That Wasn’t So Bad
Originally published at Welcome To The Dollhouse. You can comment here or there.
oday I sent off the check, the check reserving a place for Zara at the great day care center I found close to home. I had planned to use my work day care, but they have a waiting list a thousand miles long. We are #46 on the list for September. Yes, contingency planning was warranted.
Our social worker during our home visit told me about a great center not too far from us. I went for an impromptu visit and loved it. No center I saw after that one came close to feeling right. I was sold.
Now most of my adult life, people, well, women have told me that after I became a mom, I would feel a strong desire to be a SAHM. For years I argued that I knew myself and that there was nothing in me that wanted to be a SAHM. None of the women in my family have ever been SAHMs. It just is not in my wiring to want to do this.
But oh how they tut-tutted me. “When you’re a mother, you’ll understand,” they said with calculated smugness. But no argument swayed them. It was impossible for them to fathom that I might actually know my internal make-up on this issue. I found it to be a very frustrating subject for discussion.
Yet today upon mailing the check for day care and firming up my plans to return to work in July, I’m not feeling sad or guilty. I feel exactly the way I thought I would before becoming a mom: I love my daughter with every fiber of my being, yet I am a mother who both has to work for financial reasons (I’m the main/sole breadwinner. AdoringHusband’s salary wouldn’t cover any of our living expenses, I’m afraid. Hopefully he will get a better job soon.) and for emotional reasons. And that’s OK.
Motherhood has indeed changed me in good ways. There have been some real surprises, like my happiness with breastfeeding. That is something I never expected. Yet my work is also such an important part of who I am. How many people get to work on a product that can prevent cancer? This vaccine is critical to the health of women. It stirs my passion and my desire to save lives.
Granted sending in a check isn’t the same as dropping her off on my first day back to work. Feelings of guilt may come up between now and then. I’ll weigh in again on this topic when its time for me to return to work, but for now I can say, yeah, sending that check wasn’t so bad. No twinges of mommy-guilt as yet.
I’ve got another month with the peapod who now weighs all of 9 lb 4 oz, up from 7 lb, 15 oz 2 weeks ago. Now we have to move from newborn Pampers Swaddlers to size 1. She’s getting to be quite the big girl. It’s happening so fast.
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