In Bloom Doula Services

Three years ago I cried daily, heartbroken over returning to work. I was a new mom, only 15 weeks postpartum when I returned to work. I reached out to other moms in some “mom groups” on Facebook. I told them how I was struggling with going back to work, shared some issues with our child care situation and my longing to stay home. I explained that staying home just wasn’t an option for us, that I would just like some support, some understanding, not advice, so please don’t suggest alternatives. Some of those moms in the group frequently and adamantly insisted any mom could stay at home if they really wanted. I saw this time and time again as I would scroll through posts.

On my particular post, despite my disclaimer, I got some particularly nasty comments. A smug, beautiful stay at home mother of a baby a similar age responded to me saying that my “guilt” was proof that working was “the wrong choice.” That if I really wanted to stay at home- I could make it happen. I must not be trying hard enough. I should sacrifice more. She suggested not going out out to eat as much, not getting my nails done, not getting Starbucks. (As if my manicure and Starbucks budget would easily cover my health insurance bill.) When I responded to her comment saying as politely as I could that her input was hurtful, condescending, not helpful and quite rude, she said continued to get more snarky, more condescending, and retorted that “the truth hurts, sweetie.” Claiming it’s her opinion she was allowed to give.

These comments hurt me deeply. The post continued to heat up and more and more women began to comment. A friends from outside of the group saw the post and reached out to me about how hateful she was. Eventually she was removed from the group by admin.

The woman who left hurtful comments on my Facebook post did so under the guise of “trying to help.” What she didn’t know what that I was grieving the loss of time with my son. I was a new mom without the confidence and self assurance that I have now. I was struggling with major postpartum anxiety, and what I needed was support and encouragement. I needed empathy and compassion.

I don’t know what she was trying to prove with her response to me, or the struggle she was facing that would compel her to want to leave hurtful comments toward another new mom. But I have a feeling she was probably dealing with some sort of hurt on her end too, because any woman who was genuinely happy, working outside of the home or not, wouldn’t have gone out of her way to try and bring another new mom down. 

What she didn’t know what that I wasn’t in a state to roll my eyes at her, let it roll off my back and keep scrolling. This wasn’t a post I made flippantly to shoot the breeze. Being a good mother was the single most important thing to me and she was pouring salt on an open wound. I still have very visible scars.

What she didn’t know was that I cried for days, screen shot her message and sent it to all of my friends, talked my husband’s ear off about it and obviously have never forgotten it. I’m sure she doesn’t remember it , and hasn’t thought of it since. Here I am 2 and a half years later writing about it and remember it vividly.

Although, she was dead wrong on the work and sacrifice part, I worked harder than I ever had before, and sacrificed more than she would ever know. She was right about one thing. If I wanted it badly enough it could happen. I could make it work, but I just couldn’t make it work at just that moment. I couldn’t impulsively quit my job and go on my merry way. We had bills to pay. But if I wanted to make it happen our family could work out a plan. And so we did.

Sacrifice was of course required. The sacrifice of going to work. Working to get my family in a place financially where we could make this leap. Debts paid off, savings established, my doula trainings completed and budgets balanced. Making staying home a possibility wasn’t something that could have happened right then and there, in a few days, weeks, months, or even a year. It’s taken three years of diligent life changes and progress to get to the point where this could happen.

Three years of using my income to pay off debts (we are now credit card debt free as of June 15th.) Three years of working with very low cost child care (thank you, Grandma Linda!) to pay off a car. Three years of finding ways to cut down major expenses like on our mortgage and health insurance…. not minor spending like on Starbucks (insert eye roll emoji.)

Those three years of being a working mother were not in vain. My family and myself benefited in ways I’m still just now noticing. It was apart of the plan God laid out for us, even though it wasn’t always clear to me. I had dark days. I had doubts. I felt like God had answered every other prayer, but forgotten the one I wanted answered most. I prayed for a home. I prayed for another baby. I prayed for a new job and all of those prayers were answered. Why wouldn’t God answer this prayer too?

