Working, mom?

At age 17, I was taking orders over the phone and waiting tables at the most filth-encrusted Pizza Hut in central Indiana. I slid on the black headset with unwieldy battery pack at McDonalds one summer, where I rinsed dishes until the early morning hours. I made sandwiches and lattes, wrote business stories and took shaky video in a Kentucky courtroom. I spent one miserable month trying to sell warranties to surly Best Buy customers so I could make rent my senior year of college.

The point is, until Raspberry came along, I have always worked. I had to stop working 33 weeks into my pregnancy because of early labor, and my boss could never get me working from home approved.

I tried to return to work when the Raspberry was 6 weeks old, but my depression and guilt, along with an ill-timed nursing strike from my tiny human, made it clear to me then:  I needed to be at home with my baby so she could thrive and I could recover. 

She's almost 6 months old now and starting on solids. She still nurses quite often, but it's not every 45 minutes like it used to be. And our finances are looking grim.

I'm starting to put in applications for part-time work. I think if I can find something local, it will be all right to leave the raspberry with papa on his days off and go make us some make-those-ends-meet money. It's not only a financial necessity, I think it may help with my recovery as well. Days when we make it out of the house are always better than the days we stay cloistered. 

What are your experiences with working or staying home with your children? What advice do you have? Please leave a comment below.