Green Eyed Monster in Inside My Head

One of my first entries has the exact same title but since the feelings I have now are similar to the ones I had then I felt that copying the title was appropriate.

I hate feeling jealous, but I feel like that a lot of the time especially since I became a mother. A college friend of mine, Nicole, has the life I’ve always wanted. She went away to college, became best friends with her roommate, was popular in our sorority, met a very wealthy guy our junior year of college and later married him, and ‘retired’ (her term not mine) once she had a baby because her husband didn’t need her salary. She has currently announced that she’s pregnant with their second child. She’s never had fertility issues. Shes never had to worry about money or about the stress of being the breadwinner like me. I got my period the same day she announced she was pregnant. While I’m stressed out of my mind with my job, she’s posting pictures of play dates on Facebook. My mother was a stay at home mom with four children; I know it’s difficult, but oh my Lord, I wish I was one. I spend the week constantly rushing: rushing to get ready, rushing to daycare, rushing to work, rushing to get out of work on time so I can pick up Sam, rushing home, trying to clean, prep for the next day, feed Sam and get him to sleep etc. The weekend is a rat race to try and do things I couldnt do during the week, like laundry and grocery shopping. It’s exhausting and stressful. I wish I was Nicole. It sounds terrible and petty, but I do.

I hate my job. The bitch secretary and one of the nurse practitioners told my director that I wasn’t working my assigned hours. How/why it’s any of their fucking business is beyond me. Instead of working the assigned 11a-7pm shift, I had made a deal with the doctors to work 9a-5pm so that way I can pick up my infant from daycare before it closes. There is no mercy for working mothers. They don’t care that my kid needs to be picked up or that the doctors I work with are fine with our arrangement. The director called me up last Friday and completely ripped me apart, then hung up on me.

This week I had Michael leave work early to pick up the baby up since I was assigned to this miserable shift Wednesday-Friday. He did it, but then told me he won’t be able to do this every month which means I’m stuck again. There’s no family nearby. Daycare closes at 6pm and Sam starts becoming a sleep deprived lunatic by around 5:30. I cannot stay at work until 7pm. I’ve begged the director to cut me some slack, but she doesn’t care. It’s ironic because she was recently interviewed after being named a Top Working Mom or some b.s. title. During the interview she says how important it is to try to be flexible with working mothers because it is important to try and retain quality staff. I want to call up the interviewer and scream that my director is full of shit.

I can’t leave my job because it has really good infertility benefits and maternity leave policy. NJ is one of three states in the USA that requires employers to provide these benefits if the company is greater than 50 people and the employee has been working there for more than one year. If I leave I will have to change daycares and Sam loves his daycare. I don’t want to do that to him. If I go to a private office, infertility and maternity leave benefits are generally not provided because most offices are less than 50 employees. If I go to another hospital I will have those benefits, but it takes 3 months to get credentialed and then I have to wait another 3 months to try to conceive because I need to be at my place of employment for one year before receiving maternity benefits. At a minimum I lose 6 months, which I can’t afford with my history of infertility. Nicole doesn’t have to worry about any of this.

I just want something to go right. I feel like I’m a hamster on a wheel running their hardest but going nowhere.

Artist

Last updated October 25, 2016