Have a Baby, Plan a Wedding, and Start a Career at the Same Time

 

I am going through a huge transition in my life right now. I'm basically trying to have a baby, get married, and start my career all at the same time. Sound impossible? Well the good thing is that I am highly motivated by not failing so I'm bound to succeed. However, it does take a lot of focus and the occasional stress outbreaks to manage it all. I probably won't do everything the way I would if each of these big life events were done one at a time, but that's how life goes. There is so much I want to do that I don't have any time [to waste]. It's impossible to have everything go as planned anyways, so I'll just do my best, hope for the best, and enjoy the results.

How I am beginning to organize these events?

Prioritize. This right here is the only answer.

I am working a full time job at Measurement Incorporated and a part time job at Plato's Closet for as long as I am able. [Meaning until 39-40 weeks and I'm rushed to the delivery room!] My fiancé has high career goals which he is so close to achieving the first step of to becoming a dispatcher for a police department. [Please, Please! Wish him luck! He is down to 1 of 18 people (originally 270) in the race to fill 10 positions!]. Right now he is working as a full time janitor in a factory. [Not too shabby for pay.] So when our baby arrives we will at least be able to cover our finances.

Meanwhile, we are slowly but surely creating our wedding budget and looking for the most affordable ways to have a big [about 150 guests] and beautiful wedding. I am also doing a lot of networking in order to find great ceremony and reception halls, caterers, photographers, etc. The more people you know, the more information you have access to. For example, I am hoping to hire a high school friend as our wedding photographer. She is offering us a great discount and even though she has just started her business, she has already achieved professional [enough] artwork. We are only at the beginning of our wedding planning but it is not something we can figure out in one day. We are focusing on the largest expenses first and with our other time we are preparing for essential baby expenses [and learning how to care for a baby!]. So along with our wedding budget, we also have a baby budget. This budget is a little different than the wedding budget because we will just be saving money until we find out the remaining items we have to purchase after we have the baby showers. Obviously, we hope to receive a lot of essential baby stuff at the showers but we won't know for another few weeks. We are intense "garage-salers" so we have already found some used items in great condition for a great price.

Okay so I briefly covered wedding and baby expenses. The excitement of both events really helps me to become motivated for all the hard work and planning efforts. As for planning my career goals... this is much more difficult to concentrate upon. I used to [still kind of do] have high, ambitious career goals like becoming a Foreign Service Officer which I feel to be the second hardest job to obtain, next to becoming US President [but yeah...]. Since I majored in such a broad topic area, [international studies and religion] I have more options to consider. Now what these options are exactly... I will get back to you! I am thankful to have a fiancé to help support our family while I have a baby and get my life re-organized. In the meanwhile, I will continue doing random jobs to save money and pay the bills. I would love to get a master's degree that will help narrow down my concentration and expertise so I maybe [just maybe] might actually get a worthy job. [Worthy= Decent pay + Something I feel is actually important enough to invest so much of my time into]

I know there will be many challenges to come in order to settle down but the real key [besides prioritizing] is to stay optimistic and positive. I don't force myself to think about these events every single moment of every day. If I am overwhelmed, I do something else. It's that simple.