my Bobbi Brown gel eyeliner has dried out in the jar and it's been way too long since I first opened my current bottle of Nars eyeshadow primer. I almost never wore makeup in pre-pandemic times - it was only for special occasions, court, and important work meetings - and obviously I wore it even less while social distancing throughout 2020 and early 2021. 

One other side effect of our 14 months of pandemic social distancing is that I have a number of extremely expired Metrocards with money left on them. Normally, if the Metrocard's been expired for less than a year, one can just use the machines at each subway station to switch them out for new ones. But because my cards are more than a year expired, I apparently need to snail-mail them in for replacement, which is quite inconvenient! (And apparently, if the cards are more than two years expired, one is completely out of luck. Happily, mine are not quite there yet...) 

Skincare Update: Two Months of Curology

via Unsplash

Here's a quick update about my skincare routine, even though it may still be too early to do a full review of my Curology experience. I've now been using Curology for a little over 60 days, or two months. 

Because my Curology formula includes some fairly powerful, potentially irritating active ingredients - the tretinoin and possibly also the azelaic acid as well - I use it with a fairly light hand. As with prescription Retin-A Micro, a roughly pea-sized amount should be plenty to cover the entire face in a thin layer. In practice, because of how much the Curology pump bottle dispenses with each push of the pump, I often end up using slightly less than the typical pea-sized amount each night. (One full pump is generally just shy of the right amount, but two full pumps would be way too much and result in some wasted product.) 

Accordingly, even though it's been a little more than 60 days now since I started, I'm actually still using my first supposedly one month-sized, just-pay-shipping trial bottle of my Curology formula. (Which means that the $19.99/month price of Curology may work out to be more like $10/month for me in practice, at least with my current formula.)  Because of the opaque bottle, I also can't tell how much more is left in there! 

I've mentioned that K and I spent the year-end holidays staying over with his parents at their home, after a strict 16 days of quarantine for both households before they picked us up and drove us there. We stayed with them for nearly two weeks total, and my skin reacted somewhat oddly to the change in setting.

Please note that this portion of the post contains affiliate links that could result in my earning a small commission - at no extra cost to you - if you click and make a purchase. Thank you for your support!

In general, the air felt slightly more dry at K's parents house than it usually is at our apartment, maybe from running the heater more. They don't buy or eat as much in the way of dairy products as we do, a change, however temporary, in diet that past experience suggests should improve my acne. And while we were staying with them, I switched back to using Cerave foaming face wash - a trusted part of my routine for several years, though I recently switched to and now prefer the Vanicream gentle facial cleanser because it's less drying - because that was what they had on hand. 

I was a bit mystified that my acne got noticeably worse all of a sudden while we were staying over for the holidays, especially with the diet change that should be helpful. Any new blemishes got significantly more inflamed and healed more slowly than they had been since I started using Curology. I found it very odd, since I thought the change in my skin's condition was so significant that it couldn't be fully explained by the drier air or the switch back to a face cleanser I'd used with no problems for such a long time in the past. 

Now that I've been back home for a while, however, my skin's back to improving noticeably on Curology. Back when I was around three or four weeks in, I'd already started noticing that new blemishes were smaller and healed more quickly, and that trend has continued. My skin is still a little dry and dull-looking some days, but is also still free of the extreme flakiness and irritation that I had back when I was a first-time topical tretinoin user. I might potentially inquire about increasing the potency of either the azelaic acid or tretinoin in my Curology formula for my next refill - which I may not need for four months, since I just received a two-month sized refill bottle, but haven't opened it yet due to still working my way through the first bottle - though I'm also not sure it's necessary to change my formula.

Money Life Lately: Year-End Holiday Tips and Office Gifts

Marc Jacobs "Snapshot" Leather ID Wallet (affiliate link)

Here are a few small things happening with my money and spending recently, in areas outside of shopping and fashion. I can't believe it's already December! It's difficult to get fully into the holiday spirit this year because it's logistically impossible for my mom, sister, and I to safely travel and see each other. But the show must go on with regards to certain holiday-related expenditures of mine, namely: (1) year-end holiday tips for the staff at my apartment building and (2) year-end holiday gifts for the receptionists and assistants!

