Working Mum vs stay at home working Mum - the eternal dilemma

I've been thinking more about the whole returning to work after a baby issue, trying to figure out why I'm so deeply affected by it all - feeling absolutely that I NEED to get back to work, but also feeling horribly guilty and sad that soon, a large part of my son's care will be done by someone other than me.

The other day, when I was having a bit of a crisis about whether I could find decent childcare to fit around my new job, my husband said, as he has done several times before "Well, we could always swap. You work full time, and I'll look after our boy." He and I both know this is not an option. Firstly, he earns a lot more than me, and secondly, if he took time off work, he'd run out of currency and struggle to ever get a flying job again. When he says this sort of thing I always feel somehow belittled, because it's like he's saying to me  - there's no option, there really isn't a choice. This is how it is. You're a woman, I'm a man. You look after the boy, I provide.

I know this isn't what he means. I think he's just trying to point out how keen he would be to trade places with me. I know I'm lucky to be able to spend so much time with our son. He's tremendously precious.

Still, though, I can't imagine a future where the only job I have in life is as a Mum. Before having my son last year, I worked in an admittedly rather stressful job that I'd spent years working towards. My career was very important to me, in fact to some extent it defined me. Coming out to the Middle East and leaving my previous job behind was a bit of a wrench, but then having my son made my realise my ability to pursue my career was severely compromised, and I believe now that played a large part in my post-natal depression.

So, back to my working dilemma. For now, I've decided to pursue more part-time jobs that I can fit around my husband's schedule until our son goes to nursery in September. After all, this time of his life is precious, and I know I'll regret it if I don't spend as much time as I can with him now. Part-time will at least mean I'm contributing to the family finances, something I really want to do. As much as I know we share money as a family, I still can't quite get used to spending money on, say, some shoes, when I didn't earn it myself. It's a pride thing. And I know a bit more money in the family pot would take the pressure off my husband, too.

Oh, Mummy guilt. I'm told it never ends...

That old toad, work

I've had a couple of job interviews this week. I got one but turned it down (poor pay and conditions) but the other one is looking promising. I have a further assessment for it next week. Our son is 11 months old now, and I feel it's time to try to give a bit more time to my career, and put some more money in the family pot. But golly, it's a hard thing to get my head around.

The irony is, when I was in the depths of post-natal depression, all I wanted to do was get back to work. It was all about regaining control, I think. My job was something I was good at; from my perspective, motherhood was not. It was also about being able to be an individual, something that I felt I would never be able to be again. I desperately wanted to be like my husband, striding out of the door in uniform off to perform a useful function for society. Now, of course, I realise I AM performing a useful function - what could be more useful than bringing up our son?! And the idea of separating myself from my son, even for a few hours, feels like torture.

Add to this the usual childcare challenge of being married to a pilot. Unlike an "ordinary" family, I can't rely on my husband to be able to get our son up or put him to bed every day, because he's often away, sometimes at very short notice. On the plus side, he's often here for long periods of time - but not within any set pattern. How do you fit a job into that? I have no idea. So far I've been doing very occasional work from home when he's been around. But these jobs I've been for this week require me to find some sort of daycare for my son. I'm just not ready to put him in nursery yet - we have decided to send him there in September. In the meantime, my friend had previously offered to step in and look after him occasionally, but today she told me that she'd changed her mind. The only other option here really is to get a full-time live in nanny, something neither my husband nor I want to do. It's a huge move having someone live with you. Yes, it would allow me to go back to my previous career and work all kinds of wacky shifts, but it would also mean giving up our privacy and allowing someone else to play a huge part in bringing up our son.

What to do? I have NO idea.

The challenge of being an expat new mum

Following on from my last post about my diagnosis of PND, I thought I'd put a little more flesh on the bones about what I've been facing.

I truly thought we'd met most challenges face on and were pretty settled out here by now - it's been over a year and half, after all. However, I really didn't count on the hard reality of becoming a mother half-way across the world from my family and close friends.

