From working mom to stay at home mom?

Last month marked my two year anniversary as a working Mom. After a standard three month maternity leave, most of which I spent in an exhausted confused haze, I returned to my full time+ job. At the time this decision was mostly financial but I was also fairly positive about it. Perhaps if money had not been an issue I wouldn't have come back only because it was so hard. Hard to leave my baby but more-so hard to figure out the pumping, and transporting and early meetings and late nights, juggling and sleep deprivation. The whole working Mom package was intimidating. But after a few months it was easier and I found that by May I was really happy. Sure I missed Margot and I always wished for a little more time with her, but I was loving my job, loving getting dressed up and out of the house and sitting down with coffee to work at a desk without spit up or screaming or nursing to interrupt me. We had an ideal situation, Margot spent every day with my Mom which, for me, removed all guilt. I knew my Mom took care of her just as well, if not better, than I would. And personally there were things in my career I really wanted to accomplish. So when our financial situation changed a couple of months later and staying at home was suddenly a financial option I chose to keep working. I was in the middle of a huge campaign and I loved all the people and issues I was working on.

But as Margot got older the hours away got harder. When she started talking about our situation I suddenly started to feel very different. Little phrases like, "I'm the Mama, I go to work, Nammy takes care of my baby" just broke my heart. Dragging her out of bed at the crack of dawn and putting her in a cold car when all she wanted to do was snuggle because I had an early meeting was horrid. And the daily greeting of "oh Mama, I missed you" and "don't leave me Mama, please stay with me" soon were becoming more than I could take. Work started to loose its appeal and I really started to question my decision. At this point we had already bought a more expensive house, we are still paying off law school loans and preschool was a looming expense. And suddenly I felt very very stuck. 

So when out of the blue came the opportunity to move to a new town, for Chris to take a more stable and secure job that he wanted, for me consider leaving my job...well the decision seemed blatantly obvious. Politics and I had a good run. I did the working Mom thing. Now it was time for a change. 

At some point in the not so distant future our house will sell and I will pack up my office and say goodbye to all my great friends and colleagues. I will leave my 9 years of political/policy work behind and will focus my time an energy solely on Chris and Margot, our house and our new community. I honestly don't really know what to expect. I have some ideas that I'm sure are naive and unrealistic about how it will be. I really hope I have more time to things I love like cooking, decorating and art. I hope that this removes a lot of the stress from our household. But regardless of the day to day I know that right now this is the best decision for our family. I'm sure I will work in some capacity in the future whether it's in politics or something else. But I am looking forward to some time and space to figure out what I would like that to be. Mostly though I am really grateful that we have this opportunity.