Financial mistakes and family planning

Last week I had a perfect storm of financial idiocy. First, a toddler of the store's acquaintance (not Z.) broke the fax machine. It was a lesson in why you should go ahead and correct a child, even if its mother is there, if your property is at risk. The mother very reasonably replaced the fax machine, but the new one didn't arrive until Friday, when I was already rushing off to points north. Why is the fax machine important to this story? Well, because I can't authorize a wire transfer without faxing my signature. Why couldn't I go to the co-op on the corner and use theirs for 50 cents a page like I used to when I had no fax? Uhhhh .... mmmm .... no reason. It just didn't occur to me.

Second, I lost the deposit. It was on the dining room table on Wednesday when I cleared it for dinner. It was not in evidence anywhere I looked on Thursday or Friday, before we left. The deposit represents only a fraction of the store's sales (most sales are by credit card and go directly into the store's account after mastercard plays the float for a day) but by the time I'm ready to go to the bank the cash and checks have added up enough to cover a few of my smaller vendors. I don't know what's wrong with my brain that I can't remember where I put this little, valuable stack of paper.

Third, I went ahead and mailed off a pile of checks anyway on Friday morning. In my defense, I knew that the fax machine was on its way, my manager had my signed authorization to fax off as soon as the new machine was set up, and the kind of transfer I've been doing recently is next day at the latest. It was still really, really dumb.

As I was driving across the Walt Whitman bridge on our way to the NJ turnpike, A. was fielding calls from my manager and my financial advisor. Finally it was clear the fax had gone through, but when I heard A. saying "Not til Thursday?" I knew I was in trouble. The local vendor checks were going to start hitting the account on Tuesday. The largest two, to Behemoth Media Empire and Slick National Book Distributor, would probably take a week or more, but there was no guarantee of that. And given what the next four days looked like there was not one thing I could do until after second seder.

The happy ending is that we were able to do a credit card cash advance today before any checks bounced, and tomorrow we'll have the money to pay back the credit card, but I hate these kinds of financial acrobatics. I still can't find the deposit and on top of needing the money to be somewhere I can use it, I can't stop berating myself for this memory gap. Is it mom brain? Is it hypothyroidism (I had blood drawn to check for this on Friday)? Is it sleep deprivation? Is it my usual absent-mindedness about keys and glasses and wallets, now extending itself to actual cash, which it never has before? Is it my deep feelings of entrepreneurial inadequacy expressing themselves through self-sabotage? And I don't even need to ask if it's my slovenly housekeeping. Duh.

Owning a business is like being out on a limb that constantly snaps and creaks underneath you.

It was in this emotional context that I spent much of this weekend at my in-laws, largely cocooning myself with novels and knitting. Also they have a full-length mirror, something our house lacks. Between the cocoon and the reflection, I came to a place of clarity:

I can't try to get pregnant again until I am at or below my pre-pregnancy weight. This was something I achieved 10 days after giving birth, but not in a happy way since those of you following this story know that Z. was hospitalized for 7 of those 10 days--now I'm back to about 10 pounds over pre-pregnancy and a full 60 pounds over anything like my ideal weight. Add 25-30 pounds of pregnancy on top of that? No.

And I can't try to get pregnant again until I'm confident it won't bankrupt us and destroy the store.

We've been talking about inseminating again this summer. The plan was to try again after Z. turned 2, and here she is, 2. Our donor was game when we brought it up last fall, but he teaches and wanted to wait for summer. The past few months I've been sorta charting, and starting to identify, though distantly, with moms pregnant with baby #2. But getting back on that 2 weeks on/2 weeks off merry-go-round felt like an ominous thing looming over me. Given the circumstances of Z.'s birth, beginning another pregnancy will require a leap of faith no matter when we start.

So I got it--now is not the time. 2007 is not the year. I have some worries about putting it off--36 is more fertile than 37, and somehow 3 seems a better age for a first sibling than 4--but those are sort of theoretical worries. Mostly I feel like I've given myself enough time to take care of myself, physically, and to have a holiday season that doesn't need to get plowed back into capital improvements.

I'm trying to take a lesson to heart about not making commitments before you have everything in hand you need to honor them.