Justice For The Dogs

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As I write, twelve men and women sit inside a glass conference room at the Bronx Criminal Courthouse deliberating the facts and evidence surrounding a dogfighting bust in which eight men were arrested on June 14, 2008. Over the course of two weeks, the jury listened to both the prosecuting attorney and defense attorneys’ arguments, and now the fate of four men — of the eight men arrested, only four (Alexander Estephane, Juan Toledo, Auritz Acoy and Alterik Mason) were tried — is being decided by a jury of their peers.

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Peaceful protest lead by UA4A outside the Bronx Criminal Courthouse

Quickening

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I woke up from a nap on the couch Friday night, and as I made my way towards the bathroom to get ready for bed I felt it. It stopped me dead in my tracks. I didn’t know what it was at first and described it to my husband Jason as a swooshing sensation through my lower abdomen. Forgetting for a moment that I am pregnant, I told him that I felt possessed, like something was inside of me. He reminded me that something was in fact inside of me! What can I say, I was drowsy.

The bambino is the size of this delicious apple. Yum.

When I looked it up on Dr. Google I found out what I felt is called quickening. American Pregnancy Association describes quickening, or flutters, as the first fetal movements. Wow, is this very surreal or what?!

Laid Off While Preggers

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Yes, it’s true. But it wasn’t personal and it wasn’t performance-based either.

In 2007 I left a prosperous job at Goldman Sachs to join an Internet start-up. Goldman was intense to say the least and I wasn’t happy. What’s more, I wasn’t writing. I spent $35,000 on a graduate education in journalism and I was writing little more than truncated, abbreviated emails while on the job.

Joining the new company meant taking a bit of a pay cut with no opportunity for a year-end bonus — something that allowed me to build a considerable savings after two years at Goldman. But it was ok. I was happy to do it and eager to see what lay ahead.

The new job was fun, flexible and fast. We had fun on AND off the job, my hours were flexible with a good amount of time spent working from home, and I forged friendships fast. We traveled to conferences in exotic places as far away as Monte Carlo and as close to home as Boca Raton.

The dream team.

My boss was an entrepreneur who dabbled in many different ventures. The one that generated the most revenue was in financial securities lending. He branched out into the media world in 2008 and was operating in the red by the following year. In May 2009 I was reduced to half-time. The adjusted salary meant I had to scale back on my lifestyle a bit but it also freed me up to explore other passions. The change wound up being a very liberating one and around that time, we began talking about starting a family.

I stopped taking the pill in late September. By November I was pregnant. The following month I got my first pay check in the mail rather than direct deposit. I remember my husband telling me it was a sign that I would be let go. I told him he was crazy. In January I was indirectly informed that my job with the production company, along with dozens of others, had been terminated. Jason was not crazy after all. He knew exactly what he was talking about.

These two will always be in my life. Of that I am sure.

I was almost three months pregnant at the time and had not yet shared the news with anyone other than family. When people close to me learned that I had been terminated from my job, they encouraged me to seek recourse and take action. But that was silly. I was working from home at that point and my boss didn’t have a clue that I was pregnant. It was nothing I did or didn’t do. The company simply did not survive the credit crisis.

Working with the Internet start-up allowed me to get back to my roots in writing. It was the birthplace of many wonderful friendships. It was a great ride and I have absolutely no regrets about taking that job. Pregnancy hormones aside, I even wrote my boss an email thanking him for the opportunity. If there is one thing I have learned in the business world it’s to never burn your bridges. It may be cliche, but it’s true.

Lucy’s Journey

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Little Lucy’s journey has sure been an eventful one! She was pulled from the city pound in late November, fostered by my friend Sandy until she got over her URI, then fostered by me, then fostered by a great guy in my building named Sam, and then back to me when Sam went out of town.

Lucy looking deceptively calm.

There was a ton of anxiety that came with welcoming the young and rambunctious Lucy back into our home. For starters, I’m pregnant. Second, our own dog Ella has a deadly infection we are in the midst of aggressively treating. And most complicated of all, she doesn’t get along with our two senior cats. But after a few days of “crate and rotate,” our declawed cat Kitty let Lucy know her place in the house! She still gets her butt kicked by the Bug, though, and has the scars on her nose to prove it. The good news is that we are confident that she will not eat them, only chase and annoy them. Phew!

The best thing that came out of taking Lucy back is that I really got to know her and love her and thanks to Facebook, found her an amazing home with a childhood friend of mine who lives in Georgia.

