Child Care

Who knew child care was so much? Seems the day care center of my choice is going to put us back over 18K for the first year of Zit's life. Which is something we realistically cannot afford. We might as well send Zit to college at that rate.

So now comes the hard part -- trying to figure out how to pay for someone else to raise our baby, keep our condo, our sanity and not resent each other in the end. Luckily there are three free referral services within Alameda County, and my work provides this same type of service. So I started with work first, made some more inquiries with day care centers that I have a feeling will cost about the same as my first choice, but what the hey, might as well try, and then we move on to the other referral services. My biggest fear is having to put Zit in an in-home day care, where one lady can take care of 3 infants, her own child under a certain age PLUS two kids (CA law deems this okay), but supposedly this is the cheaper way to go.

Now I have to look into loans just in case we can't afford day care in general because I don't know where the extra money would come from. I'm not sure if you can even get a loan for day care. What's your collateral? Your baby?

If a loan isn't a possibility, then we'll have to consider selling our condo, which will break my heart because of the money we've put into it plus I know we will never buy something again for a long, long time, if we even do. There's something in me that doesn't like the prospect of renting my whole life.

And, as with all major decisions, this one is causing strife and spewing negativity in our lives, which is doing me no good, but I should be used to it by now. I just want the best for Zit at the moment, although I've been told I should be taking care of myself. Wouldn't that be nice.