I don't often discuss these year-end gifting expenses. I think the only time I've ever mentioned them was a few months ago when talking about how I calculated my total savings from staying home and socially distancing. Even if I don't discuss them, however, these particular costs have been a regular part of my life - and reasonably so, in recognition of the recipients' hard work all year long!- since I graduated law school. (Except that there weren't any year-end holiday gifts at work when I was clerking.) 

Health Insurance and Prescription Co-Pays

Longtime readers may know I like to complain - at excruciating length - about my experiences with the cost of healthcare here in the US. That's despite being fortunate to not actually have much to fuss about, relatively speaking. Generally, with the exception of when I had that accident requiring a bunch of urgent dental work, what I'm complaining about is just a few dozen extra dollars here and there. Even the very small unexpected medical expenses aren't fun, of course. But compared to all the possible problems with medical bills here in the US, my issues are small potatoes. 

My biggest perennial problem with my medical expenses is that I've often been charged co-pays on my birth control under most of my workplace health insurance plans, even though that really shouldn't happen under the Affordable Care Act. (The insurers' general rationale seems to be that they fully cover plenty of other types of birth control - including other pills and IUDs - just not yours.) It's an on-again, off-again problem that comes and goes depending on the workplace, but I've had this issue more often than not.

For my first few months at my current job, things were good, my co-pay for my birth control pill was $0/month. Sometimes I got the generic, sometimes the brand name, but I didn't really care about that. Then all of a sudden, things got weird. Suddenly, I was paying $35 to $45/month in co-pays for the same pill. To add insult to injury, my insurer covered the brand name at that level, but didn't cover the generic at all. The co-pay also seemed to change every time I got a refill. It wasn't my first rodeo with having a co-pay for birth control, but previously, I only ever had a $10/month co-pay. 

After a certain point, I started using GoodRx coupons to keep costs down, because the ~$25/month or so GoodRx cash price was always cheaper than getting my birth control through my insurance. And even then, the price I paid was rarely exactly what was listed on GoodRx, it was often a bit less, sometimes more like ~$15/month.

All of a sudden this month, however, my co-pay for my birth control pill on my insurance was back to $0/month. And for the brand name, no less! I swear, I don't understand the logic of how this works. But I suppose we can consider this a happy ending, for now. (The co-pays for this particular prescription have constantly changed on me practically every time I picked up a refill in the past two years or so, so I'm not sure I believe my recent good fortune will last...) 

Skincare Update: Trying out Curology

Via Unsplash, where I think Curology has provided a lot of their own stock photography.

One random and somewhat unexpected consequence of life in the COVID-19 era is that my skin really doesn't seem to like my new working from home, never really going out lifestyle. My persistent adult acne - a decade-long issue for me, unfortunately - is noticeably worse than it generally was for the past year or two before March 2020. And it's almost certainly not because of wearing face masks whenever I leave my apartment, as most of the breakouts are on parts of my face that aren't covered by a mask. 

It's probably silly - and clearly premature - to write a blog post to announce I'm trying Curology when I only just received my prescription serum yesterday and haven't yet spent much time using it. (I always start slow with new products for my face, testing on my wrist on the first day; on a small spot on my face or neck the second day; and on a larger patch of my face the third day.*) But I've been around the block more than a few times - alas! - when it comes to seeking medical assistance for my acne. With all that experience, I'm comfortable with Curology's approach so far. 

Curology is, essentially, a dermatology telemedicine startup that prescribes custom compounded topical treatments with combinations of some of the active ingredients typically found in prescription skincare products. My prescription topical formula currently includes tretinoin, clindamycin, and azelaic acid. The first two active ingredients are ones I've used for years in other prescription products.  

I've been aware of Curology - originally called Pocketderm - for a while. It was popular with the skincare bloggers I was reading back in 2015. And over the years, a few different readers here have also commented with positive feedback. If I remember correctly, the fees have always been ~$20/month for acne treatment. I have this vague memory of their offering a higher price tier for anti-aging treatment at some point, but that's no longer the case. These days, the prescription formula is $19.95/month, plus tax and $4.95 shipping after an initial "free" month's trial, for which the new customer just pays shipping. Customers can also add Curology-branded cleanser, mosturizer, etc. for an extra fee. 

