Decisions, decisions

All day today my stomach has been in knots. I feel like it's the last day of summer vacation and I'm nervously anticipating the first day of school. I am starting a new job tomorrow and it's very overwhelming for a few reasons.

• It will be strange to have a job again, after being unemployed for almost 6 months.

• It will be weird to work in an office, after working from home for more than 5 years.

• And the hardest burden to bear, it will be heartbreaking to be away from Nathan after being with him 24/7 since the end of February.

When most women get pregnant, they are faced with an inevitable decision.  Will I continue working? Or will I stay at home with my baby? I was blessed with an amazing job that allowed me the best of both worlds. I worked full-time but I worked out of my home. So I was able to send Nathan to daycare in the morning (the busiest part of my work day) and get as much work done as possible. Then I picked him up on my lunch break, got to play with him for about an hour, and then put him down for a nap, which usually lasted 2-3 hours, allowing me to get the rest of my work done. Once he woke up, I got to take him to the park or play at home, putting any unfinished work aside which I would finish later that evening after he went to bed.

I planned on continuing that job even after we left the city, something I had already discussed with my boss and gotten his approval on. But unfortunately, that is not what happened. I was laid off in February, which caught me totally and completely off guard and resulted in a lot of hurt, anger and resentment.  Suddenly I was faced with that dreaded decision, the one I had managed to avoid for the first 10 months of Nathan's life.

I have all the respect in the world for full-time stay at home mothers. Being a mom is the hardest job I've ever had. It's demanding and exhausting and it's 24/7. But after a lot of thought (and a lot of tears), I have decided to go back to work. The major reason is that financially, we just can not afford for me to not work. Ideally I would have loved to find a part-time job - but there just aren't that many out there that pay a decent salary. I was lucky to find a good job, one that I think I'll be good at as well as enjoy, and was able to negotiate a Monday-Thursday schedule so I am very happy to know I will have every Friday off to be with Nathan.

While I've loved being able to spend so much time with Nathan these past 6 months, I have missed working. It is a strange feeling to have a career for almost 10 years and then suddenly just stop working, even moreso since I wasn't mentally prepared for it. And I am very excited to be back in an office, working from home allows great freedoms and flexibility but man is it lonely!


I think Nathan will have a lot of fun playing with other kids at daycare and he will also get some one on one time with his Nana and Papa. I am expecting the first couple weeks to be hard, but am praying that Nathan and I will both adjust to our new routines and will find happiness in this decision.