i generally try to follow the thumper rule when it comes to blogging, and i like to tell my experiences, but i don't like to write entire posts about sad. however, this time i just need to get it out there.
i'm sad. and scared.
i'm sad because andrew and i tried our darndest to make an educated decision about his job, and it totally backfired. i'm sad because i want to stay at home with our baby girl, and i don't think i can. and i'm sad because i just don't know how to contribute to our finances without going back to work full-time, and that means someone else watching my child grow up.
when andrew applied for the state job, we thought that it was sort of a pipe dream. i knew he wanted to work in the theater again, and i wanted to support him, so i encouraged it, but he knew i had my reservations. first, i was worried about the time commitment. i have experienced life where andrew is consumed with theater, and it meant a lot of late nights, missed nights, weekend work, and a lot of sorry-i'm-two-hours-late-i-got-busy-and-forgot's. when we were dating or just a married couple, this was annoying, sometimes frustrating, and even argument-inducing at times... but now that we have a child, it's just not the kind of thing we need for our family.
so andrew asked about extra hours and was told that it's a 40 hour/week job, and that if he is called in on a weekend, he should take a day off during the week to make the hours right. well, we thought, as long as i'm staying home, we'll get time together whether it's on the weekend or on a tuesday, so that shouldn't be a huge deal. but we still didn't think he'd be offered the job.
then he was called back for an interview, and we started seriously considering the salary/benefits package to find out if this move was even feasible. taking the job, at its highest end of the predicted pay scale would still mean a pay cut for our hoping-to-remain-afloat-with-one-income family, but we were encouraged by looking into the benefits package. it appeared that the state family health insurance rate (while an 80/20 instead of 100/0 plan), with the state's contribution would tip the scales so that andrew would actually gross less money but once health insurance was figured into the deal, he would net about $400/month more. this sounded too good to be true to me, and i made andrew check his calculations 3 times - really. at my insistence, he even double checked the last calculation with my father. ok, we thought, this is something we can entertain... if he gets offered the job.
well then he did. and i had a mini panic attack, seeing flashbacks of the blowing rock "slave" company and our near relationship-ending time in boone. but the contract was for the high end of the pay scale, andrew called the people at the state insurance plan to ensure that we were correct about our monthly premiums, read the contract that stated his job would be 40 hours and from 8am-5pm, monday through friday (with occasional odd hours). so we decided it was nothing but a winning situation... especially with the revolving door that his previous employer had recently become, and he took the job.
he has now been working there for over a week. the first day, instead of returning home at 5:30, he got home at 7:18. we had a serious discussion wherein he promised this would not be a pattern and that he would call each night at 5:00 no matter what, to update me on his eta home.
then came the second day. andrew returned home to tell me that his boss had informed him that his hours would not, in fact, be 8-5. no, they were to be 9:30am to 6:30pm. add in the commute, and he won't be home until 7pm each night. for those of you who have or have had babies, you know that 6pm is the witching hour. at 6pm, your sweet, smiling, laughing children turn to howling demons. and that's ok, because that's when you have daddy come home as a reinforcement and mommy's sanity break begins -- at least long enough for her to make the dinner she hasn't made yet.
needless to say, two of my big fears had been realized within the first two days. oh well, i thought, i guess that just means we'll have to have breakfast together and get our daddy time in during the morning hours. and, there's always the blessing of the cheaper health insurance to make this a good decision.
then andrew went to his new employee orientation. it wasn't until today, a day after his orientation, while he was filling out the health insurance information, that he realized he had been misinformed. no, our family coverage would not be a reduced cost. in fact, it will actually cost MORE for me to be added than it would for my individual coverage - that was BETTER coverage! infuriating. "i don't understand," i said while sitting at lunch, "i thought you triple checked this?" apparently, the person andrew contacted about the state health plan was a moron who told him incorrectly. and now, we are screwed.
not only will my husband be returning AN HOUR AND A HALF later than we'd planned, and working some strange hours for calls, but the insurance actually leaves us over $100 shorter each month. this is after we've already canceled our direct tv service, trash pick-up, and all other non-necessities in hopes of me staying home. we tried to switch phone providers, but we're stuck in a contract, we thought about selling the car, but we'd have to get enough to pay off the rest of the loan on it, and that doesn't look like it's going to happen, and we can't even afford part-time daycare so that i could work more hours and bring money home, because childcare is so expensive that it wouldn't add anything to our income.
i called bcbsnc to see if they would reinstate my health insurance (since it'd end up being about $20/month cheaper for better coverage), and it sounds promising, but we have to pay two months of insurance in the next few days to get them to reinstate it, and we just don't have that in the bank right now.
i know it's bad form to spread your financial woes around your friends, not to mention the entire internet, but i'm just at my wit's end. i don't know what to do, and i feel like i'm drowning. i'm really afraid we're going to sink into financial ruin and end up getting foreclosed on or having a car repoed or power shut off, and be out on the streets. this is a really difficult thing for me - a person who's always been able to work, make money, and save money - to handle.
i feel like the only option left is for me to go back to work full time. this is really a hard pill for me to swallow because it would mean that after paying for childcare, i'd only bring home about $600/month more than we are now - which is HUGE compared to our current income, but it is such a measly amount for the most enormous sacrifice i'd ever have to make. to have someone else raise my baby girl. to only get to see her between the hours of 7pm and 6:15am... which, given that she goes to sleep at 9pm, amounts to a total of about 2 hours a day.
i just want to cry. and scream. and throw things. and punch walls. and run away.
but i can't. because i know it won't change anything... and it won't help.
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