My Struggle Made Me Stumble Across My Strength

It is October 2012. I was a dietetic intern at Carle Hospital. I was only a few months away from being done with my master’s degree. I had already been offered a job as a Registered Dietitian at Carle per completion of my internship and my RD exam. At this point, I have completed 6 years of college and was so close to the end. 

Back up 5 months— it’s important to mention that we had our first son, Beau, May 15, 2012. Now fast forward to August of this same year and Trey and I started Beau in an in-home daycare when he was 13 weeks old so that I could start my dietetic internship. We placed him in the care of the wife of someone that Trey worked closely with for years at the time. He would only be there three days a week from 7AM- 2:30PM. We opted to do this because she had been doing in-home daycare for years, had 5 children of her own, and was known to be a good, religious woman. 

After only a month or so I couldn’t help but feel something was off.  Beau would come home completely exhausted, but her daily note would say that he had slept 3 hours from 11:00AM-2:00PM daily. But then he would come home and sleep in one of our arms for 2-3 hours or until dinner.  I told Trey, “something feels off.” So I would call her and ask her about his day. I was open and honest about my concern that he doesn’t even sleep 2-3 hours at night- how is he sleeping for 3 solid hours at the same time every single day at her house? 

Prior to starting him in her daycare, we had asked her to be honest if he cried a lot and to please never ever let him cry himself to sleep. It was simply something we did not believe in.  Every time I called she reassured me that he truly was sleeping that whole time and that she used this magical sleep sack to accomplish this.  I had asked her to not use a sleep velcro wrap because he was rolling like crazy.  She agreed with me on that as well.  She honestly really reassured me that everything was fine and I truly started to think, “well…. Maybe I can’t ever get Beau on a schedule at home or to sleep at night because I’m a new mom? I mean this woman does have 5 of her own kids and cares for other people’s kids all of the time?” So a little self-doubt started in when I otherwise had thus far felt like a really good first-time mama. 

So now back to October 2012 – I got off of work unexpectedly at lunch one day because my overseeing director for my internship was sick. I thought, “YAY! I get to go get my baby boy early and I’ll get to talk to her and see him in his sleep sack/sleep situation!”  It is important to note that Trey did all of the drop-offs and pick-ups because the daycare was on his way to work. So I had never been able to see this sleep sack situation and was truly excited to see it and talk to her in person so I could learn her magical ways. I’m saying this because I didn’t have a deviant idea at all when heading to his daycare – only excited that I would get to see it all for myself and hopefully learn a thing or two. 

To my unfortunate surprise, that is not how the next 10 minutes unfolded.  Being a young 23-year-old new mom, the next few minutes felt much like an out-of-body experience in a horror movie.

I walked up to the house cheerfully. I knocked oh so lightly on the front door because it was the middle of nap time. I did not want to be the annoying mom that woke all of the sleeping children up, plus I wanted to chat one on one with our provider.  When I knocked on the front door it opened a bit, because it was not actually latched.  No biggie, so I whisper-shouted her name into the house. After all, I didn’t want to startle her in her own home. I’m still whisper-shouting her name into the house and now standing right inside the front door. 

I look around the house and I see her lying down on the couch to the left in the living room.  So I tiptoed over still whisper-shouting her name, thinking, maybe she can’t hear me and is just resting watching TV? Even though I must say I could not hear a TV, but I could hear distant crying coming from the right of the front door down the hallway.  To my dismay she was asleep.  My heart started racing a bit.  I thought, “Oh my God…. She’s asleep. Does she always do this? Is she just extra tired today and this was a first-time instance and an accident? And I’m just, unfortunately, witnessing it? Where is Beau? Is HE the one I hear screaming from a distance?”

So I start toward the hallway briskly, getting closer to the crying.  I open the first door on the right only to find 2-3 diapered children standing there crying.  I didn’t see Beau.  I opened the next door and found 2-3 more diapered children crying in the room.  At this point, my heart is about to pound out of my chest.  The provider is sleeping on her living room couch and I’m now uninvited and searching through her house for my baby.  I felt like I may throw up.

I opened the next door and there were FOUR fans blowing on Beau in a pack and play. He was swaddled in not one, but TWO velcro sleep wraps and was screaming so hard he was red and purple in the face.  He was sweating terribly. I knock the fans over and out of the way and swoop him up. I’m just mumbling, “Oh my God Beau, I’m so sorry.  Mommy is so sorry.  I’m so sorry.  I’ll get you out of here.  Don’t worry, we aren’t coming back.”

I’m unswaddling him as fast as I can and frantically wiping his tears. I turn around and in the hall is his daycare provider, bloodshot wide-eyed and looking out of place and confused. She knew she was in trouble. She was speechless.  All I could see was red.  I was shaking and thought I may kill this woman in her own home. All I could say was “GET. OUT. OF MY. WAY.”