Lucy was supposed to fly down to Georgia last Sunday with the non-profit, Pilots-n-Paws, but the plane on the first leg of her trip had engine problems and never took off from the tarmac in New Jersey. Pilots-n-Paws meant well, but especially in the dead of winter, it was a risk, and the longer Lucy stays with us, the more she is feeling like she is home, and she is not.

Shortly after last week’s failed flight I booked Lucy a ticket on the new airline, Pet Airways. Lucy will leave New York en route to Atlanta, Georgia, this Saturday — and for those of you that don’t know, Lucy won’t be flying in cargo, but in the cabin, with a stewardess and all!

Here are a couple of pictures from Lucy’s non-eventful trip with Pilots-n-Paws…

Watching her plane land.

Boarding the plane that never took off.

 

 

A Family Grows In Brooklyn

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I found out I was pregnant after the hustle and bustle of the first winter holiday. It was the week after Thanksgiving, family had left town, our apartment was clean and it was just the two of us again. And the menagerie of course.

In spring 2009 Jason and I decided over dinner at our favorite Mexican spot in the neighborhood that we would enjoy the coming summer, go away with friends in September to Puerto Rico as planned, and then get off the pill when we returned. Fit in a trip to California the following month and we hoped to be pregnant by the early part of 2010.

Feeling no pain in Napa Valley.

In October I was on high alert every time we got… well, you know. But October came and went and so did my period. As we thought: “it’s going to take some time after all.” My mom was in her late 20’s and had trouble conceiving her first. We were in our 30’s. Between our age, genetics and our excessive use of modern technology, we were convinced getting pregnant wouldn’t be easy.

But we were wrong. While conceiving was very much on my mind in October, when it didn’t happen, I had cast it aside. We went into the holiday season, lead by Jason’s birthday the week before Thanksgiving, with our usual celebratory force. We are both downright lovers of good wine, so perhaps “celebrating” is an understatement. Thanks to my sister-in-law who likes to make sure my glass is always full, I spent a good part of Thanksgiving Day hungover.

It was Wednesday, December 2nd and I was going potty when it occurred to me that I hadn’t gotten my period. I was due but wasn’t that alarmed because I was only off the pill a month at that point. But my underwear was bone dry. There was not a hint of discharge. It was for this reason alone that I knew something was different. So I shared my suspicion with Jason and he laughed it off. Mind you HE was the one who sat me down at dinner in May to ask when we would start trying.

I told him I thought I should take a pregnancy test and he told me to wait another week. Another week? “Was he nuts?” If I was pregnant I should know so that I could stop drinking. If I wasn’t pregnant I wasn’t going to marginalize myself from socializing. After all, we had plans that coming Saturday with good, wine swirling friends! He relented. I peed on a stick and sure enough it was positive. My hands were shaking and I threw it in the sink as if it possessed a magic power that would turn me into a frog. Jason was in disbelief. Literally. He made me pee on a second stick. That too, was positive.

I was in shock. I was in awe. I was out of my mind excited. I just could not believe it. I immediately called my brother on the phone and told one of my closest friends when I bumped into her on the street walking our dogs. (The same friend we went to Puerto Rico with and were due to have dinner with that coming Saturday).

When the shock and awe began to settle in, I made an appointment with an OB/GYN in the neighborhood to have it confirmed. And confirmed it was, I am due August 8th!

16 Yr. Old Dog On Euth List Gets Second Chance

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On Monday night I was horrified to see the email that came in about a 16 yr. old shihtzu at the city pound that was to be put down the following day. The dog was dumped at the shelter in a black duffel bag and left with a note that read: “This is a female dog. The dog is 16 yrs old. The dog is sick, vomits & diarrhea… I cannot take care of the dog. Please do the humane thing. Thank you.”

Cindy was on the euth list at Manhattan ACC.

I quickly set out to write a note about her on Facebook and tagged a couple dozen animal rescue constituents in the process. Should I pull her and bring her to my vet and have her euthanized myself? At least then she would have someone to hold her and talk to her. Or might she still have some days, possibly months left in her to live?

The responses I got on Facebook were heartwarming and I was not the least bit surprised. Tammy Paris Woods stepped up to the plate and offered to take this old gal in and create a hospice environment for her to live in at her home in South Philly. I contacted the ACC, pulled Cindy and created a chipin site for her. I would like to give Tammy $200 so that when the time comes to put Cindy down, she won’t have to go into her own pockets for it. We are more than half way there with the donations that have come in thus far, but have still not met our goal.

If you would like to help us send this old gal off with the love and dignity that she so deserves, please visit her chipin site here: http://reefuge.chipin.com/cindy

Thank you.