Until now, I've never been interested in trying Curology for myself because the numbers simply didn't work. Back when I first heard of them, my total co-pays for doctor's visits plus acne-fighting prescriptions always worked out significantly cheaper than the ~$20/month cost of Curology. Unfortunately that started to change for me by 2017 or so. I've always had fairly good insurance coverage, but the co-pays for the same dermatology prescriptions I've used - some on and off, some constantly - for over a decade have just kept climbing. From 2015 through late 2016, my Retin-A Micro 0.1% and Clindamycin topical refills still cost ~$10-$15/each, like when I first started using those products around 2005. From 2017 on, the co-pays grew to ~$40-$45/refill per product. Since 2019, it's more like ~$75/refill. Ouch! I believe my experience is consistent with larger industry trends for dermatology prescriptions. 

Medical Bills, New and Somewhat Unexpected, For Things Entirely Routine

Bottega Veneta wallet (affiliate link), on sale at Net-a-Porter. While this is super-fancy, I spent far more than either the full price or sale price on fairly routine medical expenses in Q1 2019!

Much as it was for Luxe and many of her readers, the first quarter of 2019 was also an expensive time for me. Some of the spending was for fun reasons. I booked and paid for a few things related to my recent Maui vacation, and I also did a fair bit of shopping, particularly in February. A lot of the spending was for significantly less fun reasons, including taxes (I owed over $2000 to the IRS) and various medical bills, including at the optometrist for new glasses and contact lenses. But that was far from my only doctor or pharmacy bill that quarter. And none of the bills were for anything but the most routine or mundane of things, I never got sick or anything like that!

If you've been reading here a while, you might have noticed that I really, really like to complain about healthcare costs in the US, to an extent that might be entirely out of proportion with what I've actually needed to pay for. I've been lucky to have been in fairly good and uncomplicated health, except for one accident and the accompanying emergency dental work. Even that was far from as bad as it could have been.

Nonetheless, I basically write here about almost every single medical bill I encounter that's more substantial than a doctor's visit co-pay (~$25 for a general practitioner and ~$40 for a specialist on most of my insurance plans as a working adult). Maybe all this complaining is tiresome or tedious, but I just think it's important for us to remember that this isn't normal, things are different in many other countries. And this whole mess is among the many reasons why it's so important to vote, if you legally can. I'm also well aware that there are many far more important injustices than the minor indignities I've endured (the rising cost of insulin, for one). Plus, I think it's absurd that I - an attorney who regularly navigates multi-million dollar commercial disputes as part of my job (generally involving sets of multiple interrelated contracts spanning 100s of pages in total) - can only rarely make heads or tails of why I'm being charged a certain amount, even though I make considerable efforts to identify and review the documents setting out my coverage. 

Another "Latte Factor" Digression

To me, this topic also relates to larger questions of economic justice, and frustration with certain viewpoints in personal finance discourse. I'm talking about those rather un-charming individuals (and banks, including my own) that blame people's smaller personal choices, on things like coffees and avocado toasts, for their financial woes. Never mind that the math doesn't check out, typical life-ruining financial difficulties in the US are generally in amounts several orders of magnitude in excess of what anyone has ever spent on coffee or avocado toasts, certainly in a year, possibly even in a lifetime. And yes, I've been quite grouchy about this recently.

I say all this, by the way, as someone who deeply appreciates the importance of tracking one's spending down to the penny, enough that I can't resist any opportunity to proselytize about its virtues anytime one of my friends (both online and off) expresses even a slight interest in the topic. I even credit my use of (old, non-subscription) YNAB, to track and categorize my spending by individual transaction, with having a transformative effect on my spending and consumption habits. It almost immediately cut my careless Sephora, Amazon, and Drugstore.com (R.I.P., they had consistently good prices) shopping, which had accounted for a shameful total in my early years as a law student, down to reasonable levels actually commensurate with my needs. For example, I used to comfortably exceed the Sephora V.I.B. spending threshold of $350/year without fail, and my online account even said I got close to V.I.B. Rouge's $1000/year hurdle once (though I think their calculation was wrong). Post-YNAB, I very quickly stopped getting anywhere close to V.I.B. status. So I'm well aware of the potential benefits of how "personal responsibility" (i.e. tedious and sometimes hard work, in the form of recording expenses and then cutting back certain spending categories) can result in a significant and beneficial overhaul of one's budget.

