staying home

Well, I decided to go ahead and use this Clearasil face wash I've had for months and it worked like a charm, only two washes later and my zitty chin is nearly cleared up.  Now if only I could find a solution to my puffy eye lids.  This morning I looked like I came out on the bad end of a boxing match last night.  Luckily the cover up at least took away all the red and no one looks that close at my eyes at work.

Yesterday I called my HR lady to see what sort of leave benefits I'm entitled to for maternity leave.  I'm not sure what most people get, but it seemed pretty standard.  I also asked how long I would keep my insurance if I decided to quit and she said I'd have until the end of the month, which seems reasonable.  Since I'm due mid-February (lets hope it doesn't go past that by too much), I'd have until March 1 to be covered.  Then we could get Tricare under the Air Force Reserves.  It's more expensive than my insurance, but it covers pretty much everything and we have lots of bases around here so it's easy access.  We could do that until my husband gets a full-time job with the FAA and then we'll have blessed government issuance.

I haven't decided what I should do yet about quitting my job or staying on after maternity leave.  I would like to make a clean break since I'm not really attached to my job and the main cool thing about it, the possibility of traveling to foreign countries, wouldn't really be an option with a tiny baby.  Plus I'd like to breast feed and it seems like a huge pain the butt to pump at work. Where would I even go?  Just hang out in the bathroom stall?  Uh, don't mind the breast milk in the fridge next to your sandwich.  I guess my husband would have to stay home and right now he has a potential job lined up that could be full-time until he becomes an Air Traffic Controller. 

It looks like I could stay home without spending up all our savings so I'll probably do that.  I think I'm just nervous about quitting my job and not having another one lined up.  What if I don't like staying home?  Some women don't like it.  I don't really like going to work though, so could it really be worse than spending 9 hours a day with people who aren't really my friends doing stuff I find pretty meaningless? 

Maybe if I were a doctor saving peoples' lives or something instead of pushing papers.  It's not that I hate my job, I have definitely had worse jobs than this one, I just don't feel like it's my life's calling or anything.  In a round about way what I do contributes to helping people in Africa having wells to drink out of and people in Jordan having a sewage system, which is pretty important, but someone else could easily do my job, probably better than me.  In this job I'm replaceable, but as someone's mother, no one will love that baby more than me - except for it's father of course, he would be so mad if I implied that I loved the baby more than him.  So I guess I'm just trying to talk myself into not being scared because I have good reasons for deciding to stay home and it's something I've always wanted to do.

Anyway, we'll see how it goes with my husband being able to stay on with his internship as a part-time employee when he goes back to school at the end of the month and then I will better be able to decide.  Eventually I'll have to have a chat with my boss and break the news to him.  I've been putting it off even though he's actually a pretty nice guy and wouldn't hate me for having a baby.  I hear he really likes kids. 

I'm off to my 2nd OB appointment today.  Hopefully we get to hear the baby's heartbeat this time!