Return to Work

Nothing can prepare you for how radically a child changes you and your life. You can read all the books and articles, listen to all the podcasts, and advice from friends, and still, it’s a crazy new world. And I knew this would be the case – but somehow I still was unprepared for how much I couldn’t anticipate about life once our little boy came into the world. Over the nearly three months our little love has been here I’ve come to appreciate more and more just how much the experience of motherhood isn’t just not what I thought, it was beyond the possibility of my thinking beforehand. 

There’s the little stuff, like the insane reality that I’d rather my child wake up at 4:30 a.m. or 5 a.m. than 7 a.m. because I can actually get something done with my day if he wakes up early. Or perhaps how utterly unprepared I was for the sheer amount of laundry. And there’s the emotional stuff, like how much it fills my heart to see his little smile and hear his little giggle. And there’s the weird stuff - like how hard and uncomfortable it is to buy and wear jeans even two whole months post-C-section. The list goes on and on and on. One thing in particular really caught me off guard – how unprepared (emotionally) I am to go back to work and send my son to daycare.

I don’t mean unprepared in the sense that I’m anxious about my baby’s safety while he’s not with us all day or that we don’t have all the things he’ll need (well, he’ll need some more bottles but that’s what Target is for). No, I mean that I was unprepared for how much I want to be with him all day, how much I don’t want someone else to comfort his cries, see his first roll/crawl/etc. I mean, simply, that I’ll miss him.

When Austin and I started talking about our future family, I always saw myself as a working mom. I’ve enjoyed building up my career and I saw no reason for that to shift when we got pregnant with our son. Enrolling him in daycare was an easy decision – if an expensive one. Sure, we ran the numbers to see if my transitioning to be a stay-at-home parent was the better financial decision but that was because daycare is ridiculously expensive. (As it turned out, working and paying for daycare insanely remains the better financial decision.)  I never once considered what I’d be giving up to do that. 

At least, not until now. 

Then I met my son and spent the last eleven weeks watching him explore the world, feeding him when he was hungry, changing his diaper, and talking with him throughout the day. Suddenly the thought of handing all that over to someone else breaks my heart entirely. How can I let my little boy go? Admittedly it’s only for three days a week – my husband will work from home the other two days and we’re planning to tag team care those two days, but the three days our son is in daycare already feels like three days too many.

There’s a fall chill in the air, reminding me that the seasons outside are changing, just like the seasons of our lives. The last eleven weeks of the newborn season have been a gift in so many ways – sure there were hard days, and there will be hard days ahead, but a gift nonetheless. We’re entering a new season, this little family of mine, even as much as my heart isn’t quite ready to let this one go. It’s coming for us all the same.

All that said, as I remind myself, I do actually like my job. When I’m not thinking about how much I’ll miss my baby, I am a bit excited to dig back into it and improve from where I left off. The cats will certainly be thrilled to have the apartment and me to themselves. I’m looking forward to seeing (in the Zoom box) my coworkers and clients again. And it’s okay — normal even — to both know I’ll miss my child deeply and I’ll enjoy my work too. Peace comes with making space in my heart for both truths.

In those quiet moments with just me and my thoughts, I remember there’s so much to look forward to in this new season. Elliot will be learning more and more about the world and we’ll have the great pleasure of watching him do that. We’ll have more and more experiences to share with him — especially those fall and holiday traditions we love so much. Moreover, the temporal nature of these seasons is partly what makes them so priceless. I can spend all my time in each season mourning what will soon end, or I can revel in the here and the now, in the smile that dances across my son’s lips and his giggle that rings in my ears. And now, this moment, is far too precious to pass in anything but joy.