I quit.

Well, here's an awkward update since my last post about being super excited about finding a new job... I quit. Sort of. I was on a short term contract while waiting for the staff position to be finalized, but now I've decided not to continue past my contract term, which will end in early February. This means I will not come back to my new job after I have the baby. It was a really hard decision to make, but the more time that passes, the more I feel confident it is the right one. 

I wasn't lying before when I said I was excited about this opportunity. I still think it's important and interesting work that in many ways is a good fit for me. But in the first month, I started getting a lot of clues that this would not be a sustainable gig for me. Some were related to the job itself, but mostly it was how I was feeling about impending parenthood.

I have to say that I always thought I'd have a great job and go right back to work after having a baby. My mom always worked full time throughout my childhood and it seemed to work just fine. I loved daycare and never felt like someone else was raising me,  to use the rhetoric of naysayers. More importantly, being a stay-at-home-mom has never fit with the ambitious image I've had of myself. 

But once I felt ready to get pregnant and have a baby, the thought of returning to work after a few months just didn't seem right. The 12 week norm, as allowed by FMLA, seemed so rushed. I wouldn't qualify for FMLA at my new job, but they told me I could still take three months off... and absolutely no more. (Believe me, I asked more than once.) I wanted the job and was reeling from the layoff, so I told myself that many, many moms go back after three months (or even less) so surely my baby and I would be able to adjust, even if it would be hard. But as I crept into the third trimester, I started to feel incredibly anxious about this timeline. How could I be sure that we'd find daycare in time? Could we even afford daycare? How was it going to feel leaving our baby with strangers at three months? Would my hips (and other body parts) be healed by then? I could feel myself tense up every time my boss and I talked about "when I return". I was having bad dreams several nights a week. My intuition was finding every way to say "hey, listen to me".

Acting on my feelings was incredibly scary. I hate to let people down, and I felt indebted to my new boss for taking me on and being so flexible with my pregnancy. I didn't know if my reasons for quitting sounded valid to anyone but myself. But I had a choice to make between hustling to make this job and daycare work, or fully immersing myself in this new role of mom and freeing myself from a timeline. Given my energy level lately, and my general disposition towards taking things slowly, I knew I had to choose the latter. I do have new fears--that I won't be able to find a job once I'm ready to go back to work, that I'm a bad feminist, that I'll be stuck at home with a baby and resent it--but no choice is perfect and I am more and more at peace with mine each day.

I want to put an asterisk next to every sentence above and say I am extremely, extremely privileged. Many people cannot think twice about having to work. Many would be thankful to even have 12 weeks off. It is a luxury to be able to listen to one's intuition, when practical realities demand otherwise. Also, on the flip side, many moms are happy to return to work quickly. Practically all the moms I'm in close contact with have gone back to work within 3-4 months and are thriving. I hope it's clear that I'm sharing my thoughts to document how I'm feeling right now about my circumstances and the choices I have been presented. My wish is that every parent could have good choices when it comes to balancing career, childcare, and family time. I wish we would catch up to other industrialized countries in offering paid parental leave, to let families bond more in the first year and not give up their careers or go broke in doing so, but that's a ways off I'm afraid.

I haven't shared my updates widely because I still worry about what others will think. Frankly, I'm embarrassed I took a job only to decide a month later not to continue. In addition, the emotional ups and downs and physical pain of pregnancy have made me want to draw inward. I feel tired and vulnerable and not very good at articulating how I'm doing. It's been a tough few months, but I figure this is all good practice for becoming a parent-- being exhausted, but making the best decisions I can for my family, and letting go of how it looks from the outside.