FIFO

As you may have noticed at the top of this blog it says 'a look at the FIFO life', yes we are a FIFO family, what the hell is FIFO???? Fly In Fly Out, refers to the type of job my husband S has. Our family is based in Melbourne and S works in a remote iron ore mine in the Pilbara W.A, it takes him a whole day of travel just to get to and from work.
We jumped into this lifestyle not quite 2 and a half years ago when our first babe was just 7 month old. S had always wanted to do it, it had been his career dream since he was 17, and I guess it was a mix of me feeling secure enough in our relationship and being sick of hearing him talk about it, but I was finally on board too.
I not going to go on and on about how fantastic it is and how great it has been for our family finically, both are true for us, but the the real truth is that it is hard work for everyone involved!  It's hard work for S who is actually doing hard labour in 13 hours shifts for 14 day straight, being separated from his wife, and two beautiful children, missing out of little family events like taking the girl to the zoo twilight concert of beauty and the beast. It's hard work for me, the stay at home mum, whose life in consumed with feeding, entertaining and cleaning up after two very active toddlers, without any knock off time. It is hard for my parents who are my rocks when S is away at work, they live about 800 meter around the corner and make themselves available for me night and day, always just a phone call away if someone is uncontrollable crying, has a raging temp, won't take a bottle or if I just need a shower because I didn't get to have one the day before.
Yes somedays I feel like a single parent, I feel like I'm doing it all alone, but I'm always quick to remind myself that I'm actually blessed, we have a good income that allows me to stay home with my babies while they are so little, we are a great family dynamic which seems to thrive off this lifestyle.
Just the other day I bumped into someone who I hadn't seen in about 3 or so years and when chatting to her about what S does and how often he is away she said something that no one else has said to me, it wasn't the usual 'how long are you going to do that for?, it can't be good for you relationship' type of comment, she simply said 'it would keep things fresh in your relationship'. It made me smile because that is exactly how I feel.  We miss each other fiercely while he is at work, even with Skype and phone calls, so when he arrives home I get butterflies waiting for him to get off the plane, and for the next 6 days we are extremely affectionate toward each other, which our girls love to see and love getting involved in a family cuddle on the couch. Our marriage is FRESH.
So to answer the question most people ask….We are going to keep doing FIFO until it doesn't feel right for our family anymore, when the bad out weights the good. But for now it just a good fit for us.