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Ok, My husband is 30 and I am 29. DH is the breadwinner, but I bring in half of what he makes, so I know that is decent money. We live 30 minutes outside NYC, so it's expensive where we live too. I don't want to work, but I do because it's impossible to hold a mortgage in a nice neighborhood on a single income unless that single income is that of a high-profile lawyer or something. My mother watches my son 4 days a week but will soon a__sume the 5th day as my boss has renegged on the promise of giving me 6 months (with the possibility of even more) of Wednesdays off. I'm so p__sed off. Anyway... It really helps to have more time with the baby. At least that is what I am finding. I sleep in a little bit, get house work done and just spend time wiht my son. I find that by Tuesdya night, I am so drained, and Wednesday is my recooperating day. It was very hard going back to work. I cried like a 2 year old the night before. I just did not want to be away from my son. To top it alloff, the women at work said they were being supportive, but constantly commented that I was "Distracted" and I found that to be extremely condesending and I cannot wait to quit. Having my son was the best life-changing event ever. I cannot imagine my life wihtout him. You won't know what I am talking about until you have your own. GOod luck with your decision. Only you will know if the time is right. PS. I don't have time for it all. Even "alone time" wiht DH will take a back seat when you're busy packing baby clothes, washing bottles, cooking dinner, and cleaning up every night.

Hi Dana, I am not going to lie to you. It is extremely hard to go back to work. I was not cut out to be a SAHM, but when you are with this little person that you love more than anything, day and night for weeks it is hard to leave them in someone else's care. My MIL and mother watched him my first week back to work. That eased my mind a lot, but my MIL had to literally push me out of the door on my first day back. I cried the whole way to work. My maternity leave was only six weeks, so I went back to work pretty early. My dh is 28, I am 26 and work full time. My dh makes more than I do, but not by a lot. As Renee-Marie said, you don't have time for it all. I work full time, 9-5, but work one 12 hour shift a week, so on Wed. I get off at noon and have weekends off. My ds is in a daycare center who was highly reccomended by friends, and seems to love it. He is now 4 months and doing great. You manage to get the things done that are really important. Help from dh is always a plus. Our son fell into this sleep patterns where he goes to sleep at 630 pm and wakes at 6am, so dh and I still have alone time, and my ds gets up early in the am so we have time together to play in the morning. So it works out great. Things are hectic at first, but after a while it will all fall in place. Becoming a mom is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Good Luck with your pregnancy and delivery!!!

Interesting, like Renee-Marie, my husband is 30 and I am 29. We have been married for 9 years and both have advanced degrees. Needless to say before dd arrived (now 4 mos), we were very career-oriented, and my income is quite a bit higher than my husband's (I have a doctorate / he has a masters). I have always been very busy and driven to succeed in my career path. I never thought I would want to be a SAHM because of my choices to date and the thought that my mother was a SAHM and had no life in my opinion. Fast forward to the arrival of dd and my 2 month maternity leave, I cried every day the last week. It was the hardest thing to go back to work and that was with the knowledge that my husband would be watching her for the next two months. He is now facing going back to work and my MIL will be watching her. Let's just say, you never know until they arrive. I have to continue working to pay for our education. I am so glad though to have my MIL about to watch my daughter so she will continue to have that personalized attention and be able to stay at home. As for doing everything, some things simply slide, and unfortunately, the weekends turn into a time to catch up on a lot of the housework.

I work at least 40 hours every week. I am a mommy of a happy healthy little girl who will be 3 in dec. I have a learning day care. My 2 year old can speak spanish and english (i only speak spanish) She can count to ten in both languages and know her colors ect. She loves her daycare. It was a little hard to go back to work, but by the time it was time to I was ready to see people again. I was going crazy being home all the time. I say go for it on having a baby. You will always get the people who will bock because them believe mommys should be home with kids. I am pregnant with number two and i still plan on going back to work. My children are not missing out on anything because i work, if anything they are getting more, because I can afford to give them a comfortable future. My Dh is the bread winner since he works one job 40 hrs a week or so and he also owns a business, but i make almost half of the money we spend.

lol sorry i mean i only speak english.