She stepped aside and I move into the hallway quickly holding Beau as close as I can to my chest and still reassuring him.  He is sniffling so hard it jolts his whole body.  I grab his car seat and bag by the front door and went to my car as quickly as I could.  I was shaking so hard when I got to my car I was not sure I was even going to be able to buckle him into his car seat.  Honestly buckling him into his car seat and restraining him into anything after seeing him be tightly swaddled in two velcro swaddle wraps only minutes before and seeing how upset he was felt like pure torture. 

I called my husband hysterically once I was on my way home.  He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.  He did not want to believe it. This was someone he knew well and so of course he was in shock. 

I got home and I just held him and broke down and cried with him in my arms. Now this was not just a little cry, this was like a big ugly crushed soul cry.  I felt broken.  How could I put my most precious belonging in the care of a monster? I started calculating the number of days he had been in her care and how many hours he had likely been put through this and the thought was sickening.  Suddenly everything I was working towards for my career felt so pointless.  I suddenly questioned my future.  “I’m not going back” is what I kept telling myself.  No one can watch him – only me. I can’t trust anyone.

Now, I’ll have you know… I did go back. I did finish my internship and worked as an RD for a short amount of time, but only my sister-in-law and my mom were watching him.  Randomly if they could not I would ask a friend to watch him for a day here or there.  I knew this was not something that we could carry out long-term though. People were only helping us on their days off work because they knew I was pretty broken up about what had happened in October of 2012.  

In June 2013 I found out I was pregnant with Brinley, and Beau was 13 months now. I looked at Trey one night and I said, “I want to quit my job and do in-home daycare”.  You have to know, this took some serious kahunas for me to spit this sentence out, and it was said with a lump in my throat. NOW, there is nothing wrong with in-home daycare, BUT I knew this would feel like a bad move in Trey’s eyes.  He is super anal about our home. Not to mention, I had just finished 6 years of college.  There was a new debt that went with this degree and my new job at Carle paid better than I had ever been paid.  But, Trey knew my heart was in the right place… it was with my Beau and his future sibling.  So I did it! I quit my job to start an in-home daycare.  

That was the first day of choosing a passionate life over a secure one.  I should have been so scared driving away from Carle that day.  I mean seriously… what had I just worked so hard for over the last 6 years? To not do this career? WHAT IS HAPPENING…. But I had zero fear.  I had prayed so hard about this. I knew in my heart that being a mom and being there for my kids was more important than anything else at this point in my life.  Shoot, if they didn’t need me for me, I needed it for them.  Does that make sense? I was so broken over the October 2012 situation that I knew I was never going to be able to trust anyone again. 

So Summer 2013 through Summer 2014, I was loving what I was doing.  I truly was loving doing in-home daycare.  Loving every second of it.  I traded business clothes for comfy clothes. I traded career stress for finger painting and playing in the yard with Beau and his newfound buddies.  I also filled a very unique niche.  Being a Registered Dietitian I had a 4-year boy that was Type 1 Diabetic and had an insulin pump. I had a boy with a severe peanut allergy.  Last, but not least I had three sisters that were allergic to peanuts, beef, dairy, and soy. It was beautiful.  I was meant to be their provider. I thought, “you know what? This may not make sense to anyone else, but it makes total sense to me.  That’s all that matters.”

June 2014, Brinley is now 4 months old and Beau is 2 years old. This month we moved into a new-to-us home! So exciting, right? Yes, except this home was entirely too expensive for our budget, but it felt like the right choice at the time.  So we did it! Just like young idiots do….haha. 

Well, what happens when you are suddenly incredibly strapped? You sink… or you swim! Every day I would find myself searching and searching for something that made more money. Of course, my logical side kept saying “Go back to Carle… use your degree… you will make way more money.”  But then I would look down at my sleeping Brinley in my arms and tear up at the thought of giving this up.  All I ever wanted to be was a mom. I know most women need that break from their kids.  They need that adult work life separate from their kids… I was not that woman. I could be around my kids all of the time and couldn’t be happier.  I was made for this life. However, this life was not something we could afford.  

My DCFS rep stopped by one day to check in on my in-home daycare and she noticed all of the artwork everywhere that the kids had been doing that day.  I sent the kids outside to play in the fenced-in backyard and she and I stepped outside with them. 

Now, when GOD wants you to hear something and you’re not listening to him, I fully believe he will send someone to you with the message you need to hear.  So I’m chatting with her about life and we randomly, but quickly got into a deep conversation and I sort of blabbed my heart to her about where I was sitting. Sitting in a confused slump.  I loved what I was doing, but felt it was not sustainable. On one hand we “needed” the bigger home for our growing family that she was visiting for the first time, but felt it was a stupid choice, because now I may have to go back to a career that I did not want to return to.  She said, “You should open a preschool. You love what you’re doing with these kids. Your degree is fitting and you would qualify as a director. I would assume it would offer more financial freedom to you too? I’m not sure though.” 

