Where to Start...An Introduction Maybe?

Hi, I'm Mama. In 48 days I return to the work force, leaving my beautiful, fairly new baby daughter in the capable hands of her father.

It's killing me.

She'll be just a week past six months old. That is more time than many of my counterparts in the US and around the world get to spend with their children and I understand that. I live in Canada and we are quite blessed to be offered 50 weeks of assorted maternity and parental leave as part of our Employment Insurance benefits from the government.

I would love to stay home with my baby the whole year and beyond but the type of work I do, while paying me well - better than my husband's work - also has no flexebility to allow me to work from home on a regular enough basis. My husband's work however, while not quite fullfilling as I am sure he would like, is quite flexible and will be providing him with additional work while he is on leave as well as offering him a part-time variation of his job once his leave is over, allowing him to stay home with our daughter and make enough money to allow all of our ends to meet.

So you see it's the logical choice. Monetarily it works for us and in the long run, one parent is home with our daughter, which is one of the only things we ever wanted.

It's still killing me.

I want so badly to be there to watch everything. Her first steps, her first words, the first time she spits her food clear across the room. I likely won't be around to see all that. Maybe one if I am lucky and all if my husband remembers to grab the video camera.

So for now, I watch every single thing she does like a hawk. I drink it all in, because in 48 days I hand her over to her father, walk out of the house for 10 hours and wait for the second when I get to come through the door and exclaim 'Mama's Home Baby!!'.