A Difficult Decision

It's the eve of my last day of work and I'm officially scared. I have so many thoughts whizzing through my head right now I just don't know what to do. There's good and bad, but mostly all of the scary thoughts are because of the "unknowns". I always have problems with the unknown. I so much prefer to have everything planned out and know the outcome before starting down a path! If only everything was able to work like that and there were no leaps of faith needed.

Mark and I have been discussing me leaving my job to stay at home with the baby since we started trying to get pregnant! This is not a new development and further it's my choice. It's what I *want* to do. I *want* to be able to stay home with my baby. In fact, it's very important to me. I'm so grateful that this is even an option to me. So many families can't survive on a single income and it's not even a thought in their mind that after adding a family member they'll walk away from a significant portion of their household income! Not to mention that my wonderful husband agrees with my point of view on raising a child and supports my decision to stay home with our child and is willing to adjust his lifestyle accordingly.

Keeping all that in mind, walking away from your job is SCARY AS HELL. I'm sure that everyone has those mornings (it's pretty much every morning for me!) where you don't want to get out of bed and you fantasize about what it would be like to not have to get up and go to work every day and you think that would be the greatest thing in the world! Well... being on the threshold of that is not at all what I expected!

I have worked since I was 16. I have *always* made my own money and had my own money. I've not had to rely on anyone else financially for years. I'm now moving into a "career" where I have to allow my husband to fully support me financially not to mention we are going from supporting 2 people on 2 incomes to supporting 3 people on 1! Oy, that scares me when it's laid out like that! We've gone over and over the numbers and we have spent the last year and a half getting our financials in the best place possible to ready ourselves for this jump. I know that on paper the numbers make sense and indicate we'll be fine, but what's on paper and how things go in real life are two different things!

Not to mention I've been in my field for 5 years now and fell right into it at the age of 18. It's not like I'm at the top of the ladder right now, but I'm certainly not in an entry level position and I've worked hard to get where I am. I've done pretty darn well for myself if I do say so. I'm walking away from that to stay home with a baby. I worry that if/when I want to get back into my current field my skills will be rusty, or I won't be able to get back in at the level I'm currently at... or a hundred other things! There are just so many what ifs!

Also, we've planned and worked hard to be able for me to do this. And again, it's what I *want* to do, but what if I don't like it. What if, after all of this - cutting our household income, walking away from my job, etc. - I don't even like it! What if I go crazy at home all day by myself with a baby! What if I'm not ready to be a full-time parent?! I know that staying at home with kids all day every day is not for everyone and I don't judge those people one bit. A happy mom is certainly more important than one that's there to clean up spit up at 11am or change diapers mid-day. What if I find that the grass isn't actually greener on this side and I should have stayed at home for 12 weeks on maternity leave and then taken my happy parasite-free body right back to work and found a sitter we liked for the baby?

What if I have nothing interesting to talk to my husband about anymore? Or what if he resents me because he doesn't think I do a good job at being a stay at home mom? : /

*sigh*

I'm just going to stop. I've gone over and over my fears and anxieties about this change and I can't do anything about the fact that I won't know what this adventure holds until I actually experience it. Chances are everything will be fine (as Mark likes to remind me over and over). I just hope that when I finally meet this baby that I will KNOW that we've made the right decision.

At least I can look forward to a couple weeks of rest before all hell breaks loose. I fully intend to get some extra sleep and spend the rest of my time getting the house all ready for baby! I'll probably feel like I'm on vacation. I doubt I'll be worrying/obsessing/anxious about the situation then! I wonder when it will actually hit me that I don't have a job anymore?! EEK!