New Job :)

I think the best way to start this post is to just copy/paste what I put on my facebook page last week...

My maternity leave isn't officially up until August 1st, but, last week I told my boss that I wouldn't be coming back. I'm not taking a new job at another company, rather, taking one at home full-time with Jacob and Noah. 

First of all, I always grew up wishing and hoping that one day I could be a stay-at-home Mom. I thought it would be such a fun job. But, the older I got and the more involved in my career I got, the further that idea went from my brain. When we first got married, we had talked about it some, but, decided we would see what happened when we had our first child. Boy did things change then. When I was on leave with Jacob, for me, I knew I couldn't stay home. I ended up getting so lonely, bored, feeling useless and really missing all of my friends at work. Looking back though, I think a lot of that had to do with not being able to take him out of the house until he was about 2.5 months old. After his 19 day NICU stay, we couldn't really leave the house with him for fear of him getting sick. I just felt so secluded. Also, I was the first of almost all of my good friends to have a baby...so I felt alone in that sense as well. When I got pregnant the 2nd time, I still wasn't thinking I was going to stay at home. I just felt like it wasn't for me. I mean, let's face it, it's a HARD job. I didn't know how so many women did it. After Jacob, I honestly felt like I was a better Mom to him by working and enjoying more one-on-one time as a family when we got home from work. Not sure if that makes sense, it's hard to explain.

It honestly wasn't until we brought Noah home from the hospital that I started thinking, oh my gosh....Jacob is almost 2 1/2. I felt like we had just brought him home from the hospital. Now looking at this newborn, it was like Jacob all of a sudden was this grown boy. I felt like I had missed out on so much. But, I knew that just like my last maternity leave...my mind would change 100 times. And it did.

I went back and forth quite a bit. I kept waiting for this huge rush of "you need to go back to work!" to come like it did the first time around and it never did. If anything, I fell more in love with all the time that I was getting to spend with Jacob and Noah. Every day Jacob was learning new things and I didn't want to miss out on anymore of that and especially not miss out on Noah's big milestones during his first year. As my good friend told me, "You will never regret the time that you spend with them, but you most likely would regret the time you spent away from them at work." And that's so true.

But, even though I knew in my heart that this was the right decision for me and my family - I couldn't help but feel awful for leaving my friends at work, leaving them with one less person to take on our (extremely) busy fall semester. I really struggled with this for almost a week. I wasn't sleeping well. I hated how my decision really hurt them and put them in a bad spot. I didn't want this to hurt our friendships or make things really weird. But, thankfully after several conversations with them, they assured me they understood and were glad their own Moms could stay home with them!

So for right now, I have no set "plan". No timeline on how long I'll be at home. No idea when I'll go back to work. It's so different from how I usually operate with everything planned. But, it is pretty nice to just take it day by day and soak in every minute with these two cuties. We have a great routine set. I've already managed to get both Jacob and Noah's long afternoon naps to be at the same time (most days). Things are going really great. I'm really thankful that we're able to do this right now and I look forward to watching them grow up.

Back to my facebook post above, I must say that this particular update was the most "attention" I've received with likes and comments. It was so awesome to see so many of my friends/family supporting me and offering kind words of encouragement and congratulations. I can't thank everyone enough for that. So, for my SAHM friends - bring on the play dates and for my work friends - bring on the lunch dates. I love you all! :)