I must say I am truly blessed to have the husband I do and met him at such a young age. Even though we've only been married going on three years in November, we've been together for 11 1/2 and have our first baby on the way.
DH worked at a free teacher store for me yesterday because he didn't want me lifting or bending. If you work three hours you get to fill up a shopping cart for free. Then, today he's going to help set-up my classroom and it's a lot of work. He doesn't want me bending or lifting, so he's going to be putting books away, hanging posters (so I don't have to stand on chairs, which isn't safe anyway, but especially not pregnant), and various other things. Then he came home and did the laundry- again because he doesn't want me bending or lifting. I do put it away because he doesn't like folding and that's the least I can do.
On top of all of that... we had a two hour conversation of the what ifs...
1) am I going to stay home after the baby?
2) should he stay home for couple of years until we have baby #2?
3) do we trust anyone else watching the baby other than us?
4) since I already have a career how's that going to affect his work if he takes indefinite time off?
My POV: Obviously, we don't have any answers to those questions and since I work in a very small Catholic school I'm always at risk of losing my job every year since I was the last one hired. I'm not sure how I will feel until the baby comes and I am in baby mode. I'm afraid of making a decision I'll regret, but I can always go back to teaching since I do have a career. I don't like the idea of not being independent since I always have been able to take care of myself financially without having to rely on anyone. I'll miss teaching. My kids will be the most important thing to me. Do I really have to sacrifice one for the other?
DH POV: He doesn't mind staying home as long as one of us is with the kids. If he does stay home he doesn't want it to be more than a couple of years, so he's not out of the work force so long he has to start over at entry level. If he does stay home, he wants to use that time to get some sort of certification and have enough notice/time to get it, so he can get a better job. It's going to be hard for him as a man to let me be the "bread winner." If he gets a job working from home that would be the ideal situation, so neither of us has to sacrifice something, but chances are slim. However, that would allow me to make a decision either way and feel good about it, plus he'd be home to help, too if I stay home.
We'd prefer for one of us to be home with the kids because kids are so impressionable from birth-five and that's such a window of learning opportunities. If we leave someone else (even someone we trust) to watch our kids, we don't know what kind of impression they are leaving, if they are taking teaching opportunities like we would, etc.
All in all, he's leaving the decision to me. He's not forcing me to be a stay at home mom and he's being flexible to him being a stay at home dad, at least short term. He's truly my best friend! Since I'll be getting short-term disability at least until March he's going to maybe use this year to get the certification if I stay home, otherwise he'll get it when he needs to. Either way it works and he's leaving the decision to me. I love him- he truly is my best friend!
8.8.2012
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