As for that thing that I hinted at yesterday, which I said affected Dave more than me? Well, that turned out to have a very different outcome than what I was expecting.

The big secret was that Dave has started looking for a new job. His company is in the middle of a merger, he hasn’t been happy with his role there for a while and it wasn’t showing signs of improvement – in fact, it looked like things were only going to get worse after the merger – and it just seemed like the right time to move on. This was something that we had talked about months ago, and he’d been studying up on a lot of new technologies in his field so that he would be well-versed when it came time to start doing interviews.

As luck would have it, he started shopping his resume around last Friday, and over the next few days he was absolutely inundated with interview possibilities. (What can I say, I married a smarty-pants with a very impressive resume.) Some of the prospects seem quite promising, which is why this has been taking up a lot of our thoughts.

The catch that I personally wasn’t expecting? Dave got laid off from his current job yesterday. I think he had an idea that it was coming, but it certainly surprised me. It’s not a reflection on him at all, it’s just part of the whole “restructuring” thing that they’re doing as part of the company merger. Dave’s boss is basically a good guy, and he knows that I’m 7 months pregnant, and I think he felt a bit guilty for laying Dave off right before the holidays when we have a baby on the way. So the good news is that he got a really kick-ass severance package. Financially, we should be ok for quite some time. In fact, the way things are progressing with Dave’s job search, it looks like he’ll get an offer long before we have to start worrying about money.

So really, it’s not that bad, and considering my worrywart tendencies, I’m surprisingly calm about the whole thing. I’m kind of at peace with the idea that everything will work out for the best, and that we’ll end up wherever we’re supposed to be.

Which reminds me: Some of those promising job prospects are local, and obviously, those are the ones that I’m rooting for. (There’s one in particular that I have a good feeling about, so we’ll have to wait & see what happens there.) But some of them aren’t, and the non-local jobs seem to be in California for the most part. Which, ok, I love Seattle and I’d really like to stay here, but if we have to move, then that’s what we’ll do. The idea of getting our house ready to put on the market in the next few months, not to mention the idea of moving out-of-state with a newborn? That’s a bit stressful. But it’s manageable.

My attitude toward this is all about weighing our respective goals: I want to be able to stay home with the baby for at least the first 6 months (the first year, if possible). In order for that to happen, Dave needs to have a job where he’s happy, so that he doesn’t feel pressured into some kind of “sole breadwinner” role. I’d feel guilty for putting him in that position, he’d feel resentful toward me and the baby, and it just wouldn’t work. Yes, we could compromise – he could take a lesser-paying local job, I could go back to work full-time, and we could put the baby in day care. And I know that situation works out beautifully for a lot of families, but it’s not what either of us wants.

So if this all boils down to him taking a job in California, so that he’s happy and we’re financially able to allow me to stay home with the baby? Well… look out, California.