That one conversation lit off a cascade of fireworks over the next several weeks.  Every free moment I found myself googling and searching and educating myself about how to open a preschool.  Once I had enough grounds to think this was truly a wonderful idea I approached Trey with my plan.  He said, “welllllll it sounds great! BUT where in the hell will we open something like this? AND did you forget…. We’re broke.  It takes money to open something like that.” One thing to note about Trey and I: he is grounded and realistic. I am a dreamer and my head is always in the clouds.  That is why we are a great pair! Determined to not let those very real, but depressing questions break my new vision… I set back on a journey to figure out how we could do it. 

So, in true me fashion, I told my parents our new vision. My dad of course played devil’s advocate for me and gave me the tough love I needed to ground me.  Sometimes I get such big ideas I can get a little carried away (ha!). So he played that hard card and gave me a comforting hug to send me on my way after our discussion.  Enough real words to make me thoughtful, but not too much to discourage me. My mom however swooped in right where I was and dreamt with me. “If you can dream it babygirl, you can do it!” They’re the perfect parenting balance.  Opposites are so attractive. 

Fast forward a couple of months and we were sitting at our town’s local board meeting to ask for permission to not demolish the town’s old community center. We asked them to please allow it to be up for bid so that we could possibly afford our new dream of opening a preschool.  All we wanted was two rooms out of the building.  The village said if it went for bid, then it would be for the entire 4,000 square foot building. I might add here, the other 3,000 square feet that we didn’t want were in rough condition.  

The building went up for bid. We bid, hoped, and prayed, and we were told that our dream was coming true. We were set up to remodel the space and open Fisher’s first ever preschool.  My heart was lit on fire.  Suddenly all of the terrible things that happened up to this moment that broke me two years before, was suddenly possibly my best guiding light.  Lets be serious – I am a very determined woman.  If I have a goal in mind, I will achieve it.  So nothing was going to knock me off my path of being a Registered Dietitian and working a clinical career. Nothing! So I do believe, that daycare disaster was put in my way on purpose. My struggle two years before, led me to my strength…working with children and their families. 

Had that never happened to our family, I would likely still be a clinical RD to this day.  However the story isn’t over yet… as you know we run child care centers, not a two classroom preschool as we originally sought out to do.  So June of 2015, we opened our two-classroom preschool for only 3-5-year-olds.  We could take only 20 children.  It was perfect.  Truly a dream come true…. except that we now were financially responsible for 3,000 extra square feet.  Well, guess what, my perfect little financial plan did not account for that extra space to heat, to cool, to maintain, etc.  Suddenly, for the second time in a year, we had bit off more than we could chew financially.  Now, we are in a house we cannot afford and we have worked night and day to open up a business that will not financially survive as well, due to the extra space tacked onto it.  

Refusing to be defeated, Trey and I decided we would need to sell our home and move back to our rental house. It felt like a step in the wrong direction. However, we knew it was best.  We sold our new-to-us home and to our pleasant surprise, we profited on it!! Wow! A move in the right direction.  The first week back in our old home brought on a happier state of mind.  What a joy it was to fill our fridge for the first time in over two years without cringing.  The simple pleasure of having a fridge full of food, wow. 

Back to the drawing boards though, on how to make our new (unwanted) space attached to our preschool work financially.  It came to me quickly when our preschool parents started asking us if we would ever take all ages so that they could also send their other kids to our location.  Light bulb! There it was…. We would become a child care center for all ages.  So we started drawing the space on paper in a new light and immediately started demolishing the current space.  We knocked down every wall and tore all of the drywall down so that we could start over.  This was again, late nights— many nights of putting Beau and Brinley to sleep on the floor in the corner so we could stay even later to work on the space. We could not get it done fast enough as we were sometimes supplementing our 1-2 employees’ paychecks with money from Trey’s full-time job’s paycheck to make things balance out.  That means I was bringing in $0 for our family, but working non-stop. But when working for your dream, you sometimes have to go through what I call the slingshot effect.  You get yanked backward as far as you think you can go before you feel you might break until the launch happens.  

It took until about February of 2016 until we were breaking even.  I remember the day I looked at Trey and said, “We made .02 cents this week!!!” Truly so excited.  Every penny counts. Around October of 2016, I would say was when we felt the full launch of the slingshot effect for the first time, which was good because we had our third child, Bexley, in July of that year! Now living in the home that we thought was too small for two kids, we were living in with three kids. Smart, right? Ha! Again, working on the dream family, and dream job isn’t always easy, but you have to stick to the plan and believe in it! 

Now, fast forward four and half years, in Spring of 2021, living in our dream home, with our four kids, doing our dream work within our third center, and with more than enough food in our fridge… I can say: sometimes the bad things that happen in our lives put us directly on the path to the best things that will ever happen to us.  Believe it.  Stick to your plan, no matter the hurdles you have to jump over.  Stay headstrong, pray when you feel weak, confide in only a few you can trust, and remember the idea of the slingshot effect. It does not feel good during the pullback, but the flight of the launch is worth it. 

Doesn’t it always seem to be the last key on the ring that opens the door? Don’t give up.

– Maria