My son drew this the other night:

drawing.jpg

That’s me with the baby in my tummy (you might need to click it to see it properly).  Apparently he sees me as birdlike.  Which, if you know anything at all about me, you know that birdlike will never be an adjective used to describe me.

***

I had a panic attack today.  I started thinking about all of the things that were going to require additional money after the baby is born and I nearly hyperventilated. 

First, Hubby and I had discussed my maternity leave (hah! If you could call it that).  Where I work you don’t actually get paid maternity leave.  You are, however, allowed to use all of your other leave (sick and vacation time) to supplement whatever time you want to take off.  Just make sure you take less than the allowed 12 weeks of FMLA leave which guarantees your job upon your return. 

We had figured out that between my sick leave, my annual leave, and the six weeks of advanced sick leave, I would be able to take 9 of the 12 weeks off as paid.  We both figured we could find a way to make it so I could then take the additional three weeks off as unpaid.  That is, until someone at work warned me that I better not take more than 9 days off unpaid because that’s when all hell breaks loose.  Apparently, when you take more than 9 days off unpaid our employer wants you start paying them back for the amount they are covering for your insurance.  Also, when you’ve taken more than 9 days off unpaid you no longer continue accruing leave.  Ok, so this now leaves us with just about two weeks of unpaid leave I can take – no huge deal and not the main cause of the panic attack – though it was a contributing factor. 

Then, I realized how much money I would actually be losing by taking unpaid leave.  I realized this at about the same time that I realized the mortgage on our rental unit is supposed to go up by four hundred dollars in July (just about when I would start taking said unpaid leave).  Also, I realized at the same time that formula is expensive and if I am not able to breastfeed (a likely event given my last unsuccessful attempt at such an endeavor) it’s going to cost us about $200 a month just to feed the kid!  And, OMG, how much are diapers these days! 

So, lets add this up:  I’ll be losing approximately $2000 for the 9 days of unpaid leave; I’ll have to pay to have insurance coverage – which I can only guess will be another $600 based on previous experience of having to pay for insurance ourselves; another $400 for the mortgage; another $200 for formula; another $1,000,000 for diapers.  Oh my god!  What have we done!  We’re already struggling with meeting our monthly commitments!  I try to tell my husband all of this, and suggest I not take any unpaid leave and his response “no, you’ll take twelve weeks off like we had planned – we’ll figure it out”.  Aahhh!  That does not help!

And then, to top it all off, our daycare provider said she would not be able to take an infant when we need her too because she’s taking one at the end of this month and already there’s a problem with seating in her car.  Did she just want me to die right then and there!  Now, we have to find a new daycare.  It’s not fair! 

I should go, I feel like I’m having another panic attack re-hashing it all again.