Is it Worth it?

Almost exactly one year ago I started my maternity leave. My baby was due in two weeks, and working full time was exhausting. I needed the time to rest, to prepare. And, I thought, was was two weeks? I wouldn't even feel the difference at the end of my mat leave year. However, Isabella did not cooperate. She didn't want to come out into the world. My due date neared, came, passed. Day after day I waited, spending an hour of each at the hospital being tested to ensure my placenta wasn't degrading and the baby was still healthy. Finally, thirteen days late, Isabella was born. What can compare to becoming a mother? I've spent nearly every moment of the eleven months since then with her. Playing, teaching, laughing, adoring. The longest I've been away from her was for an hour, when I had a dentist appointment.

It has been the best time of my life, and now it's over. In two days I go back to work. I love my job, but it's nothing compared to how I feel about my daughter. The last few weeks have been very stressful for me. I lie awake at night, worrying about how Isabella will handle being with a stranger all day (her stranger anxiety has not lessened at all), worrying about how I will handle being away from her all day. Worrying about mundane details like how she'll get to her dayhome when I start work before it opens and we only have one car - will Rob take her by bus? What about naps? One dayhome lady said, very firmly, that naps are from 1-3. But Isabella doesn't sleep then. She takes her nap in the morning. Will she be able to sleep the ruckus of other children playing? And most heart-wrenchingly: will she like the dayhome lady better than me after a while? Will she think they dayhome is her realy family? That I am merely the woman who puts her to bed at night?

I don't know if I can do this.

I wish that money weren't an issue, that Rob was done school and had a great job so I could stay home and do what I really love. Knowing how I feel, Rob says I should only work part time, but if I did that we wouldn't be able to make ends meet. And when I go on mat leave next time I'll be bringing in even less. At that rate, by the time Rob is done school we'll we swallowed up in an impossibly large amount of debt.

What is more important? Being with my daughter now, but struggling financially for years and years to come? Or going back to work, letting her be raised by a stranger, breaking my heart, but probably no other ill side effects.

Help, please!

Me and my darling Isabella July 2009

Rage against the Machine

Warning: this post may contain an impolite amount of caps. Not at you, but at the EVIL DIRECT ENERGY!


My Rant


We've all heard of hidden fees. I saw a commercial the other day about them. A hotdog stand is advertising $1 hotdogs, so a man gets one. His total is something like $5. It turns out all the toppings are extra, and there might even be some admisistration fee or something (I didn't make it the whole way through the commercial). For some reason, I have always thought that hidden fees only applied to cell phones. I WAS WRONG. Even electricity and natural gas suppliers have hidden fees. So hidden, in fact, that they don't show up on the bill.


Last summer, a nice man from Direct Energy showed up at our door. He knew a way for us to save money. If we switched to a non-regulated plan, we would save $6.50 a month in admin fees, and possibly more from the cost of electricity and natural gas. While $6.50 doesn't sound like a lot, Rob and I are trying to save money wherever we can. Every little bit we save on utilities and such can go toward things useful and necessary like, oh, FOOD. So, we switched.


From then on, our Direct Energy bills have gone up. A lot. 40% up. At first we thought maybe the price of natural gas had just gone up, or maybe the government had set its regulated cap higher this year. So we payed outrageous bills ALL. WINTER. LONG. I put thick plastic up over the windows and we keep the temperature in our house pretty low, all to save us money. $5 here, $10 there. Oh I just want to scream!


Tired of paying so much to heat our little house, Rob finally did some research online. Yes, the plan we are on does save us the $6.50 admin charge, but then THEY charge us an admin fee PER GJ USED, just for the privilege of having the first fee waived. They don't put that on the bill, just the higher rate, the final amount we have to pay. We were paying an EXTRA $110 a month! I lay awake for hours last night, just fuming.


The nice salesman had never said a word about the fee per GJ, our bills likewise never explained why the rate was so high. Were we supposed to just know? Did they assume we had ESP? A chatty help icon that would tell us the answer to a question we didn't even know we had to ask?


Needless to say, we're switching back to the old plan.