The Working Mother's Conundrum

Well as much as I hoped, wished, and prayed last night it was no good. Poor Cora was up most of the night stuffy as can be. We'd get her rocked to sleep and about 45 mins to an hour later she'd wake up, unable to breathe. One of us would go in, hold her upright, let her nose drain, give her medicine if it was the right time, and rock her back to sleep. This went on all night until about 4:30 when she decided she had just had it. At 5:00 I gave up and got her up for the day. At about 5:30 hubby came in and rescued me letting me go back to bed for 30 golden minutes.

I have been back to work for 5 months now and today was the first time I felt the true weight of the working mothers' conundrum. I had a very important meeting right at 8:00am and a contract that had to get done today. I had taken Friday off as a personal day already. I also had a very sick little girl at home and there was no way I was dumping her off at daycare in that condition. I was so sleep deprived and stressed that once hubby took Cora from my arms I burst into tears. What was I going to do? Risk my job or hate myself as a mother?

Reason #142 that I know I found the most amazing man on Earth - hubby gave me a big hug and just matter of factly said "I'll just work from home today. You go on to work and stop worrying. We'll be fine". Now he was just as sleep deprived as I - he'd been right there in the trenches all night. But he was more worried about me than himself and was willing to put up with a sick, cranky baby at home all day just for my peace of mind. I fell in love with him all over again.

The second arc angel came in the form of my mom whom I called shortly after - waking the poor woman up at 6:00am - and asking her if there was anyway she could come help Ryan out for a few hours today to at least let him get some lunch and a nap. My mom not only "skipped" work today to help out - she came first thing in the morning and was still here when I got home from work this afternoon thus allowing Ryan to actually put in a real work-from-home workday and not burn a personal day.

Needless to say I have the best family in the world. I made it through my day pretty tired around the edges, but I got to my meeting on time and completed the contract that was due. I can't say I was much more productive than that, but considering I'm pretty happy that I got everything done and done right. And by that I mean having the sense to marry well, and choose great parents. :)