After a whopping 14 months off on maternity leave it was time to return to work. My life had changed unrecognisable over the last year - my priorities, my outlook, what I considered important and what I didn’t. I was more focused on settling Erin into nursery than worrying too much about it. Before I left work was OK. I never loved it, but never hated it either. It was a pretty good job with many perks such as flexible working hours and working from home days, although I still thoroughly enjoyed my days off and weekends. I was very excited about the prospect of not going there for 14 months when I was pregnant. 14 months felt like so long and this having a baby malarkey seemed such a massive, all consuming deal I wondered if I’d ever go back. After all it seemed that the world continued to turn, time ticked over and it was time to go back. No I hadn’t won the lotto or any day time TV competitions in order not to.
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| Dolly Parton in working 9 - 5 |
I would see people that I hadn’t seen for a while so wanted to look good. What you want is – "welcome back", but more importantly, “you look great!”. It's like seeing anyone you haven’t seen for a while, you don’t want them to think, "fucking hell what has happened to Janet’’. This involved buying some good under eye cream and doing a few exercise classes.
I had been mostly in a totally different social environment for over a year, where you can launch into conversations at baby play groups with total strangers about poohs and sore nipples. Getting used to the old social acceptabilities of a professional working environment again took some concentration - not announcing to my colleagues that I am going for a pooh or that Erin has been constipated for 3 days or adjusting my bra at my desk. The sound track to my life was now wind the bobbin up and sleeping bunnies so these were regularly on repeat in my head during team meetings or important phone calls.
I had been mostly in a totally different social environment for over a year, where you can launch into conversations at baby play groups with total strangers about poohs and sore nipples. Getting used to the old social acceptabilities of a professional working environment again took some concentration - not announcing to my colleagues that I am going for a pooh or that Erin has been constipated for 3 days or adjusting my bra at my desk. The sound track to my life was now wind the bobbin up and sleeping bunnies so these were regularly on repeat in my head during team meetings or important phone calls.
Even though I had got used to the amount of time it now took to leave the house, it still took some adapting to the military style organisation required in the mornings to a tighter time scale getting myself and Erin ready and over to nursery and then myself over to work.
Another initial difficulty was getting used to doing a full day in the office again. On occasions in the afternoons if I was tired and had lost the concentration needed to be really productive I would think I should probably just go. It was really odd to get used to the fact that I had to stay until the end of the day even if I didn’t feel like it.
Things I never appreciated about work until after maternity leave:
- going to the toilet on my own
- eating when I was hungry
- using my brain
- drinking numerous hot drinks at my leisure - some in the form of fancy takeaway ones - what decadence it is to be in the working (civilised) world again!
- LUNCH BREAKS! Time to browse shops, have a nice lunch out, go to the gym or perhaps look at the internet - in the middle of the day!
- listening to music or the radio while working
- sitting down for long periods of time
- having adult conversations not about sleep, weaning, milk, teething, poohing, crawling, walking, talking
Read more....
The 10 stages of tiredness
Read a letter I wrote to my daughter
Managing my post baby holiday expectations
Expect the unexpected when expecting
On my experience of Baby Brain
Having a big baby
My top 5 parenting fails during the first year
What I used to fantasise about before I had a baby compared to what I fantasise about now
How I'm turning into my parents
My post pregnancy identity crisis
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