I made a rather difficult decision last night. It was something that had been on my mind for months and after weighing the options over and over again with my husband, I finally made a choice. I am requesting an extension to my maternity leave for another year. Since I am in Canada, this means that I will be off – if it is approved – for two full years. Since I began my leave about a month before Lil’ Tea Pot’s arrival, that means that I will return to work in December 2016.

IMG_6556

perfect just born hands – I can’t believe it been almost a year!

I am very excited to be home with both of my little ones for another year. My dream has always been to be a stay at home mom, so this is about as close as I can get with our current family situation. Lil’ Tea Cup will be starting school in September, so this leave will allow me to be there to send her off and hopefully participate in things like first field trips. It will allow me a few months of solo time with Lil’ Tea Pot, as Lil’ Tea Cup was not in day care my first year of maternity leave with him. And it will also allow me to schedule Lil’ Tea Cup speech appointments weekly as I will be home to take her, and hopefully get some possible allergies figured out for Lil’ Tea Pot as well (I will share more on both of those in future posts).

The toughest part of this decision is entirely financial. This year will be a completely unpaid leave, which means my income goes to zero. I am the main breadwinner of the family when I am working, so this is a major change for us. For me to stay home means getting rid of all the extras, being very, very, very careful with our spending and likely dipping into our savings. I am hoping to post more about budgeting and ways I find to save money, as it certainly is a major area of concern for us.

For now however there is nothing to do other then wait for a hopeful approval. Cross your fingers for us please!