Greetings all! Some of you may know my husband who posts here as FireLane. I registered because I'd like the opinion of other Mustachian-minded folks.
I've been at my company for eleven years. I work at a medium sized non-profit. The pay is good and the benefits are excellent. I get a generous amount of paid time off and took a 16 week maternity leave after the birth of our son - 6 of which was paid in full by my company, I used 4 weeks of my saved PTO and the remaining time was half pay from a company insurance plan. The culture of my company is one not often found in 2017 - workers are treated with respect (the VP will come around and tell people to go home if there's a snowstorm so people don't get injured walking or driving on the ice) and people for the most part genuinely like each other.
I work on a close knit team with 6 other people. My first day on the job, at least three people from other departments told me I would be working on the best team with the best boss at my company. They were right. My boss is the best person I have ever worked for - a professional mentor, extremely intelligent and competent and also an incredibly compassionate person. I like my co-workers. We don't socialize outside work, aside from the occasional networking dinners we host at conferences but we get along well and there's an ethic of taking care of each other. We have attended funerals when a team member lost a parent - and they threw me an amazing and generous baby shower to celebrate my the birth of my son.
The problem: We might be ready for retirement at the exact date one of my other co-workers is planning to retire. This person announced they would be retiring in August 2019. Our plan is to retire at the end of 2020 but if the market stays up we could be ready at the end of 2019. Also possible - if we decide to have a second child. we'd probably start trying in fall of next year, and if I got pregnant right away (I didn't the first time, but you never know!) it would be just in time for a summer 2019 baby. If this happened I would not return to work, because I don't think it would be fair to come back for a few months and then quit. I'd want to give as much notice as possible.
I'm already feeling guilty that I might be leaving at the same time as another member of my team. It's going to make things very difficult for everyone else. Four people split my job while I was on maternity leave, and while I (suffering from imposter syndrome) was afraid that they would realize how little work and how easy my job is - the fact is everyone was very glad when I came back so they didn't have to cover my responsibilities anymore. Leaving at the same time as another team member is going to put people I respect and care about in a very unpleasant situation until they can find and train two people up to speed.
I'm not sure how much I should let this influence our plans. We are in no rush to have a second kid so we could postpone TTC until the beginning of 2020. Even if I don't get pregnant, and if we do hit our FIRE goal early, I could choose to work another year to make things easier. Am I being a considerate colleague and friend for even thinking about this? Or is this something I shouldn't be thinking about at all?