Hellobee Boards

Right now I'm on maternity leave with my 3 1/2 week old. I start working PT at the end of May. I'm self employed. I'll be working about 10-15 hours a week. I'm happy with it, this was our plan from the beginning, I left my full time corporate career almost 3 years ago to focus on my photography and support M until we decided to start a family.

I WOH and love it. What I didn't expect and don't love is my commute. It's an hour and 15 minutes each way (66 miles a day). It's really eating into my time with LO and husband at night. I'm trying to find a new job closer to home.

Torn. I lost job a few days before I had LO and then was too overwhelmed with motherhood/it wasn't really a priority to look for a job for a long time. I just started seriously looking a few months ago... so I am a SAHM but really I'm just unemployed lol.

On one hand I am incredibly grateful that I've gotten to spend the last 10 months home with my daughter. On the other hand it is sort of stressful to not know when/how I"ll be going back to work. And to know that when I do go back to work, it may be very quickly. I think on the balance I'm grateful that I'm currently at home with my daughter, but it sort of sucks to live in limbo. I just wish I knew WHEN I'd get a job-- whenever that is-- so that I could stop worrying about it. Also, interviewing is exhausting. And turning down job offers (even when you know they aren't right for you) is hard.

I'm a grad student but consider it "work" since I'm out of the taking classes stage-- I work as a TA for an undergrad class and work on my dissertation. I love it, but I'm doing it part time right now (lo is only in daycare 3 part-days per week) and I find that really hard. I feel like I don't have enough time to get my work done (some weeks it's all I can do to deal with my students and I have no time for my dissertation)but at the same time I don't want lo away from me any more than she is, our time is so precious.

A three-hour commute sounds very taxing!

I love my job and will be going back part-time in September or October, when my maternity leave ends. We'll also be moving further away (so the grandparents can watch LO), so instead of a 20-25 minute commute by bus, I'll have a 40 minute commute by train plus a 10 minute walk. Hopefully we'll find a house near the train station to cut down on commuting time as well...

I'm nervous about going back and leaving LO but I work with some seasoned parents, as well as another new mum, so I'll have good support there.