Mommy Goes Back to Work

I have been dreading this day since the moment I found out I was pregnant.  I was so thrilled that I would finally have the opportunity to stay at home and raise our family, but as it turns out, I still had to go back to work afterall :(  Well, to be fair, I'm not entirely sure it is "necessary" for me to work as it can oftentimes be in other families who rely on 2 incomes to make ends meet.  Our situation is a little different.  We entertained the idea of me staying at home after Audrey arrived, and trust me, it was more than appealing for me!  But my boss offered me the chance to work from home 3 days a week so it seemed ridiculous to give up a well-paying salary if he was willing to offer that to me!  However, 3 weeks before my return to work date, he resigned from the bank leaving me high and dry!  At this point we had been planning on my return to the office 2 days a week and finding appropriate in-home childcare to accommodate that.  Now the bank was telling me that I was going to be put into an "interim" position and I would need to be in the office 5 days a week.  WHAT?!  Totally unacceptable to me!  So now we're at a crossroads with very little time to make confident decisions about how to proceed (2 weeks to be exact)!  For anyone who really knows us, this is NOT at all how we handle life decisions.  So at the very least I asked for a 2-week extension to arrange appropriate childcare for Audrey.  They were happy to oblige and we were fortunate enough to have some good friends volunteer to keep Audrey at such short notice until we found a more permanent solution.  We have been in discussion with an amazing woman and friend from our original newlyweds SS class at church many years ago.  The more we talk about having her keep Audrey full time and the more my heart meditates on it, the more at peace we both are with this decision.  However the Lord is going to need to intervene and show His hand in working the details out on both our ends.

Despite all that drama, inevitably the day would come when I'd have to go back to the office and leave my sweet Audrey for almost an entire day ... and today was that day :(  But thanks to some amazing friends and many people lifting me up in prayer today, I made it through the day in one piece and only cried one time!  And better yet, Audrey was a great baby for her first "real" babysitter's today!  That's my girl!

Here's a photo that daddy took of us before I had to leave for work this morning.  Poor Audrey looks so tired because I shamefully woke her up early so I could hold her and say a proper goodbye (it was clearly much harder on this baby mama than it was on the baby herself!).