I admit it… and a lot of ranting
Feel free to not read this if you hate ranting or whining. It’s my blog and I want to, and I hope it will help me to get it off my chest in a new and exciting way, since talking with J hasn’t helped. Feel free to post support or suggestions, but please don’t tell me to quit my whining. I know it’s bad form to whine, and things in life can always be worse, but frankly, I need to bitch. 
I have baby fever. It’s horrible I know. I was never one of those people that always knew they wanted a kid growing up, or even as an adult, even in my previous marriage. J changed that and brought out maternal things in me that I didn’t know I had. I’ve known for a while that I want to have a baby or two with him at some point. Just lately, I’ve got the fever - BAD.
Common sense and reasoning doesn’t seem to work on It. We would be fine financially, though we are still renting at the moment. We’d like to own our own place and some land, but it’s not a huge deal to us if it happens before or after children. However, we both work, and J being a pilot his schedule is whacked and not flexible. Mine is flexible when I’m in the office, which is often, but I *am* field staff, and therefore can be scheduled for fieldwork whenever and wherever, including overnights Monday through Friday, and when that occurs it’s not flexible. Therefore, it would be extremely difficult at times to deal with childcare, and with J’s current schedule I would be the one responsible for dropping off/picking up every day since he leaves so early and comes back so late.
J’s schedule *is* changing to be a night shift, but as we are going to be seeing each other maybe an hour a day that’s a less than ideal situation to be bringing in the added stress and responsibility of a baby. It’ll be stressful enough trying to keep our relationship close when we are on completely opposite work and sleep cycles.
I make nearly double what J pulls in, and while we could live on my income alone if we were frugal, no way in hell could we live where we do and have both cars on J’s income alone. Being a pilot and a man, it doesn’t even occur to him that if/when we have kids, he could be a/the stay at home parent. He doesn’t like his current job but also refuses to not fly. I could go on a feministic rant about this topic alone but I’m going to try to avoid it.
I would *consider* not working for a while to take care of children, however I think that given the way I was raised I would have serious self-worth and self-esteem issues if I was a full time stay at home mom. (This is not a slam against full-time moms, I respect them enormously; it is in fact pointing out one of the many flaws of my upbringing that unfortunately I have yet to overcome.) But, that’s not even remotely an option right now given our drastically different incomes, and even if it were I’m not sure I trust any pilot job to be stable and reliable enough to rely my entire family’s well-being on it.
So, logically, now is really not the time to be adding a baby human to our family. Not even to mention that we’re to have our wedding/honeymoon next May and that’s going to cost us a bit despite our attempts at frugality and parents pitching in some pennies of their own. Hormones don’t listen to logic though (which is what I’m placing the blame firmly on by the way, effing hormones!), and they’re making my life hell. I’ve had a horrible tendency towards tears when I think about my/our future and all the uncertainty, and if we’ll ever be able to both get what we want (him to fly, me to have a satisfying career, and we both want a family).
Past few days I’ve had my ass plunked firmly in the pessimistic corner, feeling as though our entire lives are dictated by J’s career and getting all that he wants, and what I want is expendible or I have to pick and choose. I still feel that way right now, but I’m giving myself until tomorrow morning to get over it. We’ll see how that goes. I may try writing him a letter, as talking to him about it hasn’t been very useful for either of us.
The life of a pilots’ partner is one of sacrifice. If only I could feel that our pilots sacrifice was equal to ours, then I might feel better; but frankly, I don’t see how it is. I hate when things aren’t fair.
/rant off
Now I got that out, it’s time to fricking grow some tits and be woman!