Tonight I'm thinking about this...what am I passionate about and how do I make a job work alongside my husbands career. To this point in our marriage I've been a work-at-home wife running a successful home business and then 2 years ago I added being a full time stay-at-home mom to the WAHW title. So I guess I'm a work-at-home-mom with two children two and under. JJ is j.u.s.t two and Tiny Bear is not quite 9 months yet. Technically at any other job I would still be on maternity leave but I've been busy working since the day Tiny Bear came home from the hospital. I sat and took orders from one of my hosts with her lying in my lap, not quite 48 hours old and then packed up and did my first home cooking adventure when she was a wee 5 weeks old.
Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely love what I do, both business and child-rearing. There is nothing I've ever wanted more then to be a mom.
However I do have another passion. I absolutely love mommies and babies. I love the whole process of birth. 6 years ago, before I even knew DH or thought there was any hope that anyone would actually ever want to date me, I started persuing this passion. I took my training to be a Birth Doula through DONA -Doula's of North America and applied to a number of midwifery schools to persue the dream of being a midwife.
Realistically I don't think that being a midwife is going to fit into our life now and I'm okay with that. I would need a lot of education and I wouldn't be able to be on call. However I have been contemplating if I should go back and get my Childbirth Educator Certification. It would mean a little bit more education but I could do most of it online. Then there is a chance I could even teach classes out of our home. This would be ideal as our children are young and could go to bed before I'd have to teach them if DH wasn't available to help out with the kids. As the children get older I think this business/ministry (I haven't decided if I'd want to do it for an income yet or not) could grow and my contacts through Childbirth Education/Prenatal classes would build a base for me to find couples/moms to start working with attending live births, postnatal care, potentially lactation consulting etc.
Anyway, I'm rambling...I'm just weighing the options right now as I want to keep childcare costs to a minimum, still keep my main focus on our young but growing family and also make something work alongside of DH's job.
Okay, so I guess I'm just thinking outloud tonight. If anyone has any suggestions or advice on working a career and juggling kids and shift work I'd appreciate it. I know many many many many people do it.
Just pondering the idea...over and over again in my head.
Plus, its scary to think about leaving a business I've been with for 5 years to persue something else.
I guess I will never know til I try.
We had our fourth baby with a midwife and I fell in love with her. I found myself wishing that I could be committed to midwifery as well. I've considered the doula route until our children are older but ... I found something else I was even more passionate about and decided to pursue that. :)
ReplyDeleteWhatever you decide, best of luck!
That's great MH. Its all about what you really want to go after, isn't it? Thanks for the post. I'd love to have our next babies with a midwife but where we live right now there aren't a lot of them available. So the only home birth I'll have is the one I deliver myself in the tub if we can't get the hospital!
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