About to massively raid non-retirement savings/investments.

We need 2 incomes to balance our budget. I make around 45% of the family's take home pay.

And we finally dared to try for our second (and most likely last) baby and can't wait to meet her in September!!!

I want to do a crazy thing and take 2 years out of workforce. That sounds very scary (career wise and otherwise). But this is something I've been contemplating for a while.

To give this gift of time to my family and my kids, to reduce the hectic pace of life, even if for a set amount of time have a different experience.

It is not an easy choice - these savings are a cumulative product of a lot of years and represent our progress. Also, we live in a junior 4 apartment, and as baby gets older, would want to upgrade to her having her own room, even if a small one. And middle school in our area is currently not good. So we may look at option of moving to Scarsdale in 4 years (really don't like the idea, but #1 school district in the nation, and housing prices/property taxes reflect that).

We have always been planners (that is why we even have that option, due to years of savings). And these are uncharted waters. But with this being a last baby (I don't think we can afford more wich childcare costs - I just paid 5K for 5 weeks of summer camp, and all these things are going to double), this is probably my only chance to do this, and experience life where time is not the most scarce resource.