Regular readers of my blog will know that I've struggled with breastfeeding. To be honest, struggled is an understatement. For the first few weeks my son refused to feed from me, so I had to pump and supplement with formula around the clock. I had an in-built guilt about using formula (think it's a middle-class British thing!) so was absolutely determined to soldier on regardless. This meant buckets of tears, and I had no support at all from the nurses in the hospital where he was born (because culturally, more Arab mums bottle feed than opt for the breast.) Luckily I found a British midwife who helped me, my husband was a trooper and stood by my decision absolutely, and my Mum came out after a couple of weeks to cheer me on, but quite frankly I feel like I've been to hell and back with it. To this day I worry constantly about whether he's getting enough milk from me, and struggle to find a comfortable position to feed him in. So, breast feeding with no proper support from health visitors, doctors, etc - challenge number one.

Summer in the Gulf is universally felt to be the hardest time of year out here. It's 50c some days and you're basically confined to being indoors until dusk, particularly with a new baby. Add to that the month of Ramadan, which was most of August this year. Ramadan means shops are shut for a large part of the day, and restaurants and cafes closed all day, only opening in the evening (when the baby is in bed, of course..) and you can get cabin fever very easily indeed. Imagine then being a new mum, stuck inside with a baby, with a husband who's away for about 4 days a week on average. Hmmm..... So, that's another challenge to add to the list.

I've also been feeling the distance from my old friends very keenly. Although there are, as I predicted when I pregnant, masses of mums around to be friends with, they're all NEW friends, and as such I don't feel I can open up to them and ask for help when I really need it. I'm still in that "getting to know you" stage with all of them. It's tricky. Hopefully I'll begin to feel more confident over the coming months, and as my son's need for daytime naps reduces (at the moment he's sleeping for at least 3 naps a day, and won't sleep in his pram) I'll be able to get out and about to baby classes and coffee mornings to meet more people and get a regular rhythm to life, because that's something I really feel I've been missing.

The last challenge is, quite simply, being a new mum when your husband is a pilot. I could be living back in the UK and still have this to deal with. I miss him dreadfully when he's away now, much more so than before I became a mum. I miss his help with our son, as he's a brilliant Dad and regularly looks after him while I catch up on sleep. He's the third vital member of our family, and when he's away, things just don't feel right.

Still, I'm beginning to feel a lot more confident when I'm by myself now, so that's a good sign I think. My son and I have a good routine and I'm managing to get chores done and even get some time to myself, something I've really been missing.

It seems ridiculous, doesn't it, that I wanted and ached for my baby so much, and then feel foul of depression once he'd arrived. Trust me, I feel the irony of that more than anyone. I wish wholeheartedly that his first few months of life had been so much easier than they were, but hey, you can't change what's in the past, you can only look forward and make changes in the future, and that's what I intend to do. I love my son and my husband more than anything, and together, we'll get through this.

The one where I admit I have post-natal depression

So, there we are. Five months after the birth, I have finally admitted that my low feelings just haven't gone away. After a conversation with a friend of mine out here who's a GP, I finally decided I needed to get some help.

I came home the other night and looked up the symptoms of post-natal depression.

They are:

•Low mood. Tends to be worse first thing in the morning, but not always.
•Not really enjoying anything. Lack of interest in yourself and your baby.
•Lack of motivation to do anything.
•Often feeling tearful.
•Feeling irritable a lot of the time.
•Feelings of guilt, rejection, or inadequacy.
•Poor concentration (like forgetting or losing things) or being unable to make a decision about things.
•Feeling unable to cope with anything.

I have almost all of them, at least some of the time.

Despite adoring my son, and loving looking after him, it's been a real struggle becoming a Mum, particularly so far from home, away from friends and family. And, of course, being a new mum with a husband who flies long-haul for a living, and is therefore away for three or more days at a time.

I've also missed my career much more than I'd anticipated. The shock of going from career woman to stay-at-home Mum of a new baby has been vastly more than I'd expected.

So, here I am, with a diagnosis. It does feel a relief to have a label for it. I've been started on a course of anti-depressants, and fingers crossed they will start to work soon.

For now, I have some very supportive friends out here, and my husband's being brilliant. As ever, he's my best friend and soulmate, and I couldn't be doing any of this without him.

I thank God for him, and for our beautiful boy. I know that this is only a passing phase, and soon it will be a distant memory. I just need all the strength I can muster to get through this. I'm going to give it my very best shot.