First - Both husband & I are 31 yrs old and we have a beautiful 3 1/2 month old baby daughter. Until she was born, I did not imagine myself to be a SAHM at all. We both earn pretty much the same but I get a little more since I'm a consultant. I had 2 months off and was going to go back to my work at the end of it. I cried soo much when my baby was around one month and I was to go back in a month. I just couldn't imagine being not around her! My parents were here helping me out during the 2 months. But I missed my 1st baby smile because my mom was watching her while I was catching up on some sleep...We got to see it very next day again but the thought still bothered me very much that when I go back to work i'll be missing all these special moments. Come 2 months I made the call to my manager and learnt that project is no longer needed so she recommended me for another project. Being a new project/new team members and all, I went through the interview process and it gave me 2 more weeks with my baby. I was so happy yet sad that the time has come to leave my baby and go. I was taking short trips out of the house to do groceries etc while my parents watched my baby. At first it was tough but then it became alright. Then my parents left and my in-laws came in to help...One day we went to see a couple of day care centers and they were pretty good. But as soon as I came out of the 1st one, I started to cry...my dh said you are already crying even before we left our dd, what are you going to do when we actually leave her! My dd was being taken care by at least 3 adults all day and at the day care center she would have to split one adult among 4 infants. I just couldn't imagine how she was going to be! Maybe she would keep crying because somebody else is being taken care of! :( The weekend before I was to go to work, I went out to get some clothes for myself + groceries and also to get my in-laws aquainted with taking care of baby without me. And I came back 2 hrs later where my husband complained(or at least that's what I heard it as) that I didn't get the frozen milk out...that did it! I cried and cried!! I think it was me dreading the 1st day at work plus leaving my daughter with my in-laws who just arrived couple of days back. Anycase, the 1st day was crazy as hell so I barely had time to squeeze in a pumping session. I worked only 1/2 days first week and then 6 hrs next week etc. When i came back home that afternoon, my MIL told me how my daughter REFUSED the bottle and it was really difficult for her to drink and how much she missed me. My MIL commented that she was content with feeding only when she gets it from my b___st etc.And all of this just made it even worse for me ( I was already missing her very much). The project itself that I was working on needed much more time that I could..before the baby I would have worked in the evenings or weekends to catch up..but I soon realized I did not have ANY time for work once I came home. Within 2 weeks of starting my work, I gave my boss the notice that I was quitting. And this week is my last and I have been working from home. So I saw her laugh at my silly songs, saw her turn! hear her making funny noises and all the little things that make your heart melt away! The decision to be a SAHM was a tough one for us but luckily we can survive on my husbands salary alone(we did so when I was on maternity!). Good luck with your decision whatever you make, but it is SOO true that 'having a baby changes everything!!'.

oh one more thing..My baby soon got used to drinking milk from the bottle but I just couldn't get over the comments from my MIL every day I came back. Sometimes I feel as if my mom would have been more supportive of me working. We still give our daughter at least one bottle a day just so she doesn't lose the habit if we have to go out for lunch/dinner.

Good for you Nita!!!!!!

i am 26 yrs old & husband is 28. my ocuupation is a financial a___lyst & he's an auditor. during busy tax season, he works 13 hours per day so that'snot good for me but oh well. i work 40 hours a week along with pursuing my MBA @ NYU. my baby is 6 mths old. i went back to work when she was 3 mths......we hired a nanny butnow since my MIL is coming from China, she'll be taking care of her.......... i am a very career oriented & I feel that I need to get ahead........i also put family first above eveyrthing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am 23 and dh is 27. He has always been the breadwinner in our family, he is a self employed motor mechanic and along with building comp 4x4 and wrecking vehicles, he earns a very good amount. I ran an office until I left work to be a sahm. I intended on staying home until my ds was in preschool, but my work offered me a high paying position as accounts manager a couple of wks ago, which I accepted. My ds is 10 1/2 months old now and it broke my heart to leave him in day care....even though he loves it! I was against day care before...but now I see how great it is for his development and social skills. To go back to an office job would not be worth the money after day care fees, but now I have an opportunity to earn the same amount as my dh and give my son a very stable future financially. It is near impossible now to buy a nice house on one income and I want to give my son everything. My position is flexible with hours, but I still find even on days when I have been away for 8 hours, I still have so much quality time with my little man. I think when I was staying home with him everyday he was starting to take me for granted. I feel he gives me alot more attention now that I am working. I was so worried I was doing the wrong thing to begin with, but now am so glad that I took the opportunity. Best of luck and I hope you are pleased with whatever decision you make.

