My daughter is nine months old and I’ve been back at work since she was four months. Our current child care arrangement is great but it is going to be changing in March.

My options in March will be to either pay half of my income towards childcare or stay home and live off my husbands income. I’ve crunched the numbers and we will barely scrape by on his income. His work will pay for our daughters insurance but not mine. I may even be without insurance if I quit.

My husband keeps saying that half my income is better than none but I hate the idea of paying someone else that much money to spend more time with my baby than I get to. It breaks my heart and I want to be with her so badly. I just don’t know if the financial hardship is worth it.