I Quit Not

As an update to the blog article before this: I am still employed. :)

Went to the office today to meet with the boss about me not going back to work. It was such an easy meeting. My boss basically told me he knew I neeeded more time to stay at home and that he understands how I do not want to leave baby in daycare yet. He said I can continue with working from home and from time to time drop by the office as needed for meetings.

Perfect! :)

He also told me if it would be good for my career (what career? Haha!) if in the long run I could come back to work part time because he says he knows that the baby would need time to adjust to daycare; and that daycare would be good for baby too. Which I totally agree.

As I have mentioned from my previous article: Inception works!

It was pretty much my idea before to work at home then work part time until I am really ready to leave baby the whole day in daycare. :P

Anyhow, all is well. I am still employed and I am still 100% stay at home mommy for baby! Woot woot! :P

P.S.
My husband just gave me a realization: working part time is still not gonna work out because daycare costs just as much as my salary added with gas expense. Boo.

P.P.S.
This is a picture of me and baby today. I brought him with me since I don't have anyone to leave him to. Baby had a wonderful time giggling and flirting with my coworkers! Baby fell asleep as soon as I put him in his car seat on our way home.

I Quit... or Not!

This is my second attempt at resigning from my current job (as assistant architect / project coordinator).

The first attempt was when I wanted to file for at least a 3-month NON PAID maternity leave, and work from home on the tasks that I know only I can do (as for now). However, boss told me "I don't think you need more than 3 months" or "we can't hold your seat for too long" or "No, we do not allow working from home." For which I replied the next day, saying that I can't guarantee going back before 3 months so I will just "give up my seat." My boss then denied saying those, he said I must have misunderstood him, "What I said was 1 month or 3 months or 1 year. It doesn't matter how long, you can take as much leave as you want just let us know when you will be back. If you say 1 year then that is perfectly fine."

The thing about bosses is, even if they are wrong, they are still right.

So we compromised and told them I will be back mid-Oct. Baby will be 6 months old by then.

A couple weeks after giving birth, I receive a call from boss telling me that he needs a favor and if I can continue my work from home. In my mind I said 'Didn't I propose that to you the last time we spoke and you said no, the office doesn't allow working from home?'

The thing about bosses is, it has to be their idea.

Yes, inception works. It is real.

Five months passed and September is almost gone. I got news from work that they hired a few more people and that they are now rearranging the workspaces to accomodate the changes. They asked me when I will be back and I said "My leave form says until mid-October." I even got news that they are planning to buy me a new set of computer.

I've thought about it a hundred times before. Discussed it with my husband. Discussed it with my parents, my sisters, my friends. The decision is pretty much clear: I AM NOT READY TO LEAVE BABY IN DAYCARE just so I can go back to work.

Yes, I do miss the extra income. But looking at Baby, that income is nothing. Quality time with baby is the best compensation I could ever get!

As my friend says, everytime I feel bad for not earning the extra income, just look at my Baby. True enough, everytime I look at Baby, my i-have-no-income-guilt vanishes!

So here I am again, trying to tell my boss I will not go back to work. I sent him an email last week because he was out of the country. A week later and I still get no response. I am pretty sure he has read my letter and he was just ignoring me, if he really were, I think that is very unprofessional of him to do so.

Our office manager contacted me and I told her about my letter. She said that boss is probably ignoring me and is not happy about my letter. The good thing about our office manager is that she is also a mother. She backed me up last time in trying to file for a 6-month leave instead of quitting. She knows how our boss thinks, for which I think is a skill she has mastered.

She plans on talking to my boss about me. However, she says that knowing our boss, he'll probably won't be willing to let go of me and will just ask for another specific date when I want to go back to work.

I feel flattered that my office thinks that I am important (haha, well, I do think I contribute a lot to the company), but I find it weird that they would just let me give them a hypothetical date of return instead of planning the year with the assumption that I am no longer part of the company (which I think will benwfit the company more!).

I am still waiting for updates from our office manager. I sure dread the day I have to meet with boss to talk about this. So wish me luck! I would really need it!

Motherhood: Breastmilk Supply

As mentioned on Article 5: breastfeeding is probably the most tedious responsibility that a mother can do.

SUPPLY AND DEMAND
It's pretty simple, so they say, the more your baby demands for milk, the more your body produces milk. For some women, they even have surplus milk. A friend of mine had too much milk stored in her fridge and she is still producing LOTS of it that she decided to donate some of her stored milk to the hospital.

Unfortunately, some women, like me, do not produce enough milk to suffice for my baby's demand. I already was munching, drinking, eating every known food that they say would increase the body's milk production (malunggay, mussels, fruits, veggies, any soupy food, etc.) but was still not producing enough.
When my baby needed 2 oz of milk, my body couldn't even produce an ounce from pumping. By the time my baby needed 4 oz, my body could only produce 2 oz.

I even consulted a breastfeeding expert and was told to try to pump every 2 hours. I did, but rarely would be able to do it religiously. Imagine pumping for 20 minutes, then you will only have around an hour and 40 minutes left to do whatever chore needed... Let alone find time to play with baby!

GUILT
Guilt started to creep into my subconscious eversince our doctor recommended to supplement with formula because I was not producing enough milk. I remember crying while driving home after my baby's 2 week check up (where the doctor told us baby was not gaining enough weight so he recommended that we start giving baby formula milk). The feeling that baby has not had enough milk for two weeks of his life felt like knives on my chest. The feeling that I am not able to provide for my child. It made me cry everytime I think about it. Until today, I still feel the guilt of not being able to be the 'perfect' mommy... milk-wise.

QUALITY OVER QUANTITY

As mentioned above, I felt so bad about 'conceiding' on my breastfeeding efforts that I had to google to see if there are other women who felt guilty about the same thing... and there were a LOT! I read some articles about it and a lot of it from mommy forums. One particular comment from a forum struck me: A happy mommy is more important for baby! She mentioned that she felt bad that her first baby had to experience a stressed mommy (busy with the obsession of trying to be the perfect breastfeeder) whilst on her second baby, she has already admitted to herself that her anatomy isn't just the breastfeeding type, so her second baby was able to experience a happier, more loving, more caring mommy. 

So I try to remind myself that my time is best spent with Quality Time with Baby, everything else is of lesser priority.