By tracking every single transaction without fail, one gets a true picture of one's total spending, and some of the details may be surprising. It often seems to be the case that people who try it out for the first time quickly learn the same lesson I did. Specifically, they might realize that they had quite a few categories where some careless, unthinking spending was occurring, which wasn't bringing them as much value or utility as the money they were putting in. Sometimes, all this low-utility spending represents a significant total. (That's generally the story at the heart of many posts in r/ynab raving about how the app is life-changing.) Before I started, I would have described myself as a reasonably careful spender, but it wasn't until I started tracking my spending that I learned this wasn't originally the case, and that I had some significant cuts I could make almost immediately without causing any discernible change in my lifestyle. But at the same time, none of this work was ever going to be enough to make any real dent in the actual cost of my legal education.

The financial albatross around my neck, my biggest monthly expense by far, and the thing that could have been life-ruining, but for luck (defined as a combination of preparation/hard work and opportunity/mostly random chance), is, unsurprisingly, my student loans. The numbers at issue there are the kind that no amount of cutting back on lattes and avocado toasts can completely fix. While in the private sector, for nearly three years total now, I've shoved in monthly payments of, on average, $3400. My current payments are now $3700/month and counting, a rate that requires ~35 more months of payments this exact size. With my student loan balance, I need to put in an extra ~$100 each month, every single month going forward, to cut just a single month off my projected repayment timeline. (All projections done using unbury.me.) Lattes and avocado toasts ain't got nothing on that, if you ask me. That brings us to the medical bills. 

Medical Bills, Some New and Somewhat Unexpected

There I go again on one of my really long tangents before getting to the actual point of this entry, that I accumulated quite a range of medical bills in the first quarter of 2019, and all for fairly routine care, having experienced no accidents or bouts of illness. Despite not having been sick or injured, many of my medical bills were still for somewhat new and unexpected amounts. Many of these surprising line items were even for things of a type I'd used before, but they never cost so much until very recently. And almost everything on this list was covered by insurance.

I think this list of my surprising or unusually expensive medical bills from Q1 2019 provides a good case study for how it's becoming extremely clear, even more than before, that for contemporary Americans, the "latte factor" discussions from the likes of Chase Bank, David Bach, or Suze Orman simply miss the point. You can have all the "personal responsibility" in the world* and still be vulnerable to having your financial plans undermined by factors outside of your control. The expenses here are, ultimately, very small, because I'm a fairly healthy (knock on wood) working adult with no dependents, but the rate of the increase in costs in just a short time, for the same routine care I've been getting for years, is still, in my opinion, relatively dramatic.

And I think my list of somewhat unexpected and new medical expenses for mundane and routine things, infinitesimal as the amounts are in comparison to things such as the costs of housing, childcare, or higher education, is still enough to show how silly the people who take the "latte factor" seriously are being. Just like that, with a few sudden changes occurring almost all at once (mostly to my health insurance and its coverage of prescription medications, something outside of my control), I'm now paying close to the equivalent of an "extra-latte-every-weekday" amount in extra healthcare costs each month for some relatively simple, routine things. With regards to most of these expenses, I did just about everything "right"** (except for one thing I'll explain, but I made that particular mistake while doing my best to proactively respond to something I believed was set in stone by the text of my health insurance plan's policies).

Updated, Slightly Less Minimalist(ish) Skincare Routine

It's been ages since I last wrote about my skincare routine, and I thought it was high time for an update! All of my drugstore-priced, longtime favorite "holy grail" products are still in there, but the set of prescription products I use has changed slightly.

