Having a "real" conversation

Earlier this week an old friend told me that he and his wife are expecting. And he didn’t sound too thrilled.

It could have been the lack of sleep because of his job and the hours he’s been working lately. Or maybe the stress over some pay cuts coming his way, and instability of her job because of the economy. Either way, I was left with the impression that this was not good news and not something he wanted. At least not right now.

This made me stop and think about things.

Our plan has always been to wait until Andrew was working full-time and in a position to help support us. At the rate the job market is changing that may not happen for years to come. And I do not want to wait and add risks to the pregnancy because of my age.

So yesterday I looked at our budget. I am a bit anal about keeping track of things, and planning in advance, so I have the whole year neatly arranged as far as bills and due dates and amounts. I take in to account my salary twice a month and an average check for him each Friday for roughly 20 hours. That’s been his target, to at least have 20 hours a week to cover his expenses.

After reviewing it all I went and removed his weekly contributions to the equation, each and every one of them. What was left was actually surprising.

My salary actually will cover all our expenses. The bills, groceries, and rent would be paid each month without any stress. There wouldn’t be much left for other items. Our credit cards would only receive the monthly minimums. But this means that whatever he brings home every week could be saved or used for extra things. We’d be okay, comfortable, and able to keep going.

As I stood at the kitchen counter prepping dinner, A came in to talk about his day and hugged me. And I decided to ask him when we were going to be able to have a real conversation about starting a family.

I know I caught him off guard because his only question was how real. And that is when I explained what I had done and told him the reality of it: even if he worked full time in the end it wouldn’t matter because he would need to be more of a stay-at-home dad. My job will give me the option to work from home, and as long as I could be there on days he may be scheduled then it would work. So waiting for something to magically happen would not make sense for us because in the end we would be back to what I see on paper now.

And he agreed.

So, our only hurdle right now is getting confirmation that work would have no problems with me be at home at least 3 days a week on weeks he has to work. If I am not already working remotely then they will have to agree to this so we can maintain our lives. I’ve got a meeting at 10 with my manager and I plan to bring this up to her and see if it would be feasible based on the changes coming and what my position would be. Based on past conversations I know it won’t be a problem, and actually may work for the best because of the office space I’d be freeing up and the new position I’ll be moving in to. After I have verbal confirmation I can go home and let him know.

And then we can begin trying.

(Originally posted 2/6/2009)