Without going into the long and involved history behind things, I’ve been offered another job. It comes with a healthy raise in salary, but a lot more responsibility and is likely to take up a lot more time. It’s also a house move away and will put us another two hours away from our families.

In short, it’s pretty much everything that I have wanted in a long time.

However, my wife and I are now seven weeks pregnant with what will hopefully be our first child. It’s been a long and emotional journey getting here so far and the stress is by no means over in that regard. Changing jobs now would mean moving away from family support and the ObGyn doctor that we know and trust, losing maternity pay if/when we successfully give birth and living in a rented house in an unknown area.

Commuting to the new job each day is a non-starter due to the distances and time involved, so a likely first step would be me living away for at least part of the week, something that will put my wife under some stress. Then there would be a move, more stress, and having to move under another hospital, into a new area, with no friends and no job for her.

The job is a huge step up for me, but am I being selfish and putting myself too much forward in this?

Help.

All I can say is that I wouldn’t. I’ll caveat that by saying that kids, parents, circumstances, etc all have a massive effect on how this would work in any given example. You might be absolutely fine or you might have a nightmare of a birth/child/etc.

Family support is something we miss, having none locally and IMO it makes a big difference compared to friends who do.

Without going into the long and involved history behind things, I’ve been offered another job. It comes with a healthy raise in salary, but a lot more responsibility and is likely to take up a lot more time. It’s also a house move away and will put us another two hours away from our families.

In short, it’s pretty much everything that I have wanted in a long time.

Is pretty much the opposite of this:

However, my wife and I are now seven weeks pregnant with what will hopefully be our first child. It’s been a long and emotional journey getting here

You had your time to make this sort of decision, it ended seven weeks ago.

I’d say that expecting your wife to either move or do most of the baby stuff for X period is selfish (sorry). First child is a real learning curve and she’ll want you around (and you’ll want to be around).
Another job will come along.

The decision’s yours obviously but from my experience, I found a new baby to be really hard work and it would have been nicer to have more family support locally.
I ended up taking a pay cut and moving to a local job to cut out on the 2hr a day commute and have the stability of a normal work pattern.
From your partner’s perspective too, she will feel even more isolated and alone at a point of time when she is really vulnerable.

2-3 years down the line, things will be easier and more settled. Will this opportunity be there in future?

As above, first child parenting is hard and making it much harder for a career decision wouldn’t seem sensible. Can the career move wait a year or 2?

What is your wife’s opinion? Might be more relevant than the views you’ll get here!

What ever you decide do it wholeheartedly and without regret.

Best of luck – obviously not an easy one.

We had a new baby a few months back, I moved and changed jobs while baby was due. Downsides:

– Loss of secure “easy” job
– Loss of paternity leave
– Further away from family & friends

Upsides:

– Now the baby is here, there is no way I’d have the time, energy & inclination to change jobs so I’m glad I jumped when I did
– Enjoy the new job more so I’m generally happier and I’m generally better for it
– Enjoy the new place we’re living, more than where we were before and we didn’t expect we would.
– It’s good not having family too close, as we got a bit overwhelmed with visitors when the baby was new. I think it will be more of an issue over coming years when child care would be useful.

Tough decision…..nah, easy decison!

Another job will come along.

+ 1

tiggs121 – Member
What is your wife’s opinion? Might be more relevant than the views you’ll get here!

What ever you decide do it wholeheartedly and without regret.

This is excellent advice, but I would add (as other have, above) that you need to consider overall quality of life. I took a management post a few years back that paid me almost 20k more than I had been earning. After a very hard year, my mum had a cancer scare, and then my dad was diagnosed with the real thing, and I realised I had not seen them for many months because of my work.

I stepped down from the post, took the massive pay cut, and got to spend more time with family before my dad died.

Looking back, I probably should have just stayed doing what I had been doing before the promotion in the first place.

IME, the family, and other quality-of-life matters, are of far more weight than career considerations. At least at this stage in life.

Are you working because you just love your work, or to provide for the things you want in life? Will you have time for the things you want in life? Or just a big bank balance that you haven’t time to spend? Or a bank balance you spend on childcare, cleaners, and ready meals because you haven’t time to do any of this stuff yourself? Does your wife plan to go back to work? If you both want to work, then family at most an hour away will probably be worth more than many salary increases.

