Jake was a year old when I got laid off from Sherwood International. The president flew in and offered to relocate me to the Armonk, NY North American headquarters (the company was headed out of London). However, the relo package wasn't that great, and I had become disillusioned with the poor organization of the company. We in the Chicago office had been expecting the layoffs for months, and morale was really low. Additionally, I was well overdue a promotion and raise, that now I knew might never come while the company hemorraged money.

The president was really shocked and disappointed that I wouldn't relocate. But I couldn't get a raise out of him, nor placement assistance for my husband, or help getting childcare, a second car, etc. We had just moved into the townhome we'd been building for two years that fall. DH had a great job that he really loved. I lived a half-hour from my parents. Moving to Westchester County, NY wasn't really in the cards for me. They didn't want me telecommuting from home. So I took the layoff package.

Within a month of the layoff, I was in a car accident where our car was totaled and my left shoulder was badly injured. I went through physical therapy and outplacement assistance at the same time, but neither was helping much. I got pretty depressed.

Two lousy job offers later, I ended up freelancing for a nonprofit association. DH and I talked about having a baby in mostly vague terms; I flip-flopped between wanting another teeny little baby and panicking about money and security. By the spring though, I was ready to try and had gone off the Pill.

That summer I was a few weeks late for a period. I remember we were digging up our postage-stamp backyard and replacing the rocks with dirt and sod. We spent a few days hoisting bags of soil and peat over the back fence. It wasn't more than a few days later that I was hit with bad cramping. Two or three weeks later, my period resumed.

In July, DH was laid off. I began interviewing with my current company, and the entire process took me to September. On September 11th, DH and I were lying in bed, watching the news, when the 2nd plane hit the World Trade Center. Later that day, I asked him, in tears, how we could dare try to bring more children into this world. We were broke and under- or unemployed, and terrorists were attacking the United States.

"How can we afford to bring another baby into this world?" I cried.

"Having a baby is the only thing we can afford to do," he said. "This is exactly what we should do."

Comforted, I turned next to the OB-GYN. I was worried, rightfully so, about being off the Pill for so long. The doc immediately got me in to see Dr. Confino, Chicago's top reproductive endocrinologist. He did an initial workup on me, and tested both DH and me for infertility. I had the brief but incredibly painful HSG test done, but it was okay. Dr. Confino advised us to try three cycles of IUI -- intrauterine insemination -- with cycles of Clomid to help me out a little. My hormones were all screwed up, basically, and he doubted that I'd be able to carry a pregnancy without a little help. We'd try IUI first, as the least invasive and least expensive option, and then he'd graduate us to IVF if necessary later in the year.

On my retail salary and the freelance work DH got, we got up the nerve and had me "implanted" on a quiet Saturday morning. Two weeks later, the tests came back as succesful -- practically a miracle.

It was the hardest pregnancy I could imagine. We were financially stressed all the time, Jacob was having speech delays, and I had a shockingly difficult case of hyperemesis gravidum, resulting in me puking three times a day and losing 12 pounds by my fourth month. After six weeks of bed rest, I was allowed to go back to work.

Daniel Louis was born at 36 weeks, after three days of intermittent labor,  a double epidural, an internal fetal monitor and a brief scare of possible fetal shock. Forty-five minutes before the doctor was going to go in and do an emergency C-section, I suddenly felt like pushing. The next thing I knew, this perfect replica of Jacob was swaddled on my chest and the pain and exhaustion were merely a memory.