{Photo from my first day back at work & Elodie's first day at daycare!}
Going into maternity leave, I wasn’t really sure how I would
feel about being home full-time with my little one. I’m an extremely social
person, I love to chat and be around people, but do find that I need my alone
time at the end of the day to recharge. Part of me thought that I might not
even like being home all day every day as I might go stir crazy, or always
intend to get out and do things, but never muster the energy to get out of my
PJs and actually do so.
To my surprise, I really thrived on maternity leave. I got
into my own little routine, and found myself almost being too social at times
(I was really lucky and was on maternity leave at the same time as a lot of
great friends. It was one of my absolute favorite summers of my life!). I got
into the swing of being a stay-at-home mama, and found true happiness and joy
in keeping our home in order, cleaning, cooking and hanging with my bebe. For
the record, Corey never expected me to do anything but care for Elodie and
would never give me grief if he came home to a disastrous house (which, let’s
be honest, happened probably a lot!), it just made me happier to be in a clean
house! Anyway, point is, I really liked being on maternity leave.
Fast forward just about five months and it was time for me
to go back to work. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, there were lots and lots of
tears (most came the night before going back and in the immediate weeks
thereafter). It all just felt silly. I had a baby, only to leave her with
someone else 8+ hours a day? And I’d hardly get any time to hang out with her
at night as we have a pretty yucky commute and she has an early bedtime. I went
from spending every waking moment with Elodie to spending mere hours, sometimes
minutes, home with her each day. It killed me.
To make matters worse, Elodie did not take to daycare well.
I often got reports that she was sad and fussy all day, and cried a lot. This
coming from a baby who seriously never cried at home. It broke my heart. She
was clearly unhappy.
There were definitely moments I had irrational thoughts
about leaving my job to stay home with Elodie. I thought long and hard about
the role I wanted my career to play in my life, and in our children’s lives. I
went back and forth. What job could be more important than being a mother? What
would Elodie think of me if I didn’t work? Would she respect me? Would she
resent me?
There’s no doubt that both options would be rewarding and
difficult in their own ways. I have SO much respect for stay-at-home mothers.
Honestly, that’s a way harder job than what I do day-to-day! And working
mothers have it hard – they spend their days away from their littles. Even if
working mothers love their jobs, they can often feel torn between their two
roles. There really is no perfect solution for this dilemma, and it is incredibly personal.
Luckily I didn’t make any brash decisions in those early
weeks back. I found my groove at work again and as soon as Elodie started
crawling at six months, she became a much happier baby at daycare. Now, six months into daycare, Elodie is thriving – she adores her teachers and has
so much fun playing with her baby friends and all the awesome toys they have in
her classroom. I miss her like crazy all day, but I’m lucky that my company has
daycare on-site, so if I’m really having withdrawals (um, every day!) I can pop
in and say hello. It’s proven to be a really good balance for us all.
So if you’re a new mama already dreading going back to work,
an expectant woman wondering how she’s going to navigate the waters of being a
working mother, or anyone who’s given any thought to how on earth she’ll
balance a career, marriage and motherhood, I hope sharing my experience with
you has helped. We’re all bound to choose different paths, but just know that
with time, you’ll figure it all out and it will all be okay (even when it
REALLY feels like it won’t be)! Good luck :)
