On Work

My work hours have been slowly decreasing over the last month or so, as I've been wrapping things up. Now I am really no longer working full time. I think last week I worked about 34 hours, and this past week will be even less.

I never thought I would feel strange about leaving work to have a baby, but it is weirder than I expected. I'm not exactly a career woman. Although I have a good job, it's a contract position and is contingent on being renewed every six months. It's not the same as being a direct employee. Also, I've always known that I could just as easily be doing something other than what I'm doing. So I'm not that committed to climbing the career ladder. Still, it feels strange to know that I won't be going back in January, just working from home for a couple of weeks and then taking a long break.

I don't plan to work full time after the baby comes, because we don't want to do full-time daycare, so we are mostly playing things by ear starting at the end of this year. Like I said, I will put in some hours in January, and then I'll try to work some (very) part-time hours from home starting around April. If we can find a babysitting situation we feel comfortable with, that may turn into a little more. Luckily, my boss is very open to all of this ambiguity, and the kind of work I do allows for that kind of part-time schedule.

But having things so up in the air makes me feel a bit uneasy. Marty and I are used to having a plan. Even if we end up changing the plan, as we've done in some very significant ways at times, we usually make a new one fairly quickly. It feels strange now to be standing at the edge of something very new, not knowing how it's going to be. At least I have a very strong feeling that it's going to be good.