I got the job I’d been wanting and working towards (and doing for some time without being paid for it) just before I went on maternity leave. 9 months later, it didn’t seem like such a great job any more. Unless you have one stay at home parent, the logistics alone of having a child will change things, nevermind all the emotional side of wanting to be with them, do the right thing for them etc. etc. I’m now about to start a very different sort of dream job, for a quarter of the pay I used to get, only a very short cycle commute form home and school – and I couldn’t be happier about it. Kids don’t need money and stuff, they need your time, and for their parents to be sane.

Good news, your ready for the next step in your Job.

If it was me, I think you are going to need a few conversations.

Things to understand, the world is changing. How are you on no sleep? Can you really take the step up in this year?

I’d have a chat with the offering company to see how else it could be made to work, or I’d pass it up.

Your ready for it so you’ll get it next time round.

LesgrandePotato and LesBijouPotato (aged 2.3yrs) who incidentally didn’t sleep for the first 15mths of his existance

New job, new house = 2 of the most stressful things you can do.
You said it was a difficult journey to get 7 weeks pregnant, I wouldn’t risk that for any job in the world.

I’ve got a 10 week old at home and only things I would say are:

Don’t under estimate how much time a new baby takes out of your day as they are time sinks (in a good way).

Don’t expect to come home and expect to flop/head out for a ride or run; when you get home its your job to look after the baby whilst your other half gets a break, so getting home at 8,9,10pm isn’t going to work.

Don’t under estimate how much sleep deprivation makes simple things difficult. So something that would take a few minutes, now only takes a few minutes more but you will have made mistakes, so you have to spend a bit more time checking things.

Don’t under estimate the importance of a good support network (friends and NCT groups) as when the baby refuses to feed, won’t sleep, won’t stop crying, has a weird rash your other half needs someone to speak to also *you* need to keep an eye on her to watch for post natal depression as she will have some bad days and baby blues.

New job + not at home + away from friends and family, seems like a risky move for her to me.

The moving a couple of hours away from your family is a bigee. The support of parents,and friends when you’re bringing kids up is absolutely invaluable. Especially for your other half, who might end up feeling really isolated without them, and you at work all day.

I’ll guarantee you this, once that nipper comes along, the very last thing on earth you’re going to want to do is to be working long, stressful hours. And your wife, whatever she says now, is not going to be happy about waving you off in the morning to see you at whatever time later, every day.

So… moving house with a pregnent wife? Maybe living away from home for a while? Moving away from all your support network? Having brought 2 kids up I’ll be honest with you. In your position I wouldn’t even be contemplating it! As soon as that baby comes along, work will be pretty far down your list of priorities, whatever you think now. Your priorities will be those two, and the hallucinations you’re experiencing due to sleep deprivation.

i can understand you wanting the job, but the timing could not be worse. Typical reallly innit?

not for all the tea in china.

But reading your post it kinda implies that your wife getting pregnant wasn’t that easy, so why did you go looking for a new job while this was occurring?

Hmm,

On the one hand, don’t underestimate that a new career challenge will bring to you and your family, though only you know how that can benefit.

I will echo what others have said, support network for a first child is a BIGG..EEE, NCT groups (which will be ne by the time you move) will either pay massive dividends or be ****. Despite some comments, i cannot for one moment give credit to those that think this is an easy decision as you also need to look at the bigger picture which many fail to do. Onyl you know how emotionally strong your wife is, how she is likely to cope on her own, likewise with you..I’ve known some couples who’ve breezed through parenthood and others who have struggled massively, putting a move a new job into the mix with that is frightful.

For what it’s worth, i was building our house whilst the missus was pregnant, i spent about 4 months of the later stages of pregnancy on a building site or at work until the early hours of the morning (i was being a cheap skate) and this put stress on alone, but big picture is we moved into a shiny new house..

The moving a couple of hours away from your family is a bigee. The support of parents,and friends when you’re bringing kids up is absolutely invaluable. Especially for your other half, who might end up feeling really isolated without them, and you at work all day.

This + 1000

With our first child we lived about 40 mins from my wife’s family and I was very close to work. It was a rural area we lived in and my wife really found it isolating and difficult.

