A Different Journey than I Had Planned (Part 1)

This started out being a VERY different post. My original idea ended up being tabled as this post would have been about 900-million words long if I merged the two… as it is, I realize that I am going to have to break this story up into multiple parts. I hope you enjoy coming along with me on this path that is so different from the one that I had envisioned!

In my pre-kiddo life, I was working at the same place that my husband works; we met there – yep, we were an office romance success story. I was a software engineer, which is basically a fancy way of saying that I was a computer programmer.

Before our first child was born, I was all set to drop baby off at a (well-researched) day care and continue on my merry way as a working mom. After all, that’s what people DID, right?

I had a home daycare lady that I was leaning toward. I passed her sign on my way to work every day, and I had heard great things about her. Another gal that I actually knew volunteered to watch my boy in her home while I worked, and we decided that’s what we would do.

Then came baby. His first 3-1/2 hours of life were characterized by screaming NONSTOP. Several nurses said to us “So THIS is the baby that we heard!” Being the naive first-time parents that we were, we assumed that this was normal baby behavior. (Though in his defense he swallowed some amniotic fluid on his way out and his poor little body spent much time trying to purge itself of that. Uck!)

Later, one of my son’s preschool teachers was describing her son when he was a baby, and she said “he basically cried for the first year-and-a-half of his life”. Oh boy, did that describe my son perfectly! We couldn’t put him in the pack-n-play. We couldn’t put him in a crib. We couldn’t set him down on the floor and walk more than 1.5 feet away. Seriously.

But, of course, we thought this was normal baby stuff. That is, until we started hanging out with other moms who had kids the same age – kids that were VERY mellow.

We were instructed to try the cry-it-out method with him. He stood in his crib and screamed bloody murder until he vomited. Ummmm…that method was apparently NOT for us! (We did, however, learn a very valuable lesson – not ALL parenting advice works for every family. You’ve got to go with your gut and stick with what WORKS for you!)

So my 6 weeks of maternity leave went very quickly. I had to request 2 more because I was not yet ready to leave this sweet little babe that needed me SO much. He wasn’t happy in ANYBODY else’s arms more often than not (and he also had terrible reflux, the poor boy!).

Several weeks before I was to return to work, we visited the gal that was supposed to care for him. She held him as he screamed, and assured me that crying was good exercise for the baby’s lungs, and that it was perfectly okay for him to scream his head off. I tried very hard not to snatch my baby away and RUN to the car with him. In fact, I think we did end up staying for a bit longer, but that conversation did NOT sit well with me.

A day or two later I was talking to mother (who worked part-time at our church at that time, as she had for the last 18 or so years). I expressed to her my wish that SHE could watch my boy. My kind boss had actually worked out a situation with me where I would work from home part of the week, and come in on Mondays and Fridays. Mom had one of those days off already, so she did a little finagling and agreed to watch my boy while I worked. Phew! It was so comforting to know that somebody who loved my son just as much as I did would be caring for this tough little boy!

The first couple of days back, my boy refused to take a bottle while I was gone. Hubby stayed with him my very first day back at work, and finally had to drive the baby out to me so I could nurse him. Over the weeks and months, he did start taking a bottle, but most times refused to take it more than once, so by the time I got home he was STARVING and needed only me.

Over the next year-and-a-half, my love for my job waned more and more each day, and I fell into a deep depression. I hated leaving my little one behind. God was working on my heart, and I was praying desperately for a way to be home with him. Hubby was adamantly against giving up half of our income. But as I prayed and prayed, I also prayed that God would work on Hubby’s heart.

Soon my mother started talking about the need to look for a full-time job. (Did I mention that she had this job for 18 years??). She would no longer be able to watch my little one, and there was nobody else available that I trusted with this tough little guy.

One day, I said to her “I wish I could just take your job at the church, and bring the baby with me!”. Wouldn’t you know it that God opened that door for us? Now, a second little one has joined us, and we are still going to work together. It isn’t always easy to do, but we’ve settled into something of a routine working 3 days a week, and having 2 home days.

This isn’t where I imagined myself being…say…10 years ago, but it is where I am SUPPOSED to be. Is it easy being a stay-at-home-mom (and I do use that term very loosely)? No, it absolutely isn’t.

But I’ve had a tiny glimpse at God’s sense of humor. On the days that I’m especially whiny or gripe-y, I’ll have a dream that same night of working at my previous place of employment…and I wake up SO relieved that he allowed me to be with these kiddos full time. Even though some days I feel like I’m living in the Crazy House!

Are you on the same path that you imagined you would be, or were you sent on an entirely different journey like we were?

{Photo Credit: Daniel McGrath}