As most of you know, I am the girl behind The Overwhelmed Bride, which is a wedding blog and wedding coordination company. And I work from home.
In the weeks leading up to Ava's birth, I did my best to prepare my blog as far in advance as possible, despite not being able to concentrate on anything but the little girl inside of me. But I did a pretty good job of getting ahead, at least what I thought was enough. But boy was I wrong! Yes, it was helpful, but I never could have prepared enough.
I never imagined that working from home would be this hard. "Newborns sleep for 15-18 hours a day so that will leave me plenty of time to blog"....is what I thought. But over the past three weeks, I've written only two blog posts and those both were written yesterday. Yes, I did not blog for three weeks so the little preparation I did was better than nothing.
It's only been three weeks and I'll now admit that being a work from home mom is hard. Like really hard. At this point, she sleeps a TON so in reality, I have plenty of hours each day to blog and work and get the house cleaned but there is one reason why I don't get anything done despite all of that time:
I just don't want to put her down!
I want to stare at her and snuggle with her and just hold her in my arms. And no matter how much she sleeps, I just don't want to put her down. In fact, I feel guilty putting her down, as if I am being a bad mom. I mean, I am here at home with her and whether she is sleeping or awake and happy just sitting there in her swing, I feel like I just have to hold her as much as possible. Because that is what a good mom does, right? I think I may be putting a little too much pressure on myself, ya think?
I don't think she minds (or even notices) when I put her down to sleep in her crib, so it is definitely due to my own selfishness that I can't get any work done. In this case, it's all about me. Yes, I know that will eventually change and she will be crawling and then walking and then talking to me all day every day, and it will take an hour just to get her to take a nap. And at that time, it will really be tough to be a work from home mom. I can't even imagine how guilty I will feel sitting down at my computer as she plays by herself in the pack and play, because she will actually be aware of what is going on.
And so for now, no matter what the reason may be, I just want to hold her and never let her go. And that is the sole reason why (at this time) it is tough being a business-owning work from home mom. I don't get paid maternity leave because if I stop working, my company stops.
I don't know how all of the amazing mommies out there do it, but I can only see it getting more and more tough moving forward. But at the end of the day, if I gt to spend 24 hours, 7 days a week with my little girl, even if that means I am sitting at my computer for a couple hours a day at home by her side, I will take it :)
It'll only get more and more difficult as time goes on, but I definitely wouldn't have it any other way :)
...and now I've written my third blog post since she was born - success!! And Ava is sleeping right by my side.