On this side of the mountain though, I can see how God was working to make it happen for me- on his time line.

I also knew that I can’t just sit on my butt and expect results. Prayers without work on my part may not prove fruitful. God expected me to work for what I told him I so desperatly wanted. So I started seeking out information on any and every way to make a change.

My first idea was to think of ways to cut back on spending… like these comments suggested. My first stop was of course, Pinterest. I scrolled Pinterest looking for ideas on to make becoming a SAHM happen. I saw endless blog post titles claiming they had unique advice to get me to my goal of staying home. The advice was always trivial: stop shopping, stop getting your hair/nails/eyebrows done, stop going out to eat, get rid of your gym membership, get rid of subscriptions, shop on sale/with coupons/use money saving apps. These women claimed to be living great, maybe modest, but no where near impoverished lives on one income. But they said their tricks were using coupons?! Saving .50 cents on tooth paste wasn’t going to help us on one income. Saving $200, $300, even 500 dollars a month wouldn’t get us by on one income.

I had several questions for these women. Firstly, If you’re “making sacrifices” like not getting your hair done, how much were you originally spending on extra, unnecessary spending? I already box dye my hair, never get my nails done, and try to shop on sales and use coupons. The only thing I can agree to is that I could save hundreds on not going out to eat, but maybe if I wasn’t exhausted from working and everything else I could have more time to grocery shop and cook. I refused to feel guilty about going to McDonalds for breakfast.

Secondly, HOW MUCH DO YOUR HUSBANDS MAKE? These blog posts had absolutely no transparency, and had such a self righteous tone. There is a major difference between getting by on one income when that income is 100,000 or if it is 50,000. If your husband is making more than a teacher in Texas then I don’t want a word of your advice.

Basically, if your idea of major sacrifice is my idea of normal living and getting by on two incomes- then we have different standards of living. While that is ok, it just isn’t relatable for me. Thank you, next!

What I needed was a total budget and financial overhaul. While I am no finance advisor I can share with you what has worked to cut our family’s spending in ways that were much more substantial that canceling a gym membership. I did take bits and pieces of advice from Dave Ramsey. I started working on his baby steps and focused on minimizing expenses. In an ideal world I would be completely debt free, but my first goal was to get to a place where I could quit my job.

THE GAME PLAN

When I looked at our monthly spending our most expensive bills were our mortgage, our car payments, credit cards and our health insurance. We can only save so much on the utilities, internet, cell phones, etc. We decided to get very serious about getting out of debt, and coming up with an alternative way for me to make money if I weren’t going to work. I listened to a lot of Dave Ramsey and gave up on any hope for a vacation in my near future.

1. I paid off our credit cards.

I had four credit cards, and started with the smallest to get rid of them one by one. Paying and big payment toward my lowest balance and the minimum payment due on each other account. I went from four to one, and by June 15th became completely credit card debt free. I now save hundreds of dollars each month by not paying off old spending and then some with very high interest.

2. We paid off a car

This was maybe the easiest of everything we did because the payment was low and was close to being paid off anyway. But, my husband doubled up on it some months to just get it out of the way as soon as possible. The money that would be spent on the car can go toward other things. Having a car that is paid off just feels good. One less bill to worry about each month. Yes, I would love to trade that car in, but I love saving money more.

3. We joined a health share

One of the most ridiculous and expensive of the bills was health insurance. After I had Holden my monthly payment doubled. I was paying close to $1,000 in insurance for just Holden and I. After a lot of prayer, research and discussions with various people, we canceled it and joined a health share plan, Samaritan Ministries. I go into it in much more detail in my blog: Why I Canceled My Insurance to Have Another Baby. This not only saved us money, but it gave me an out. I could quit my job without fear of losing medical coverage because I didn’t need the benefits they offered now. This was a major obstacle when it came to quitting my job, and I could also have more children without the fear of going further into debt from the costs of their prenatal care and births.

