I go back to work one week from today. Yeah, I know it's not the 16 weeks I had hoped for, but 12 is better than the 10 that I had with Lily. Mark is doing OK at his new job but commissions take 2 months to fully pay out. Baby's daycare spot open + meager checking account balance + preschooler at daycare all day and mom getting a smidgen bored = time to head back to the office.
Since I'm hanging onto roughly 20 pounds of (insert expletive here) baby weight, I had to go buy new pants so that I have office-appropriate apparel. That was sort of a depressing shopping trip, but at least I won't look like a sausage stuffed into a casing by trying to fit into my non-fat pants. I think what upsets me more is the prospect of having to wear actual shoes closed at the toe and heel after not having worn such footwear since mid-June. I look forward to being able to donate my new fat pants to Goodwill in a few months.
I haven't checked my work email one single time this maternity leave and am proud of myself for holding firm. They have my phone numbers to contact me if all hell broke loose; since I haven't gotten any frantic voicemails, apparently it has not. Hannah and I stopped in the office last week to print out a pay stub (long story short, we can't pay the several thousand dollar hospital bill in full at this very minute and to give us more than a 12 month payment plan we have to apply for financial assistance, even though we will probably be denied). While my coworkers seemed pleased at the prospect of my return - probably so that they can all offload their chunks of my workload back onto me - the sentiment was that not much had changed in the 10 weeks that I had been absent at that point. A coworker's wife is due with their first baby like any second now and Hannah kept smiling and cooing right at him; it was like she was saying, "You're going to have one of ME soon, buddy!" (I'll point out that Hannah smiles and coos at anyone; today she did it to my 2003 Rentschler Field Inaugural Season cup on the coffee table.)
This ain't my first rodeo on going back to work after a maternity leave. With Lily, the mere thought of going back to work sent me into tears for a solid two weeks beforehand. Ironing little name tags into her rompers and onesies was Very Serious Business, as was fretting over my freezer stash of milk. I panicked about Leaving My Baby To Be Raised By Strangers In The Name Of Selfish Careerism And A Luxury Lifestyle (ha!). We brought her to daycare, Mark gently got me out the door, and I cried. I got to work and had to pump in a bathroom and cried some more - but I found that it was nice to be back in a lot of ways. I only cried that first day.
This time I'm so much more relaxed about it all, probably because I know it's not the end of the world. I did buy some bottles last week and finally got around to ordering a label set for Hannah's daycare gear (if it doesn't arrive this week, I'll jury rig temporary labels with electrical tape and a Sharpie). The same wonderful nursery caregivers who took care of her big sister will be taking care of Hannah. Daycare is on-board with using cloth diapers (yay!) so I got to order a small stash of BumGenius 4.0 one size pocket diapers and a large Imagine wet/dry bag. I have around 80 ounces of milk in the freezer (oversupply for the win) and should be good to go on pumping in comfortable surroundings thanks to our building's lactation room (est. 2011). I have plenty of knitting queued up for my pump breaks.
Don't get me wrong, I'll still cry next Tuesday morning when I bring Hannah to daycare and drive away towards the office. Then I'll get to work, chuck a K-cup in for my coffee fix, start reading through (and deleting) what I'm positive will be several thousand backlogged emails, maybe hit up a teleconference or two. Between a couple of pumping breaks and throwing myself back into my project headfirst, the day will fly by and I'll be able to pick up my smiley Hannah and my crazy Lily.
I know that even if we could afford it I'm not cut out to be a SAHM. I just wish that I could stay home with my baby for six months or a year rather than taking a leave that's measured in weeks. I'm one of the "lucky" ones, too - I had over half of my leave fully paid and I was able to afford to take 12 weeks off. So many moms in the US go back to work after 6 weeks or less and many women aren't FMLA-eligible or can't afford to take time off even if they are. This shit is inhumane; I don't know what the solution is, and doubt there will be change during my childbearing years. I just hope that change has come by the time our girls become mothers.
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