It was the morning of my first day back. It was like the first day of school again – I had my outfit picked out, my lunch was packed the night before, my breakfast bar ready to go, and I didn’t get a lot of sleep (but that was mostly because Kallie decided that whole “sleeping through the night thing” wasn’t for her anymore). The first of many freezer meals was in the crockpot and Kallie’s diaper bag was fully stocked, with meticulously pumped breast milk in the fridge. She was asleep which I so appreciated so I didn’t feel like I was “leaving” her.

When I got to work, it was like I had never left but also like my first day all coupled into one. I sat down to over 2,000 emails, a team that was ready to go, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe, let alone know where to start. And right when I started to feel like I was making some progress into my black hole of emails, I had to go and pump. In a suit. In a tiny room. With an apparatus attached to me making me feel all sorts of professional. Ironically enough, I learned to enjoy this time because it was my solitary break where I could take a deep breath, check up on Kallie, and gear up to go again.

The schedule I worked out with my boss of me coming in before the sun even thought of waking up and leaving a little bit early was working out great. Kallie would take 2 naps during the time I was away so I didn’t feel I was missing as much. We were fortunate enough to have my wonderful sister in law and her two very attentive littles watch her Monday, Wednesday, Friday; my mom had her on Tuesdays and my mother in law on Thursdays. They all would dutifully send me multiple pictures throughout the day so I could see my little sweetie. I never had to worry about if she was being taken care of but my heart would still yearn for her.

While I was at work, there was so much going on and I would get so absorbed into my day-to-day that it was able to thankfully take my mind off of me being away from my baby. When I got in my car, I would long to be with her and rush home to do so. I would sometimes feel guilty if I caught myself not thinking about her every second – did this make me a bad mom? I knew she was being taken care of so I would let my mind focus on my task at hand – was this acceptable now that I was a mom?

After my first full week of being back, I was laying with Kallie in our front room and I just started bawling. I had held it together all week and couldn’t hold it in any longer. Josh came in, noticed the influx of tears, and asked if I was doing OK. To which, I responded, “it’s just so nice to be with her all day again.” And it was. It gave me a whole new appreciation for the weekends but also made me wonder how I was going to be able to do that same whirlwind of a week again. Of trying to be everything bundled into one.

As hard as it was at the beginning, the good news is, things got better. I knew Kallie was getting the full love and attention she needed every single day. That was the most important thing for me – that she was being taken care of with love. This allowed me to focus on my day while I was at work and then focus on her when I got home. The funny thing is, my performance actually increased and a new fire was built inside of me. If I was going to be away from Kallie, I was going to make sure it was worth it and that I thoroughly enjoyed it.

We slowly developed our “new normal”. She got to bond with and enjoy time with her daddy in the morning from when she woke up until when he would drop her off. Josh cherishes his time with her and they have formed a great bond because of it. She then would get to go play with her cousins, aunt, and grandmas and develop lasting relationships. I would pick her up and we would play together the rest of the night. When I was with her, my phone would go away, and I would just focus on Kallie and have quality time with my sweetie pie.

  

    
   
How was your experience in going back to work? Were you able to hold it together longer than me? Did you have any of the mommy guilt – or what causes you to have mommy guilt now? What works for you as your “new normal”?

Going Back to Work

Welcome back everyone (i.e. mom and Josh)! I’m glad you both (I mean all) decided to join me again! Going back to work after having a baby is an interesting time that played with my emotions 100 times more than I thought that it would. There are quite a few side stories that are involved in my going back to work story. Due to that, this will be a 3 part continuing post: I’m Pregnant, I’m a Mom, I’m an employee…I mean mom…I mean – how does this work? The first couple of weeks in the process of going back to work were some of the most emotionally interesting weeks of my career. Stay tuned

Part 1: I’m Pregnant.

I found out I was pregnant on December 2, 2013. Once Josh and I had gotten over the initial shock and excitement of “holy [crap] we are having a baby” my mind went straight to “holy [crap] I’m going to have to tell my work at some point that I am pregnant.”

Why was I so nervous? This was supposed to be one of the most exciting times in my life and part of it was foreshadowed by my fear of telling work. My boss was a very understanding guy, he had 3 kids of his own, and my coworkers had kids, yet I had built up this intrinsic fear of divulging my new secret. My biggest fear was that once I told them I was pregnant, they would think I was going to slack off or do any less of a job. I was nervous to tell my clients and my candidates I was going to be out of commission for a couple of months and risking the fact that they might use a competitor. Another reason I was nervous was because we had just come off of a couple bad months and I needed to make sure I had a few good months of “wins” so they knew our performance was market related and not because I was pregnant. Luckily we had growth in January and February or else my belly growth would have given me away by March. I didn’t tell my work until I was 16 weeks along (thank heavens flowy shirts are in) but it was finally dooms day: the day of confession.

I was SO nervous to tell my boss. I requested a meeting, we walked in, I sat him down, looked him square in the eyes, and just blurted it out. There was no eloquence or even the luxury of small talk before I dove into it; just a straight “I’m pregnant.” And, much to my surprise, he was extremely supportive. I wanted to make sure he knew I was going to be coming back to work and he listened to my rehearsed case sincerely. I thought I had said all of the right things and I sure was convinced I was coming back and that I had deduced the perfect re-entrance plan. Once I finally let him get a word in, he said “I’ve been a manager for a lot of years and people always have a plan, but we will figure it out after you have the baby. I’m not saying you won’t come back but things change once you have a baby.” I assured him that I would be back even before my allotted maternity leave was over. I wanted to work out every detail and figure out my schedule – I could work two days from home, or have flex hours or this, or that. He would have none of it until after the baby came. I like to plan. I like to have everything in order and he was making this very difficult for me. The only concrete thing he left me with was that if for some reason after I had my baby and was deciding not to come back, I had to promise to let him know as soon as possible so he could start to find a replacement. Again, I told him that wouldn’t be an issue and that I was going to be back, but I could tell he still wasn’t fully convinced and wouldn’t be until I was back in my seat.

How did telling your work go (whether you were planning on coming back or not)? Did you work it up in your head like I did? Was your work supportive? Let me hear your story!