The day care problem remained. My husband, by this time, had found a job in our new city. A friend of ours recommended a local family daycare run by a sweet, warm woman who mostly took care of older toddlers but was willing to accommodate us.

Family day care is typically less expensive than center-based day care, but still, the expense was absolutely staggering. And two weeks into it, my husband came to me with a confession. As he dropped the little dude off one day, it occurred to him that he was coming home to an empty apartment without the little dude and a job that was pretty flexible – if not terribly remunerative – and would let him work from home most days. So we decided to give it a shot. And it worked out pretty well!

I’d wake up and nurse the little dude, do the early morning diaper change, then give him a bottle and settle him into his swing to give Daddy some more sleep time while I pumped and packed up my stuff for the day. Commuting went much more smoothly without having to portage the stroller up and down staircases to the train, or having to sway perilously and pendulously through the snow, top-heavy with the baby strapped to my chest and a backpack on my back.

I can’t tell if it was because we found a pattern that was working for us, or because the little dude had magically started sleeping through the night, but somewhere around six weeks post-partum I felt the fog lift a little bit from my brain, and I started being able to get through the coursework instead of chronically falling behind. Magically, we’d pulled it together in time to start studying for the first exam of the semester.

Maternity Scrubs is a mama to one cute little dude, a wife, and a first year medical student. She also enjoys cooking delicious and healthy food, traveling, and listening to baby music!