I never wanted to stay home with the children. I did a lot of babysitting, sitting with very small infants, or older children, or god help me, both at once, and it was not something that I wanted to do full time. I had the skills and could care for children, and I was even good at it, but it was stressful and demanding and icky and the pay sucks. At the same time I know that I hated being in daycare as a child. There were times my mother worked and times she did not, and I liked staying at home a lot better than day care. She even found one or two daycares over the years that I will admit were good, but still I hated it. I vowed not to have children if I had to put them in daycare. I new this is easier said than done. I was willing to forgo having children if I could not find a partner who would stay at home with my children. I like sex and even the best birth control fails occasionally, so when I met my husband, I was fairly pleased that I found someone that wanted to stay at home raising children and through no fault of mine was at best infertile. Sucks to be him, but I loved him and it suited my plans.
So we went through our twenties child free. I always made more than he did working, and as the years went on, made even more. We had credit card debt that we were paying down (debts accrued mostly during college or during bouts of him being very ill), so we were not living on the full potential of our current incomes. As the cards got closer to getting paid off, he became more anxious to have children. So, at his urging, I looked for potential fathers. Quite a switch after more than ten years of monogamy, but he very much wanted me to try that route. I did and to our surprise found someone that was not just passing through. I fell in love with KellyM and she moved in.
Although she believed that she would still be fertile when we first met, before we could bank sperm, (due to snowstorms, and other issues) the hormones kicked in full force and our understanding was that it would no longer be possible. To our surprise and delight, long after we thought the possibility had expired, she got me pregnant. My husband stayed home with our baby and all is well. He now is also disabled, something we were not counting on, but so far he can still care for our daughter. I am having a boy next week too!
As far as affording it, the disability question makes it moot, he has to stay home. Also, now that we have most of our credit card debt paid off, and I have a better job, our income is something we can live on. We do have two household incomes, but KellyM has her own debts and financial obligations, so it is not like we have two clear incomes. The key for making it work for us was waiting until we could afford it. I had my first child at 34, and that was 4 years ago. Had I been 24, I don’t know what we would have done.