Due to this we decided to move closer to family support. We ended up moving when my wife was around 4 months pregnant with our second, this was the single most stressful time in my life, by a distance. However, it was worth it, especially when our second was born. Even just knowing that family were 5 mins away made a huge difference to my wife and meant that we could enjoy life so much more.

Now they are a little older it’s good to be able to pop out, even just for half and hour, and have someone close by to mind the children.

My work is further away but it has been totally worth it for the extra support.

Firstly congratulations on your impending new addition to the family.

There is no way I’d even consider taking the new job in your position unless there was concerns about the stability of your current job. Even then my first port of call would be to look for alternatives locally.

New job + not at home + away from friends and family, seems like a risky move for her to me

This nails it…

If you are going to be working longer hours it is going to put a huge amount of stress on your partner at the same time as moving her away from her family support network. This is not a good thing, believe me… post natal depression is a horrible thing to go through for all concerned, and you want to do everything you possibly can not to set the conditions for it.

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Postnataldepression/Pages/Causes.aspx

To put this in perspective, we did the exact reverse of what you are considering 4 years ago, both leaving well paid careers, halving our joint income and moving 250 miles away to be closer to my wife’s family and in a better place to raise our family. It’s the best move we ever made.

Money and career isn’t everything and other opportunities will come, perhaps even better ones, at a time when you are better able to take advantage of them.

All, thank you very much for all the advice and experiences. I really appreciate both the honesty and the openness of people that have been through similar situations before.

My wife and I went for a big long walk this afternoon with the dogs and spent a good few hours talking this over. We’ve tried to weigh up the pros and cons of both staying and moving and there are lots of both, but it all seems to boil down to home/family first, job second.

I don’t want to put her under any extra strain right now, so I guess that the decision is pretty much making itself for me.

Thanks once again everyone.

I think you’ve reached the right decision. Family first, job second.

Just enjoy being a dad for a while. Oh, and good luck! Of all the different things I’ve done, they all come a distant second to fatherhood.

Right. Briefly, it took us 5.5 years from trying to our first arriving (7 weeks now). In that time I got generally bored and wanted something more from work and became very restless for more in the last 12 months, applied for some seriously well paid, stressful jobs which would have made my cv look awesome. Got offered 2, 6 figure salaries, put myself through a lot of stress trying to decide between my career and my family (it had taken so long I kept thinking something might go wrong with the birth etc,.. As we had been very unlucky to date). In the end I made the decision to stay put and make the most of it, now the little boy is here it is completely the right decision. No way could I have held down one of those roles, And provided the level of support my wife and boy need now. Job is still dull and not really going anyway, but I’ve got another 30 years before I retire….

Do not underestimate how your world is about to be turned upside down, it really is hard. Having a safe job is one less thing to worry about. I’ll be revisiting my situation in 6 months.

my wife and I are now seven weeks pregnant

when we successfully give birth

Can I suggest you do a bit of reading up on the whole pregnancy/birth thing. It’ll make it all much easier to understand/effect when she gets to the hospital in 7 months time. 🙄

On a more constructive note, childcare costs are a key thing. We had zero grandparental support with ours and it did make things tricky and cost a fortune. I think I’m right in saying that a £25k salary is needed to break even with childcare costs for two kids*. Assuming you’re higher tax bracket then I’m guessing that around £32k of your salary would go directly to childcare if you were to need to pay for childcare.

* looking ahead

I can’t believe those figures are right…

I’ll maybe double check.

We are planning on £1k per month childcare, with the new government scheme which is replacing the vouchers it is approx £800 reduction in takehome. Wife will try to go part time, I will try to do a compressed fortnight and hopefully nanny can do 2 days a month which will reduce those costs significantly. No new bikes for a few years

I did this; I moved to a more stressful job, further away, whilst wife was pregnant with our second child. A fully supported decision at the time, and it didn’t require a house move, just greatly increased hours and commuting from me.

It was the wrong decision.

I now live alone, (not just for the above reason, but certainly it contributed) and have my two small children (3 and 4 years old) to look after on all my days off, which I am very grateful for; I love them dearly and I am incredibly proud of them. I am however, exhausted