It’s a Saturday afternoon and I have a million things I need to get done. But I’m lying on the couch holding Travis while he sleeps, an unusually long sleep for my chronic cat-napper. I could go put him down in his crib but I don’t want to. I want to sit here and hold him for hours if that’s what he needs. I want to smell the top of his head, like I have a million times. I want to memorize his ever-changing little face. I want to hold my baby while the tears roll down my face, because come Monday I’ll be back at work and someone else will be rocking him to sleep, and he’ll have to wait for weekends for long naps on the couch with Mom.
My maternity leave has come and gone all too quickly. Looking back on it now I can’t help but wonder if I made the most of it. Did I do maternity leave well enough? Did I take Travis on enough outings? Did I spend enough quality time with him? Could I have made him smile more? Was I present enough? Was it really that hard or am I imagining it, now that I’m coming out of that newborn haze.
The past four and a half months have been filled with so many different chapters and seasons, each with their own memories and emotions. I remember the first two weeks at home when I lived on our chaise lounger recovering from my c-section, my whole life packed onto the coffee table next to me with Kyle running our household and us eating ready-made meals every night. I remember the weeks of breastfeeding every hour and a half, our life unfolding in small repetitive cycles. I remember when Travis slept in his bouncer each night in our bedroom because he refused to lie on his back in his bassinet, and the weeks and months of him sleeping in our bed, his little profile reflected by the slit of light escaping from the bathroom so we could navigate the long night ahead. I remember how he used to have every nap on his mattress in the lounge, endless Netflix series playing in the background offering him a constant drone to sleep to. I remember how difficult outings were, and how even a walk in the garden could end with him in tears so suddenly, beckoning us back to the sleep-eat cycle. I remember days when I couldn’t seem to soothe him, and how I’d burst into tears as soon as Kyle walked through the door in the afternoon. I remember crying a lot. Crying because I’d never felt such intense love in my life. Crying because I was exhausted. Crying because I was frustrated. Crying because becoming a mother is so incredibly hard sometimes, yet so infinitely beautiful. I remember all of the firsts, and all of the lasts. The first smile. The last breastfeed. The first laugh. The last night sleeping next to me in bed.
Each chapter so easily melts into the next that you don’t even realize it’s happening. Things feel so much easier now. My heart bursts with compassion for myself as I remember navigating the unknown, sometimes not knowing if I’d make it through. I ask myself if I did enough during my 4 months with him. If I was enough. And who really knows? But I managed to make it to the other side, raising a beautiful, happy, healthy boy. I figured out how to care for a newborn, how to bounce him just the right way, how to coax him to eat when he was being tricky. I learnt what each of his cry means and how to tell when he was hungry, or tired, or bored. I held him and loved him as much as I possibly could, whilst doing a million other things that needed to get done. I did as much as I could with him, even if that meant just one outing a week. I did it. I had a baby.
Having a baby is, however, the easy part. Being a mother is easy; loving your baby is easy, caring for them is easy, putting yourself second to their needs comes easily. Figuring out how to be and do everything else that you did before the baby is the difficult part. Being a new mother is so all-consuming. That little being all of a sudden becomes your entire world, your almost sole focus 24/7 for as long as you’re able to be off work. You realize that all of a sudden you don’t really know who you are anymore, this new version of you that is a mother. How does the old you and the new you squash themselves into one person? Where does the one stop and the other begin? How do you be a wife, a friend, a sister, a daughter, and a mom all at once? How do you have a career and a child at the same time? How do you find space for it all? This is what I found myself grappling with as my return to work loomed ever-closer. My heart ached at the idea of our nanny spending more time with Travis during the day than I would. I puzzled as to how would I maintain my close bond with my child with only a few hours spent together each day, the fear that one day he would seek out comfort in arms that weren’t my own. How was I meant to release all of the control I had had over routines, feed and sleeps all this time? I had religiously tracked each sleep and feed since he was born, it seemed bizarre to me that I’d no longer know all the ins and outs of my child’s day.
It seems like being a mother means constantly practicing the art of letting go. You grow this child, spending nine months as one, having no idea just how much you’ll love them. And from the day they’re born you have to slowly let go, releasing them into the world incrementally. But each time you open your hand a little wider your heart aches a little bit more. I don’t think the letting go will ever get easier. The last day of being pregnant, you let go and bring them into the world. The last night they sleep in your bedroom, you let go. The first time you let someone babysit them, you let go. The last day of maternity leave, you let go. Their first day of school, you let go. It will never end. And so I had to let go, and back to work I went.
I have a newfound compassion and respect for working mothers. I never quite understood how difficult the transition from maternity leave back to work was until I had to do it myself. At work things have carried on as they always have, yet you have been away, going through one of the most significant transformations you’ll ever journey through in your lifetime. It’s bizarre to imagine returning back to work, a world that feels familiar, where nothing seems to have changed, yet you yourself are completely different. Your life is completely different. It feels as if you are trying to merge two polar realities. The old and the new. It’s daunting and scary and when you’re staring at it head on seems all too impossible.
I’ve been back at work for almost three weeks now and you know what? I’m happy. Leaving Travis each day is difficult, and I miss him constantly. But I’ve enjoyed being back in the office. I’ve enjoyed feeling a little like the old me again, mentally stimulated, surrounded by adult company, listening to music on my way to work instead of white noise, getting dressed each morning in clothes that are appropriate to leave the house in. I’ve found that being back at work has helped me to be a better mother – now that I’m not looking after a baby 24/7, when I do get time with him I’m more patient, I have more energy for him, and I’m not quite as desperate for time to myself as I sometimes was on maternity leave. I’m significantly more present and more appreciative of each moment I have with my baby. Yes, it’s exhausting. The juggling is constant, the chores are relentless, and the downtime is minimal. But it’s also kind of wonderful. Initially I felt so guilty admitting that I was enjoying being back at work, like finding joy in anything other than being with my child all day was wrong. Society makes us feel like we should all want to be stay-at-home mothers. That being a good mom means sacrificing everything you thought you were for your child. But I’m starting to see just how warped that perspective is. A good mom is a happy mom. And being back at work AND being a mom is making me happy for now. Who would have thought?