As I suspected, once I started my current job, I was no longer able to see my fancy dermatologist on my new insurance plan, but it's turned out not to be a big deal. My general practitioner has been happy to prescribe my acne-related medications, so it's all good. Insurance co-pays continue to be weird for my topical prescription medications, but that's not exactly new, as I'd already experienced paying anywhere from $40 (with manufacturer coupon) to as much as $80 per refill (a number I was previously shy about disclosing) on my old plan. Alas.

Please keep in mind that I'm not a medical professional, and can only speak to my personal experience with various skincare products and routines. To the extent that one has the misfortune of suffering from moderate to more severe acne (my sympathies!), the best first step for me has always been to start with the doctor or dermatologist, and what they prescribe.

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As background, I have long had bad skin. Its main problem, for at least 18 years now, is acne, primarily the big, icky, under-the-skin kind that could hang out for a month or more, even when I was on both Retin-A Micro 0.1% (the highest dose) and the contraceptive Yasmin or its generics. I get other, more typical breakouts with smaller blemishes too, but those heal so quickly in comparison, and are so easily covered up with makeup, that they've always been easy for me to ignore. Doctors sometimes refer to my acne as cystic, though anecdotally, there may be a distinction between what I  typically get (which eventually "comes to a head"; can pop, often by accident; and is then helped along by hydrocolloid bandages, in my case the CosRx Pimple Master Patches) and actual "cysts" which, on the thankfully rare occasions I've had them, tend to be smaller and and less inflamed most days, but also don't ever "come to a head" and start healing. Instead, they hang out for months on end before, sometimes, mysteriously disappearing.

Various combinations of additional products, including some over-the-counter ones, have helped reduce the frequency, size, and average healing time of my icky, under-the-skin blemishes. But even now that my skin has turned a bit of a corner, mainly thanks to prescription spironolactone, I still don't have perfect skin. I also don't think "perfect skin" is possible for me, it's just not a realistic goal, and I've long since accepted that.

Even if I never got another blemish again (unlikely!), the aftereffects of the years-long battle with acne will remain, mainly in the form of some oddly textured skin on my cheeks and chin. While those patches don't quite rise to the level of what's in photos of atrophic acne scarring, they're still noticeably bumpy if one gets really up close and personal, and the condition appears to be permanent. Nearly a decade of daily Retin-a Micro use hasn't been able to make that odd texture go away. Most days, I also have small dark spots left over from recently healed blemishes, but those, at least, tend to fade significantly over time, sometimes within as little as four to five weeks. (Though with my ongoing acne issues, by the time one dark spot has faded, another has popped up.) Whatever can be done about the oddly textured, slightly bumpy scarring, it's probably going to be expensive, and not covered by health insurance.

Some may remember the hullabaloo surrounding that silly The Outline article claiming that the entire skincare industry is one giant con. Many objected, including at Man Repeller, Racked, and Vox. Had I been paying attention then, I definitely would have objected too. From years of experience, including months-long periods where I stopped the Yasmin or dialed back the Retin-A Micro, only to find that I really couldn't do that if I valued the appearance of my skin, I've learned my lesson that, at least for me, there are times when extensive use of clinically-proven skincare ingredients (whether prescription or over the counter, and in my case, oftentimes both) is absolutely necessary, even if I just want to eke out a few weeks in an average month when I don't have one of those big under-the-skin blemishes hanging out.

In the meantime, however, I've also learned that "more" is not always better when it comes to those more clinically proven "active" ingredients. Indeed, though there was a time that my skin did very well with one of those Korean or East Asian skincare market-inspired 10-plus step skincare routines of legend (both morning and night), I may have been slightly in denial about how well it was actually working for me overall.

When that routine was working for me, as it did most of the time, it was fabulous! My skin got almost completely clear of those gross breakouts, for as little as two weeks to as long as a few months at a time (all of which is excellent results by my standards), and it often had an attractive "glow" that can't be replicated now that I've cut certain more expensive items from my routine. (In my experience the Missha First Treatment Essence, a SK-II dupe, is pretty unique in imparting a certain "glow" I don't get from any other product. Though your mileage may, of course, vary.) During the good times, my skin even got to the point where I honestly thought it looked better without makeup than with! Though I must admit, one factor there was that I don't have particularly excellent makeup skills.