4. I became proactive about finding alternative income

I continued teaching because I was afraid to lose income that was reliable. It is scary to pursue a career with unpredictable income. As a doula I have to go out and find work. I can’t just go to work for a salary. Working full time as a doula is my ultimate goal as far as career goes. Thankfully, I was able to pay for my doula trainings and future CLC training without going into further debt. That wouldn’t have happened without my income either.

I don’t mean to be misleading when it comes to being a stay-at-home-mom. I will be staying home, but will also be continuing to work. Not working completely at this point is still not an option. However, my top priority right now is obviously staying home with my children, which limits me to working on weekends, evenings and nights. This can become a challenge for getting work. I also am seeing how difficult establishing your name and business is. Until I can earn a consistent and reliable income through doula work I am using another skill set to bring in enough income to cover the remainder of our bills: childcare. I found a few nanny jobs that I can blend in with my needs as a mother with two children.

I tried my hand at blogging for an income, but I will be honest, blogging in itself can be a full time job, and needs to be if you want to make a legitimate income from it. It takes a lot of time, commitment, consistency, and other investments like great photography for example. Becoming an “influencer” if you will seemed kind of like an ideal way to make money, but it is an over saturated market, and I am not sure that is what would lead me to fulfillment and happiness. I don’t think it is what God has in store for me. Blogging for now will remain an extension of my doula “brand” and an outlet for me to share ideas that don’t fit into an Instagram post. A professional blogger/influencer may not be God’s plan for me, but that is ok because I have tremendous faith that the plan God does have in store for my life is much better.

With God’s plan we bought a house. Paid off a car. Found Samaritan and saved so much money in order to pay off all of our credit cards. With God’s plan I funded my doula trainings and figured out our next step. With God’s plan I grew through struggles, became more fearless, confident and self assured. I now know first hand the struggle of working and pumping moms, and pumped enough milk to be able to donate to NICU babies through Mother’s Milk Bank; possibly saving lives! God’s timing wasn’t easy on me, but I know easy isn’t the goal. I tried not to lose faith that God would lead me to a way out. So I kept on praying. And god answered when the time was right. I am so thankful and I am so hopeful for the future.

 

I now stand on the other side of the mountain as I am now… a stay at home mom. The woman in the mom group was wrong about a lot, but she was right about one part. If I wanted something badly enough I needed to make it happen. So I did. I decided sitting around being unhappy wouldn’t change my situation, but action would. I was trying really hard, but nothing I did to try harder would have changed this timeline for our family. Unless I would have started playing the lottery. My family depended on my income, my insurance, and there was no way around that. We had to eat.

Her words stung, and I in no way felt motivated or encouraged by them in any way, but now I see them so much differently. My family needed me to work and I am proud to have done so. Now I can empathize with the new postpartum moms returning to work, that I now hope to so desperately work with as a postpartum doula. I can empathize with the pumping moms I think having that first hand experience as a working and pumping mom will be invaluable to me as I work as a doula.

I have a prayer journal that I sometimes write in when I’m feeling really low. The best part about this journal is that each time I write in it I read my old posts which always reveal to me another answered prayer.

When I was dating I wanted to badly to be engaged and married with a family. Then I prayed for a job, a healthy baby when I discovered we were expecting. A house. Then I prayed for another baby, and another new job. All of these prayers were answered. All except my prayer for God to please clear a path for me to be able to stay home with me boys. Now I see that answered prayer too and I am just so, so thankful.

This is the first time in my entire life my future hasn’t revolved around a school schedule. I don’t have to think of making plans in terms of semesters, holiday breaks, or in between the hours of 8-5. I’m blown away by the potential the future holds, and so proud of myself that I didn’t wait a second longer to make my dreams a reality. I can’t wait to see what is in store for our family. 

If you’re interested in reading more about my experience as a working mom, you may like these posts:

To the Struggling Working Mom Who Wishes She Stayed Home

When You Shame A Working Mom

Leaving Teaching to Become A Stay-at-Home-Mom

The Lie Feminism Sold Me

How to Prepare for Maternity Leave