A couple of weeks ago, my husband, N, and I found out that we both started our intern year in the MICU. We soon realized that this meant that we would almost never be able to pick our daughter up or drop her off at daycare. Considering it would be her first month ever in daycare, we were stressed! Nanny interviews commenced, and we tried to ignore the impending financial doom that our first month with a paycheck would bring (due to the high cost of nannies).
Soon thereafter, my mother-in-law suggested that we take our daughter, Itty, back home to spend the month with grandparents, aunts, and uncles. Just for reference, we moved 15 hours away from “home, home” a month ago, and we have no family nearby. Initially, I was resistant to the idea, as I couldn’t imagine a month without my Itty, but we eventually decided that it was probably the best idea for everyone. Itty would get to see her extended family, who previously provided all childcare for her, and N and I would have a month to focus on our new roles at physicians.
She’s been gone for 4 days now. While I was very sad during the first couple of days, I’m now realizing what a great idea it was. Grandparents are happy, Itty is happy (at least for now, she doesn’t miss us too much), and we do not have to worry about her at all during a stressful day at the hospital. I had forgotten what it was like to not have to think about picking her up, feeding her dinner, giving her a bath, getting her ready for bed, and putting her in bed. Not to mention the middle of the night awakenings that still seem to happen although she is almost two years old. Once you have a child, it is difficult to remember life without one.
Part of me almost feels badly that I’m enjoying this “me” time so much. I miss her tremendously but also feel that a significant burden has been lifted, at least temporarily. Has anyone ever done anything similar? This is probably the only time that we will ever send Itty away for a whole month, so does anyone have any childcare tips if we are ever in a similar situation again? We were so worried about having multiple new caregivers in such a short period of time, especially with the limited amount of time that she would be able to see us anyway. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked myself, “How are we going to do this? What did we get ourselves into? Why did we move so far from our families?”. However, I’m confident we’ll figure it out, little by little, with a lot of help from others (hint, hint!).
On another note, I was a physician today :) Crazy!
It sounds like a win-win-win situation and I don't think there's any reason to feel bad about feeling good with the choices you made. I know that whenever we manage to get double sleepovers or when they are both away at sleepaway camp, my husband and I enjoy the freedom from the significant responsibility of raising children. I hope you can continue to enjoy that as you settle in to your intern year!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Larissa! We got plenty of videos of Itty today, and she looks like she is having a great time!
DeleteThroughout residency, my husband and I had multiple times we had to send our son to the grandparents for a week at a time due to our call schedules. I always felt guilty but our son never missed us. We also face-timed daily, which helped. Recently I hired a nanny to pick up our son from daycare. It has changed our lives dramatically. Our son loves her, and now we don't have to worry about who is going to finish first to pick up. Plus we get home to a happy child who is taken care of AND we can take time to do errands or go to the gym after work if needed without worry. Don't feel bad--you'll be much happier when you know your child is well taken care of and you can take care of yourself.
ReplyDeleteThank goodness for Facetime!
DeleteIn your experience and that of other commenters, do you have to pay nannies quite a bit more to have stranger hours (early the AM and/or late in the PM, variable ending times, etc.)? Thanks, I'm about to start a similar search and family members are very far away so they can't help.
ReplyDeleteWe have an au pair and they get paid the same no matter when they work, provided that number is less than 45 hours per week.
DeleteWe had a nanny and she got paid by the hour, regardless of when it was she was working. We also violated federal law and did not write overtime into her contract and put in a maximum of ... I can't remember, I think 60 hours a week. It's kind of whatever you can convince a nanny to say yes to.
DeleteWe were going to have to pay more to have a nanny in the early morning and late PM. We interviewed several nannies, and none of them really wanted to commit to every day because they were looking for more daytime nanny jobs, but we couldn't afford to have a full-time nanny. When we started our childcare search, we initially decided on daycare because of the lower cost, but we are hoping to have an au pair in the future when we have more kids (and more room).
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