When that routine wasn't working, however, probably because the combination of all those active ingredients, mainly the BHA (whether from the Paula's Choice 2% BHA Liquid or the one-two combination of the CosRx BHA Skin Returning A-Sol and BHA Blackhead Power Liquid) was a bit "too much" for my skin, I'd get irritation-related breakouts, or my skin would get red and blotchy, or dry and flaky, and would need quite a few days of rest with a dialed-back "gentle, moisturizing products only" routine. I used that 10-plus step skincare routine, switching a few products in and out, for nearly three and a half years before the dermatologist asked me to take a step back, to let my prescription products better do their work. Since then, I've realized that, while my previous routine was great sometimes, those "good skin" months or weeks were always punctuated by semi-regular bouts of irritation-related breakouts. So maybe that super-extensive skincare routine wasn't the best idea after all.

Please follow the link below to read about my current routine!

Things that Happen When I'm (Briefly) on Pace to Bill 3,000 Hours/Year*

*Please note that this is said with tongue firmly in cheek. While I did work that much for a few weeks in January, it was mainly due to an unusually urgent project of a type that isn't likely to recur often. At the rate I was working, I still would only have billed 3,000 hours if I didn't take any vacation and also worked at that exact same pace for the entire year. I don't expect to be anywhere near that busy again for quite some time, and thank goodness for that! Now, two months on, I'm already significantly "off pace" for getting anywhere close to 3,000 hours billed in 2019. I'll probably come in around 2,100 at most, if I had to guess.

I'm told there may be a number of biglaw firms where regularly billing close to 3,000 hours/year may be necessary to be a tip-top associate, but hours like that (as opposed to a "mere" 2,100 or 2,200... which is still a lot) are not terribly common. Lots of things need to align just right (or wrong) to get close, including that one's practice group may need to be consistently busy the whole time. A lot of practice areas are subject to the whims of the markets, and not every firm or practice group is always able to bring in enough new business to sustain hours like that. While I was in biglaw, I was on track to fall slightly short of 2,000 billed hours that year, even with significant pro bono hours included in my total (firms generally allow pro bono service to account for a small percentage of an associate's total hours for the year, usually not much more than 200 hours out of a 2000 target). Most of my fellow junior litigators there were also struggling to hit 2,000. I could speculate on what that says about where the biglaw litigation market is going, but I only have a small sample size of my old firm and my friends' firms to go off of.

Back in January, that intensely hectic period was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before. I didn't mind it too much, actually, I enjoyed having a lot of responsibility, but I was definitely also feeling sleep-deprived and exhausted by the end. At least for me, there is a point at which one works so much that performance and efficiency inevitably deteriorate. In no particular order, here are a few observations about what life looks like with just two or three weeks of working so hard that I'd potentially be on track to bill 3,000 hours that year if I kept it up:

A recent email from Ally, Bank where I keep my savings account. While it's great to save that money from coffee, if one wants to save and invest more than that, then further steps in other areas of one's finances would also be necessary!

1. // Latte factor: I tend to go to coffee shops a lot more often than most people who like to save. (Though I think we're all well aware that cutting out a frequent coffee shop habit wouldn't, by itself, be anywhere near enough when it comes to longer-term saving and investing for retirement and other big needs.) There have been times in my life, when I had a killer commute and needed to wake up hours earlier than I'm used to, that I had a latte almost every weekday morning and considered it "worth it". Given that I'd taken a large pay-cut at that time, I felt extremely sheepish about my habit, but in the end, it wasn't a big deal, relative to my larger financial situation in the long run.

This past January, though, when I started getting that fancy latte almost every morning, I was surprised to find that those purchases gradually started losing their value and appeal to me. I suppose that might have been because the biggest challenge at the time was the intensity of my work, not my feeling tired or sleepy from needing to wake up a lot earlier than comes naturally, so the extra caffeine boost wasn't as useful anymore. Also, the lattes finally stopped feeling "special" because I had them so often. My propensity for going to coffee shops has been significantly reduced in the weeks since that busy period. We'll see if the trend continues for the rest of this year!