Day 2: My life as a SAHM

A turbulent portion of my life. For Ashley and Hilarazzi. Ashley wanted to hear about different times in my life and Hilary wanted to know about becoming a SAHM. The two go hand and hand and it was probably one of the scariest times in my life.

About five years ago, Pedro and I were living in Florida. I took a little test one morning the confirmed I was indeed expecting a baby. We took our time but eventually decided that Ft. Lauderdale was not the place we wanted to start a family. Pedro began searching for jobs back in Wisconsin and before long found a job that would work. It would allow me to stay home like I had always wanted but things would still be tight. After two interviews and details of the position, Pedro was informed that he'd be getting the written offer by the end of the week.

We began covering all the bases to move back. Pedro put in his notice at his job. We hired a moving company. We gave our notice at our apartment. It was all done and we were ahead of the game. Later that week the letter came only it was a tad different than we'd expected. It said something to the effect that "at this time we cannot offer you a position." Oh. My. God.

Fast forward about a month we were back in Wisconsin, with nothing. I was six months pregnant. We had no jobs, no place to live, (unless we wanted to move in with our parents, so lets just say NO place to live) no insurance, and just a little money in the bank. It was the most stressful time I can remember. We were living out of savings and on credit cards, in a college apartment even though we weren't college students. Mike looked for jobs everywhere and was almost willing to take a job that was just above minimum wage, but he stuck it out a little longer.

Mid-December, six weeks earlier than planned, my water broke. Here was Mason! He was in the intensive care unit for 2 weeks before we could bring him home. Pedro received a job offer while we were staying in the Ronald McDonald House. It was a really decent offer. It had been 4 months without any sort of income and we were used to living on almost nothing.

In hindsight we always say that it worked out best that way. We were so poor that it wasn't a shock for us to whittle down to one income. Now close to five years later things have changed a bunch. We own our home. We have 2 kids and Pedro just was offered a job as the Director of Marketing at a printing company. We have a lot to be thankful for. I often think that Mason came early due to the stress we were under. I am not a religious person but I do believe that everything happens for a reason. I still don't have a clear reason why all that happened, but I do know that we learned a bunch about ourselves and each other during that time. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger and we are pretty strong these days.