Work or SAHM

Sorry this is so long.

I work from home a few days a week currently. A lot of people work from home full time, and I’ve been with the company 4 years this year. All of the people I work directly with work from home full time, minus my boss.

In my state you can’t leave a child in daycare more than 10 hours a day, and I would have to do the drop off and pick up because of my husbands job. Also, changing our hours isn’t an option. Sometimes he starts early, sometimes he’s at a job late, he can be in 3 different states or right down the street for work. You never know. With my commute it works out that it would be 10 and a half hours a day (with typical traffic).

I’ve always had great reviews and feedback, work hard, and take pride in my work. I’m a go to in my company for my department to help/train others.

Yesterday I asked my boss if I could work from home full time after the baby gets here, and she said no it’s for people who have been here a “long time and have extenuating circumstances”. I explained to her my daycare situation. If I worked from home full time I could pick up/drop off no problem and stay within the hours per day allowed by my state. I work in a different state so she said “well if you do a daycare here then you wouldn’t have that problem”. The problem is that daycare costs double in that state.. I looked into it. Then she said “once the baby is here maybe he won’t work as much”. I’ve explained to her that’s not how his job works. He can’t be in the middle of fixing something and then just leave. (Just want to add he absolutely loves his job, so no issues with it there. Plus the OT is nice)

We could afford for us to live on his income alone and we have a great savings amount, but I also like having an extra $2,000 or so a month to put in our savings. If I don’t go back to work we only have a few hundred left over a month after bills and putting some money in the savings. His next raise is in a year and we should be making what we’re making combined now.

I just don’t know what to do. I would love to stay home with our child, but it makes me nervous not having that extra cushion every month.

Help? 😭