I guess the best place to start is a bit about me and what brought me to blogging (this may be long). I am a twenty something who is married to the love of her life. We just recently had our first baby girl E. She is 9 weeks old and takes up most of our free time. We tried for 3 years to have her with the last year seeking treatments through the Pope Paul Institute in Omaha, NE. After countless medications, tests, and a surgery, we finally got pregnant with our baby girl and had a healthy pregnancy and delivery.
Ever since I met my husband, we have always talked about me being a stay-at-home mom. To be honest when I was in college, I struggled choosing a career because all I could picture myself doing was being a stay-at-home mom. Since they do not make a major for being a stay-at-home mom, I took my interests and chose a career as a family and consumer sciences educator (as well as health educator).
In my first position, I HATED it! I could not get pregnant fast enough so I could finally live my role of stay-at-home mom. Since getting pregnant was still not happening, I switched to a new school in hopes of a better outcome. I have to admit it got better and I gained great friends. As all working adults know (or atleast I think this applies to most everyone) no job is easy or does not come without some areas you could live without but besides this, I actually grew to enjoy my work. I would consider myself an upfront/relaxed teacher. I enjoyed making my students laugh and helping them to think outside the box.
In my second year at the new school, I actually got pregnant. This was the happiest day of my life. Anytime something happened at work I did not like, I thought "this will all be over soon and I will be a stay-at-home mom and love every minute of it." This helped me through working while being tired, swollen, and sore. So after trying for so long to get pregnant, not loving my job, and picturing my whole life I was going to be a stay at home mom, one would think after my little bundle of joy was born in February I would be jumping for joy and running away from work and never looking back. Well this was not the case for me.
I do not know what I thought would happen as a stay-at-home mom but after trials with breastfeeding and sleep schedules, I felt like I was losing myself. Now not to sound like a depressed shmuck, but I felt like a big fat nobody (and I literally did feel fat- it is hard losing all that baby weight!). I kept telling myself baby E needed me and I was helping our family but still I felt this huge hole. I tried to find ways to get out of the house but even that did not seem to help. I started to ask for opinions from other moms and all that did was play a huge game of tug of war in my head. I finally was living the battle I think a lot of moms go through of do I:
Option A: Go back to work to get out of the house and have a break from the spit up, feedings, and diapering so I can put on my grown-up clothes and have some adult interactions. This option comes with the pros of feeling needed by peers and offering advice and having the ability to vent. Let's not also forget the paycheck. This option also comes with the negative of sometimes being rushed and stressed for lack of time as well as not being the one who is raising your child (lets be honest with ourselves, kids go to bed early so during the week you may only see them for 3-5 hours a night but you also have to fit in that time dinner, baths, cleaning, and straightening up)
Option B: Stay at home with baby E and know I am the one that is raising her and influencing her. I also get to see all of her firsts. This option also comes with the ability to be the homemaker as to take off some of the stress for the family in the evenings and weekends. It allows me more time to do activities with her and plan playdates. On the negative side, we do not have the extra income and I meet the challenge of feeling isolated and losing myself. This option has me saying goodbye to the teaching world and and maybe goodbye forever since if I stay home for baby number 1 I probably will stay home for all the kids and God willing we have discussed trying for 4 kiddos so that could be 15ish years home and out of the teaching world.
Option C: Finding part-time paid work or volunteering. This option allows me to get out of the house and get a break from baby E but still be the one that raises her a majority of the time. This option still may bring in some money (although not much seeing as most part time jobs I could do would barely pay for the child care costs). I may get some form of adult interact as well and may get that feeling of being needed. Why I say a lot of "mays" is because it is hard to find a part time job that works with staying at home. It kind of defeats the purpose (in my opinion) if all the hours I work are nights and weekends, plus I still would need to find a trusted (and cheap) sitter. This option also has me saying goodbye to teaching.
So here I am in the game of tug of war, not really knowing what I want to do but bigger than that what I am called to do. The unfortunate side of teaching is that we get contracts and so time is dwindling away for making this decision. I do not get the luxury of trying going back for a few months and seeing how it works or feels. It kind of feels like an all or nothing deal because if I sign on for at least one more year, I miss being with her for months 6-18 which are huge milestone months but if I choose to stay home and realize I do not like it, I cannot go back to the same school where I know the students and have friends in my co-workers.
Pause.... Big Breath.... Sigh.... okay now that that rant session is over, now on to how all of this applies to blogging...
Through my decision process, I have tried to find blogs of women in similar situations but have not found many. While searching though I found lots of great blogs on women's perspectives on parenting and raising their children which included activities, recipes, diy, etc and I thought- I can do that! I mean I have ideas, right?!?!? So I figured I would give this whole blogging thing a try to share my story of triumphs and missteps as a new parent.
P.S. In future posts I will try my best to keep them A LOT shorter and include some pictures!
