Staying At Home
There has been debate among mothers about rather it was best to stay at home or work. In my case, I felt like I didn’t have much of a choice. Even still, I received flack from family members about reaching out for help when we needed it. They wanted to know why I didn’t have a job. Why couldn’t I support myself.
At that point in time I realized that I’d rather be poor and staying at home with my daughter than working some minimum wage job all day. Yeah, I would be earning a living, but paying for childcare would take up nearly my whole check. It didn’t seem worth, especially when I’d miss out on so much with Ana. If I worked full time and took care of Ana, I don’t think I’d ever manage to keep up with the mess at home. I was not trying to be lazy or mooch of everyone.
I asked for help hoping that someone would be kind enough to do so. I didn’t expect it. And they had to know I’d do anything I could to help them out as well. In fact, it frustrates me to never be in a position to help others out like I want to. Poverty has always been a problem for Jason and I. Poor choice is perhaps a part of our problems, but more than anything I was born into a very difficult socio-economic position. Money is important, but I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my relationships or goals just to get ahead.
Staying home was challenge though. When I was pregnant with Ana I could take naps any time I wasn’t working. However, now that I Ana to take are of naps during pregnancy were a rare thing indeed. I complained to my mother, who merely told me that I was the one who wanted a baby in the first place. I was an only child, so my mother had no idea what is was like to be pregnant and have a three year old to deal with day in and day out. Sometimes I wished I had a job, just to get a few hours away from her constant demand for attention. I loved her dearly, but some days I felt like I was going crazy.
I was thankful when Ana began pre-school that fall. It was only a few hour in the morning, but it provided some much needed relief and rest for me. It took Ana some time to adjust, but eventually she grew to love school.
Anyway, the second trimester went a little better, but I was still having stomach issues. While I vomited very little, I seemed to constantly have diarrhea. The doctors kept telling me to “eat more fiber” but that never seemed to help. It wasn’t until some three years later that I realized my digestive issues were due to the early stages of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. It wouldn’t be until I started bleeding in 2009 that the doctors would know what was wrong with me.
Since I was living back in Ohio at the time, I was able to borrow some of my cousin’s maternity clothes. I bought a few odds and ends at yard sales that summer, but mostly I wore her clothes from when she was pregnant with her second son just the year before. Her clothes were much more stylish and comfortable than the ones I’d worn while I was pregnant with Ana. I kept a few nursing gowns and shirts and gave her back the rest of the stuff in case she and her husband had a third child after the delivery.
We found out at the July ultrasound that we were having a boy this time! While Jason and Ana wanted another girl, I kept telling them I thought it would be a boy and I was right. Jason wanted his initials to be SUV to match Ana’s initials of ATV. We agreed on the name Sebastian right away. It was something we both loved. However, the middle name beginning with U was a little bit trickier. I looked up U names, but didn’t like Uriah or Uri or anything else I read. The first U name I thought of was the one that stuck—Ulysses. Since I had my degree in English and liked novel Ulysses by James Joyce, it seemed fitting. It is also the Latin name for Odysseus and I love Greek mythology. So Ulysses it was.
carilynn27 