Dana- I've always been career focused and am the breadwinner as well. I have my masters in IT and a management job with an international company. On top of it, I really like what I do for a living. My daughter is now 5 months, so I can give you my take on things. When I went back to work I found that I missed it. While I enjoyed being home with my daughter on maternity leave, it didn't totally satisfy my craving for knowledge. However I did feel very guilty about not spending enough time with her. I also used to work a lot of overtime. That has stopped since I had the baby. I've changed my priorities and want to get home in a timely manner. I'm also much more efficient at work. That way I finish what needs to be done before I go home. If I have to work late, then I bring my laptop home and do it after she goes to sleep. Our daughter is in a home daycare about 2 blocks away from our house. I drop her off in the morning and my husband picks her up at night. We pretty evenly share responsibility for our child, which makes working easier. It was a bit of a challenge at first but we're slowing getting the routine down. The only thing that I wish is that my job had a more flexible schedule. I’d gladly take a pay cut to leave early or not work on Fridays. Hope this helps!

Full-time working mom here. My dd is 6 and I am now 18 weeks with 2nd. It's a balance and really heartbreaking sometimes. There are times when my dd is like, but why can't we, so and so's mom is taking her, and I have to say because mommy works. NOT EASY!!!! But for me in the past there wasn't much choice. Living in a suburb of NYC is not cheap. I could probably get away with taking off a few years and give up "date nights" maybe, but I'd have to see. I paid for dd to be in daycare ($1000.00 per month) before she was in school, now I pay for afterschool care 2x a week, my mom does 2 days and I leave early on 1 day to get her from school. If I go back to work thi time it'll be ~$1400.00 a month for daycare for both - do I bother? I mean I cover that but it's like I'm working full time for part time pay.....

Oh and when my dd was 18 mos I took off a year risking my cars and house because she was sick. I have to say after a year of having limited adult human contact, I realized maybe I'm not meant to be a permanent SAHM. I wanted some kind of mental challenge, the discussions, debates, problem solving, I missed it.

Hi, I would just like to share that I too am a career oriented mother of two with a third on the way. DH works full time as do I. I work full time between 40 and 60 hours a week as a dj at a radio station. I also work occasional weekends as a dj in the bars. It is definitly a busy life, but I always seem to find time to do the things I need to. My M-I-L (thank god) babysits for us during the day and no, I didn't find it hard to go back to work after DS was born, in fact I called my boss from the Hospital and asked if I could come back on a part time basis the next day. (she told me to take at least a week off) All I can say is that, if you are willing to make some sacrifices, then you can do it. It is a challenge every day, but soon becomes routine. Good luck with your decision!

Hi Dana, my husband and I are both 28. I am currently the bigger earner although he used to be. He took a new position lower down when we moved back to the Bay Area after the baby was born in November - but for good reason! Family members watch our daughter 4 days a week while I work - from home. I've been with my company for 3 years, as much of what I do is computer/project based. Our daughter came 8 weeks early so daycare wasn't really an option - her immune system was too fragile to stand up to daycare with so many little ones and the inevitable colds that are pa__sed around. Frankly, it was a relief that it wasn't an option. If I had had to drop her off at daycare my first day back I would have quit my job. Having her cared for by family members gives me huge piece of mind, and I know she's cultivating wonderful relationships with her granparents, and great grandma and aunt. She is truly the little darling of the family. Some days people watch her at our house, other days she goes to their homes. Working from hom gives me access to her but also allows me to make up work when I need to - after she goes to bed, during naps on the weekends, etc. One thing I will ssay though, that no one warned me about, is the utter exhaustion. Our daughter is nowere near sleeping through the night and having to get up and go to work in the morning, we are zombies. I've never known such fatigue.

I found it hard to go back, but on the weeks the baby was sleeping well and I got enough rest, it did feel good to go back. I am exhausted and wish I could switch to part time work. When I discussed this with the HR director, she was pretty rude to me, even though I was on bed rest for 14 weeks and even after 12 weeks maternity leave, I was not quite back in shape & my work requires some very physical work outdoors. I hope as a HR manager, you'll be more understanding of new moms! Right now my sister lives with us, since she recently got her master's degree and hasn't found a job yet. When she leaves, I'm not looking forward to sending my baby to a day care center, though there are some good ones out there. Even the people I know whose kids go to really fun educational centers with nice teachers and low kid to adult ratios, well, their kids are always getting sick. I'd prefer a sitter for a really young kid, but day care or preschool when they get to be 2 or 3 so that they can get used to what it will be like to go to school. Good luck.