Transitioning from working a career to SAHM life:

I’ve dreamt of being a mommy for the longest time, especially being a teacher to kindergarteners for many years. I yearned for the day I would have my turn in a little person calling me “mommy.” While I always said I would go back to work since I worked so hard to get my masters and get to where I was in my career. I still thought of the fact that someone else would be watching my baby.

Maternity Leave or Leave of Absence:

The hardest decision I had to make was choosing whether I would return after all or not. My original plan was to get my (unpaid) maternity leave and then asked if I could return in January after my baby was six months old. Let me explain this reasoning; my goal had been to breast feed for at least six months and my babygirl was born in June, so I had maternity leave from August to October since she was born during summer break. While my job would still be there upon my return there was not a for sure teaching position so I would return to a support staff role and unknown if I would receive a raise since I had recently graduated with my Masters. Thankfully, the school I worked at was so understanding and had promised me I would have a position if I chose to return January instead of October I would just need to fill out paperwork to do a leave of absence and again be unpaid. After speaking with my husband about this whole process we decided in the end that it would just be best for me to Stay at home.

Redefining Success in Motherhood instead of Career

While many of my friends and family were in support of our decision I still heard the random comments; “oh you’re on a permanent vacation now huh,” “what do you even do all day.” Thankfully, it was very minimal comments like the ones mentioned but it still makes you feel some type of way. While I was extremely grateful to have the opportunity to stay home with my baby and continue our breastfeeding journey it did leave me missing my students and my routine as a teacher.

Creating this motherhood blog allowed me to redefine my success in my faith and allow me to see motherhood as a ministry. The fact that we were made and called by God to fulfill our purpose as mothers reminded me that while one part of my life (my career) was on hold I still held a huge responsibility to raise up our family. I began connecting more with stay at home moms like friends from church, sister-in-laws, and other friends on social media, as well as workout mom groups. Through these relationships I started to feel less alone and began building my routine and getting used to the stay at home life.

My New Mom Identity

I started off taking time to take care of me. A close friend told me early in my postpartum journey to “remember to do something for you today.” I took this and ran with it, I regularly planned time to stretch in the early days by taking walks outside, short dance breaks with YouTube videos, and mommy and me classes where I was able to bring baby with me during the workouts.

I also decided to create a women’s bible study that would get together once a month. So that I would still be able to connect with other women and not just baby talk all day. I also started reading more faith based motherhood books and began a bible reading plan to support my journey into motherhood while strengthening my faith.

While I had anxiety at the beginning, taking out babygirl on my own, I decided the only way to get used to it was to just do it. I began to plan coffee dates, weekly visits with family and friends, and taking babygirl on target runs. Slowly, I began to build the confidence to be able to go out and do things with babygirl so that I was not just at home all the time.

Cleaning Routine

Being a teacher you have a set routine you follow so it was not easy to leave that routine. As I got through the early days of postpartum and my husband returned to work. I found myself constantly cleaning or doing laundry, I quickly realized I needed to find my own routine at home too. I followed a similar cleaning routine that my sister in law suggested with my own tweaks:

Monday: I would focus on the kitchen, cleaning the stovetop, oven, and microwave and doing any dishes
Tuesday: I focused on taking out trash and sweeping and mopping (the Roomba helped so much with this too, it was like my personal assistant)
Wednesday: Doing laundry and putting away clothes
Thursday:

Still Figuring it out

I’m still learning and growing, and as each day goes by I am grateful to spend time with my baby and know I am her safe space. She is such a joyous baby always smiling and laughing, and kicking her feet. She’s the sweetest gift we could have received and is such a blessing to see her grow and be able to stay home with her. One of my friends from church told us think about it like this—your baby is home being taught by a mother who has her masters instead of any random person. I try my best to read to her as much as possible, play age-appropriate developmental activities, and sing and play with her so she’s not just laying around all day. Anyways, I can keep going but this may be my longest blog. TTYL, leave me your thoughts and comments below.

Adjusting to SAHM Life