To stay at home, a challenge and a priveledge

So I am not officially a stay at home mom in my book because I am still working on my dissertation from home. However, I am at home not working at school and taking care of the babe so right now I'm a stay at home mom, I guess.

The whole fall semester from Isabel's birth on I totally changed gears to motherhood only and getting better. In fact I feel like I lost 2 months of my life fighting this stupid infection and I am kind of in denial that its January.

My original plan was to get through the first 6 weeks fully devoted to motherhood and then spend the rest of the semester working while Isabel slept. Wow, that plan went down in flames.

So here I am, its January and I have just begun to pull it back together and start thinking about my dissertation and making progress on a couple of chapters. In some ways its way harder to get work done with the baby at home. On the other hand I make the best of my time when I get it, even though its not much.


When the plan changes....and changes....
It was this week a year ago that I was at a conference in Boston, getting ready to give a talk on my research and was starting to feel sick and run down. I was so focused on doing a good job on my talk I just chalked it up to nerves. I was planning to apply for a faculty appointment at UNH. I felt pretty confident about it after giving a good talk and yet my co-advisor was recommending I wait because I didn't have enough experience. For some reason, I was way more upset about this advice and after coming home from the meeting I just found myself crying and crying.

We are trying for a baby at that time and I was feel discouraged about that on top of everything else. Though I wasn't technically late, I could take a test if I wanted and the result would likely be accurate. After seeing the stark white box next to the control line so many times, I have no idea why I even wanted to test given that I was already bummed out.

It was a Thursday night and I just took the test on a whim and figured even if it were positive it would not show up yet because it wasn't first morning pee. I dipped the stick in the cup and waited. Within a few second a faint pink line started to form next to the dark pink line. WHAT???? Is this real??????

I took 3 more tests just to be sure and each time it kept coming up with two lines. I was so in denial but that night I met J for dinner at our favorite pub and told him what I saw. It was kind of anticlimactic because I was so cautiously optimistic I was scared to get excited. In the days that followed I tested like 6 more times... ya it was overkill! The bloodwork and tests confirmed it. It was so exciting but nervewracking for me. I was just scared this was just too good to be true.

All the 'symptoms' I had felt that week fell into place and it started to make sense even though they were mostly PMS-y symptoms.

So needless to say I didn't feel compelled to apply to the UNH faculty appointment and I felt less bad about it knowing we had a baby on the way.

Alot has happened this year that has shaped where I am now. I am a stay at home mom. Did I think that I would get this priveledge? Not really. I figured I would be back to work in 6-12 weeks. I am glad for the opportunity to stay with her and though its a tougher job than the one I left its all worth it!