Domestic Helper

As working couple, we need to hire domestic helper to take care our baby during the day. We can hire fulltime or part-time maid or babysitter. Being brought up in Indonesia with a full time maid, we decided to hire Indonesian maid. The idea that our baby will be taken care of a stranger is quite devastating. I do worship a mother who gives up career for their little one however I thought that I’ll be a better mother if I do have a career outside the house.
Back to Maid problem, we contacted maid agency in Kembangan based on my friend experience. They hired a maid and had no problem so far. we went there 3 wks back and chose 1 from a stack of CVs. We chose Mbak Eka because she looks friendly and strong - Arya is quite big, we need a strong lady to carry him around. after interviewing her via phone, we decided to take her. She was still in Indonesia at that time. The maid agency will take care everything, we just need to pay $488 (experience maid) or $388 for agency fee.
If we hire a maid, we need to pay agency fee, insurance, monthly salary and monthly gov't levy. The $100 insurance is to pay the gov't penalty if the maid is pregnant or running away. The minimum amount of their monthly salary is around $260-$280. Philippinos gets higher salary because they are more educated. Monthly gov't levy for us - permanent residence - is $295. For first month, we need to pay around $1000 to get a maid.
$280 is quite high for Indonesian maid. For comparison, I got almost the same when I worked as a temp in PwC (5 yrs back) and salary for the maid is around $70-$100.
I got a call from the agency yesterday that my candidate failed the english test (6 times) so she can't work in Singapore...Urgh...Need to find a new candidate. My 2 mths maternity leave is ending soon.