DS is about 8 mos now, and things are going really well. I also started working about a month ago. I graduated graduate school right before I was due, so I planned to stay home for a bit with DS and then start looking for part time work. The whole time I was home, I felt antsy to get started with my career, which I now am struggling with.

I love my job, it's 2 days a week, DS goes to daycare those two days and he is thriving. DH can cover our major bills comfortably, but this added childcare cost is huge. My salary HAS to cover it. The issue is...I am "fee for service", which means..if my clients do not show up, I don't get paid. And while I enjoy the work I do, I really am not getting paid.

Basically, after crunching numbers, DH and I realized that this isn't working. While I have a decent caseload, I am just not bringing in the money to cover daycare. He thinks that I should leave now before too much more is invested in it, and in a year go back and try again. I am on the fence. Part of me wants to try a few more months, but with daycare requiring 30 days notice before unenrolling, we would wind up paying for a month we don't need - so if this doesn't work out, we will be on the hook for the daycare fee for at least one extra month. The other part of me wants to just throw in the towel and worry about it later, but that scares me so much.

We don't have family around here to help with childcare, or else this wouldn't be an issue. I only have one friend with a child right now, so it's hard to find someone to talk to about this. Has anyone had a similar experience where you left the "working world" for a while and went back to it with success? I'm so afraid I will screw up my career if I leave and go back in a bit, but this is more common than I think, right? If you had to stay home because you could not swing childcare cost, how did you make peace with that? The guilt I feel right now over going to school and not actually using the degree right away is what is bogging me down, I think. I have put a lot of pressure on myself to do it all, and I"m starting to see that it might not actually happen right now (which is hard).