Life in Limbo

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I like to have things planned to a T. A huge big fat CAPITAL T. When things are not planned and/or I have no control over them I get anxious, and often angry. My life seems to be in Limbo right now, for a various number of reasons, the main being the obvious one of the imminent arrival of baby KPB (don't worry, I'm not going to give it a triple barrelled surname, I wouldn't be so cruel!) and then the smaller but still important issues of where are we going to live, same place, different, next town over? Will I go back to work? more importantly when will I stop work to start maternity leave? How will we cope with Sam not having a bog standard working pattern? Will I get lonely once our house mate moves out/we move out, with Sam working late at night? How will we afford to pay for things without my Salary?

I figured the best way to tackle these things is to get my thoughts down on paper (blog-paper?) and then see how other people coped/plan to cope, and I have been speaking to my GP about how best to tackle anxiety (more on this at a later date, potentially but there is a bit more to it) and I know one of the best ways is to discuss my thoughts with people, but as I don't have a particularly deep relationship with the mothership (I think this is because I don't like to worry her) and my husband is like an excited puppy and always has a positive spin on everything (which normally is ideal, as he is the positive to my negative, but sometimes I do NEED someone to be blatant with me and point out things that might crop up in a negative/constructive aspect, and not just say "it'll be fine, wait and see") SO here goes...

Where will we live? Long story short there is a slight possibility that a friend will let us his 2 bed flat at the cost of his mortgage (plus bills, but still about 400 less than the going market rate) BUT only if the current tenants want to leave at the end of their 12 month tenancy, which is through a letting agent. (keeping them would give him more income, but if they left he'd rather have someone he knows in the flat) This flat is in Worthing (half an hour drive away) but right next to the train station for easy travel/Sam to get to and from work and also has a car parking space with it,so I could get my car back on the road. It has 2 beds/2 baths and is about 3 years old, plus we have 2 close friends who happen to live in the same road. It is also closer than where we are now to my mums house, and other friends. So we have to wait a few more weeks to see if that will work out. If it does it is too good to turn down. If it doesn't then we would more than likely stay where we are, (a 2 bed maisonette in central Brighton) but would need to cover the whole rent, as opposed to the half we pay now (our lovely housemate will be moving out) and of course we would be paying around an extra £100 a month in bills too, which was her share. All this with me earning SMP and not my salary. We contemplated moving somewhere cheaper, but actually our rent is cheap compared to other similar places, so to move somewhere noticeably cheaper we'd have to move right to the outskirts of Brighton, making it more difficult for Sam to get to and from work (currently a ten minute walk for both he and I).

conclusion: there isn't one yet!

Will I go back to work? When will I stop work? without bemoaning my company/area manager too much I will say that considering I told him I was expecting at 9 weeks pregnant (to get them off my back about a potential move to maidstone!) and at the time of writing I have 8 weeks left till me EDD and no decision has been made I'm pretty pissed off! I know who I want to cover for me, (I manage a large hotel for anyone that didn't know) as I have spent a lot of time with him over the last few years and know that he would do everything efficiently and properly and already works in the hotel so he knows all the intricacies and ins and outs, whereas if the decision is made that it will be someone external the handover period will take potentially 2 or 3 weeks, bearing in mind I have the last week of April off and ideally don't want to work till the baby actually falls out leaves not very long at all. Another gripe is that we were told he would make a decision on the 1st April, but then realised the day before good Friday that he was on holiday all that week and "do you mind covering for me Lauren" so not only an increased work load during the Easter holidays (already the busiest time of the year so far) but who forgets they are going on holiday?!!!! OH and a third gripe, my last regional manager told me I should get a say in the cover as it is 'your hotel' but he's since moved regions and my area manager seems more intent on being seen to make the right decision than actually making it! does he not realise this is stressing me out big style?! (I have told him how I feel, by the way, I'm pretty vociferous but he clearly has no back bone and doesn't want to rock the boat with the 'higher uppers' because he's new to the position!) GRRRR

As for if I will go back, I genuinely don't know. I would love not to, and have a bit of a career break, but actually my main worry is not money but boredom. I've worked solidly full time for the same company and I'm not sure how I'd cope going from high stress levels and being busy and active 5 days a week (or more!) to basically sitting on my bum watching my child grow up. I've contemplated doing a foundation degree type thing through the open university (which is pretty cheap if you are a low income family, which we would be if just Sam was working) and re training to do something that I could do to my own schedule, but I'm just not sure what. Then if we have another child later down the line, I would effectively be putting my career on hold even longer, if we waited for the (hypothetical) 2nd child to reach school age... Also I earn more money than Sam, so it would make more financial sense for me to go back and for him to leave, but I think maybe I'm ready for something different!

conclusion: who knows?

Shift patterns and family routine. Fairly often Sam works 5 nights a week. And by nights I mean 3pm - 3/4am. He often has different and separate days off in a week and, and doesn't generally know what these will be till only a few days before (thanks Sam's bosses, you make planning really easy) At first I was dreading the long evenings alone (as lovely flatmate will have moved out by then, or we will have!) from 3 till god knows when, but then when I thought about it a bit more, once baby KPB is sleeping more to a routine and is going to bed around 7pm, SO CAN I!!) I wont need to feel obliged to do married people things like cook him dinner and watch a film together, I can just have a nice relaxing bath (positive thinking!) read a bit of my book and then be asleep by 9pm with no distractions or guilt at not spending time with my husband, ready for the inevitable middle of the night feeds. Sam has even said that if it works out that the baby will need a feed within an hour of him getting home, he can do it!

Then providing he wakes up at a reasonable time (normally 10/11am after a late night shift) hopefully the baby will have had a morning nap and we can have nice family time/lunch together whilst the sprog is awake (and yay for eating a bigger meal at lunch time, more time to burn off the calories!) then I can walk into town with Sam to get out of the house on his way to work.

conclusion: this one could benefit everyone!

So, a potential positive one out of three. Brilliant, no wonder I'm stressed.

How did you cope with things that you couldn't control, either when pregnant or in other phases of life?