With only a week of maternity leave left I can't help but wish that going back to work wasn't on my agenda.
I know a lot of moms want to work, and work; but there are just as many of us that don't want to work and have to. I personally fall into that category.
I wish I could stay home.
I want to nurse and never have to pump (as I'm sitting here hooked up to the thing as everyone else is sleeping), see all his milestones first hand the first time they happen. I want to console my baby when he's upset.
I want to be at home when Harrison is in a good mood, not show up at the end of the day when he's just over it. I don't like the idea one bit of being home at 4PM only to see him awake for a short while before we have to nurse again and go to sleep.
Mostly, I just want to be here.
It's not at all in a I don't like my job sort of fashion, I enjoy my job.
I'm actually lucky enough that the two and a half weeks that I have to go back this school year my father is coming down to stay with us and take care of Harrison. If it wasn't for a parent who's retired we'd be in a pickle in May. Finding our sitter for the fall was difficult enough.
After those two weeks of May Jeremy and I will be home for roughly two months with Harrison before returning to work in August. I say roughly because he works a few weeks before and after I get off work.
I'm not having to send my baby to a sitter until he is 5 months old. Not many people get to do that who work, much less have the careers we have in education where we have the same holidays and when Harrison starts school he will be on the same breaks that we are.
But that doesn't mean I want to go back.
If anything the past few days I've just thought about decisions I've made over the past ten years that got me to this point.
When I started college I didn't listen to a word my mother said and took out more than I needed in loans a few semesters. It didn't help that I had to take them out in the first place.
Plus for years I didn't know if I wanted to have children, and if I did staying home wasn't on my radar one bit.
With none of those thoughts being in my head I trucked through undergrad and graduate school collecting debt. My husband, while not the idiot I was about debt in college, had to take out loans to attend as well. So imagine a household of two people now to have loans to pay back from undergrad and graduate school.
We aren't suffering, there's food on the table, and we've had the opportunity to do things and not be oh so paralyzed by student loan debt.
But there's enough of it that I have to work.
I know I'll survive the first year and Harrison will be just fine, but it's not my ideal situation.
I just get stuck in a cycle of comparison and look at the women around me who could stay home, and that's not healthy.
All I can do is hoard sick days and pray that when we have baby #2 in a few years that he/she is born around the same time so I can take off the rest of the year and have that time at home like I did with Harrison.
Because 6 weeks is a joke.
I know a lot of moms want to work, and work; but there are just as many of us that don't want to work and have to. I personally fall into that category.
I wish I could stay home.
I want to nurse and never have to pump (as I'm sitting here hooked up to the thing as everyone else is sleeping), see all his milestones first hand the first time they happen. I want to console my baby when he's upset.
I want to be at home when Harrison is in a good mood, not show up at the end of the day when he's just over it. I don't like the idea one bit of being home at 4PM only to see him awake for a short while before we have to nurse again and go to sleep.
Mostly, I just want to be here.
It's not at all in a I don't like my job sort of fashion, I enjoy my job.
I'm actually lucky enough that the two and a half weeks that I have to go back this school year my father is coming down to stay with us and take care of Harrison. If it wasn't for a parent who's retired we'd be in a pickle in May. Finding our sitter for the fall was difficult enough.
After those two weeks of May Jeremy and I will be home for roughly two months with Harrison before returning to work in August. I say roughly because he works a few weeks before and after I get off work.
I'm not having to send my baby to a sitter until he is 5 months old. Not many people get to do that who work, much less have the careers we have in education where we have the same holidays and when Harrison starts school he will be on the same breaks that we are.
But that doesn't mean I want to go back.
If anything the past few days I've just thought about decisions I've made over the past ten years that got me to this point.
When I started college I didn't listen to a word my mother said and took out more than I needed in loans a few semesters. It didn't help that I had to take them out in the first place.
Plus for years I didn't know if I wanted to have children, and if I did staying home wasn't on my radar one bit.
With none of those thoughts being in my head I trucked through undergrad and graduate school collecting debt. My husband, while not the idiot I was about debt in college, had to take out loans to attend as well. So imagine a household of two people now to have loans to pay back from undergrad and graduate school.
We aren't suffering, there's food on the table, and we've had the opportunity to do things and not be oh so paralyzed by student loan debt.
But there's enough of it that I have to work.
I know I'll survive the first year and Harrison will be just fine, but it's not my ideal situation.
I just get stuck in a cycle of comparison and look at the women around me who could stay home, and that's not healthy.
All I can do is hoard sick days and pray that when we have baby #2 in a few years that he/she is born around the same time so I can take off the rest of the year and have that time at home like I did with Harrison.
Because 6 weeks is a joke.
