First Week Back

My maternity leave ended. It was surreal--we had so much time together that seemed to pass almost instantly. The last Sunday was not a day I looked forward to. So, to take my mind off our final week together, and because my birthday was coming up, I asked Hubby if we could do professional family portraits.

The photo shoot went perfectly. Our awesome photographer came to our house with supplies at the ready--baby clothes, bear hats, bow ties, backdrops, boxes, basins. She turned our bedroom and our nursery into a studio. She even cuddled and fed our baby when he started to get fussy and tired toward the end (it had been three whole hours). We were lucky we got as many smiles as we did. And boy did we get smiles! Even her assistant captured Baby's beautiful grin in our behind-the-scenes shots.

The Saturday before maternity leave ended we had family time out getting burgers and ice cream--and feeling sad that our time alone together was ending. Sunday was a busy day of meeting a friend and preparing for the photo shoot that ended our leave on a high note with the shoot itself. And then Monday I was back at work.

With everything going on, from preparing breast milk and filling in our parents to driving back to work on the first day of a new semester, I barely had time to grieve. I cried a little Saturday night, and a little Monday morning as I sang the Coco song "Remember Me" to Baby as our goodbye. But after that I went into autopilot mode and just focused on getting through a busy workday. It helped that Hubby was home with our son the first two days I wasn't--it somehow made the adjustment easier on me that one of Baby's parents could still be with him. My husband knew to send me photo updates throughout the day, and even attempted his first video chat with me on my lunch break so I could see our boy was doing fine. And Baby was, in fact, adjusting wonderfully to the change. No separation anxiety. No meltdowns.

I survived Monday and Tuesday too, in a blur of work and also no meltdowns. The nice thing was that on Tuesday and Wednesday I was allowed to work closer to home. I drove to my parents' house on my lunch break Wednesday afternoon and had 30 minutes to play with Baby and scarf down a Mexican pastry before zooming back. But it was perfect. My boy smiled at me when I held him and that was enough. I was lucky to get a smile from him each day before I went to work.

Hubby was not so lucky. When he dropped Baby off at my parents' house on Thursday--his first day back at work after paternity leave--our baby seemed to sense something was different. My husband was just going to say goodbye, expecting his usual smile, when our son made his sad face instead and buried his eyes in my mom's shirt. It broke Hubby's heart, and brought us both to tears when he told me on the phone. "No sad face!" was something we'd said to our son throughout our leave time when he stuck out his little bottom lip in unhappiness when a situation startled him or made him upset. It was cute and tragic at the same time. We never wanted our son to have to be sad.

But after that day things got a little easier. Well, saying goodbye was easier. Getting our awesome photos back made things feel easier--I had the perfect reminder of my son to look at while at work. But not everything was easy.

Thursday and Friday I had back to back to back meetings all day. I felt like I'd been dropped into the deep end of a swimming pool and began to regret the fact that I was diving back in on the very first week of a classes at a busy college. I had no time to catch up and get things done because I had to be at or lead another meeting--and through it all I still had to pump in order to feed my child. That was the biggest challenge aside from missing him. I was squeezing in three pumps a day, including cleaning parts and packing up, in between a mountain of work duties while still trying to leave the office on time so I could make it home to my son before he needed another bottle. There just weren't enough hours in a day.

By Friday afternoon I'd reached my breaking point. Where the first few days of the week made me feel like a working mom Superwoman, on Friday I wanted to fall apart. I realized earlier that week that I'd gotten blisters from my breast pump, which made pumping even harder than it was already. But it wasn't just about the pain. During my Friday lunch break--cut short from a meeting that ran long--I tried to squeeze in eating, printing meeting agendas, answering emails, and pumping all at the same time. In the middle of it all I looked down for a moment and saw something odd. My precious milk slowly turning pink. There was blood in my milk.

After a brief cry as I cleaned up the breast pump parts and left a voicemail for my lactation specialist, I stepped out of my office to see if one of my coworkers was around. She had two daughters herself, and had sent me the nicest email on Monday saying I should be kind to my feelings that day, and explaining that when she came back to work from maternity leave it was one of the hardest things she'd ever done. I knew she would understand when I shakily asked her if a baby could still drink milk with blood in it or not, and broke down in tears again in front of her.

Now here's something you should know about me: I never cry at work. I very rarely let myself cry in front of anyone outside my family. But this was a week that had been so hard that I started doing a lot of things I'd never done. Like saying no to new commitments. Like asking for help. A colleague in Tennessee who I work with at a distance on a national committee offered to video chat about breast milk pumping and I actually took her up on it. On Wednesday I spent half an hour learning from a woman I barely knew--about the best nursing bras, the importance of hydration, and how recording a video of my baby crying might help the process. She shared her experience with being a working mom breadwinner in her family too. Her daughter was 13 months old and only just stopped nursing, but the whole infant stage was still fresh in her mind.

My coworker down the hall had an 8-year-old and a 5-year-old, so she'd been through this whole situation twice--even if it was a few years ago now. She let me cry on her shoulder and hugged me with reassuring words until I felt silly and grateful and had to leave reluctantly so I could get to my next meeting on time. It was enough reassurance and encouragement to get me through the end of the day, and then I went home to enjoy a perfect holiday weekend with my son.

I spent Friday evening feeding Baby next to my mom while we caught up on our favorite TV show. Saturday was my birthday! A wonderful day with breakfast at my mom's house and dinner with Hubby at a sushi cafe small enough where we could leave quickly when Baby got fussy. I spent all day at home with my son Sunday, and for the Monday holiday I cuddled him at his great aunt's house while Hubby took a nap.

This week has been easier. We've developed a routine of showering at night to save time in the morning and pumping only twice at work instead of three times to get a bigger yield with less stress. My back to back meetings have ended, and I've been more willing to ask my coworkers for help when I need a break. Life is still challenging with some sleep regression and our whole evenings spent getting Baby ready for bed. I've run out of my internal adrenaline "mommy juice" more than once. But this back to work period that initially felt more stressful than even Baby's first few days of life all seems a little more doable now. We come home from work and feel just how worth it all of this is. And then we make it to the weekend, which almost feels like a day of maternity leave again. Us alone as a family together.