On being a working mom, and the end of maternity leave…

This will need to be quick. The baby’s asleep, but just. The toddlers are still stirring, “reading” as dusk falls in their room. There’s a hush, but I know it’s only momentary.

For a few weeks, I’ve been thinking about how to blog. Part of why I haven’t kept it up in recent years is because I wanted to settle on a theme. But would it be writing? Photography? Motherhood? Cooking? I realized, finally, that it’s all of those things, because this is is my life. I’m a creative woman who works full time, and I often still feel like I’m adjusting to motherhood (even three kids down the line…).

But for tonight, I’m prompted to write because lately another topic has been on my mind, after lots of conversations with friends here in town. I think a large part of what and why I’ll write is the topic of being a working mom. Because, for now, I work full time, and it sometimes feels so very lonely. The local motherhood group is fabulous, but it mostly meets on Monday mornings, so I’ve only ever gone while I’m on maternity leave or the rare day off.

There are nights that I’ve cried to my husband about how isolated I feel, because work means I’m racing home to pick up my kids, put dinner on the table, and cuddle as much as possible before sending them to bed and doing it all over again. So friendships are forced into pockets of weekends or rushed lunches. One of the things I’ve realized while on maternity leave is how many playdates I’ve tried to set up before going back to work–and how one of them was actually, technically the very first we’d ever had at our house, and you guys,  my daughter is already four years old. We’ve met up with friends with kids for dinner parties before, sure, and she’s got friends at daycare–a playdate at our house,  something so simple, was four years in the making.

There are plus sides to working. I get lots and lots of interaction with adults, and in my particular job I’m in a creative and intellectual environment, and absolutely love it. And every time I think about the possibility of staying at home with my kids (something that is just not in the works for us right now), I worry that I’d miss my job while I struggled to fill the days with the right balance of playdates, finger paint and pb&j.

There’s a lot more I want to write here, about adjusting to pumping, or balancing sick days with hubby, or post a few updates about creative projects I’ve got coming up. Or the curry chicken salad recipe that I get requests for a lot.

But tonight, I want to talk about one more thing, quickly (baby’s stirring! I knew this was going to be short!). In a week and a half, I return to work. And it’s just as hard as the first time. On my first day back to work with my firstborn, a kind colleague sat down in my office and asked how it was going being back–and I said it was ok, so long as I didn’t have to think about being apart from my daughter. The same will be true this time. I’ll drop her off, go to work, put my pump in the drawer, and then try to forget her sweet smiles for just a little while. It never gets easier, you just get used to it.

A few months after I returned to work that first time, I watched another new mother, an acquaintance here in town, drop off her son for his first day of daycare at our facility. And it was one of those moments that all the kids were crying, or noses were running, or there just weren’t enough arms to hug all the babies. And I saw it in her face. She left that morning, with her baby, and quit her teaching job and has stayed home with him ever since.

And you know what? I get it. And I felt guilty being the one who said goodbye that morning. Because every day, every single day, I want to turn right back around to go home with my babies.

For now, I’m going to sign off and go cuddle my sweet girl who’s waking up and who, at ten and a half weeks, will give me the biggest grin you’ve ever seen. And we’ll cuddle as much as we can for these next few days. And, let’s face it, I’ll probably cry.

On bringing baby “home”

And so it is…I wrote this on April 2, and just realized it’s been sitting in draft mode this whole time. Can we say newborn fog?!

 

I am sitting on a king size bed, a tray of room service on one side (how lucky that the hotel restaurant serves Peruvian cuisine) and my sleeping newborn on the other. Tomorrow is her due date, but she’ll be five days old, picture of health, except we are not home yet.

A week and a half ago, Farhan had the flu. Then, on Sunday when the kids were supposed to come meet their new sister, Sofia started throwing up and by the end of the day, was running a low grade fever. Our pediatrician suggested the hotel, since there’s no way to quarantine a newborn at home from excited new siblings who don’t understand things like spinal taps or NICU (both very likely outcomes if our wee one caught the same bug).

So, here we are. Mama and baby Hannah, getting a little more uninterrupted bonding time. Sofia has been fever free for 24 hours, and has kept food down since lunch yesterday. We’re playing it safe and making sure nothing changes (or that Adeel and Farhan don’t come down with it tonight), but I should finally be going home tomorrow.

This quiet has been wonderful. Perhaps because she’s the third child and I’m a little more accustomed to both postpartum and newborn care, or perhaps it’s the wonderful sunshine through my window, Peruvian treats, and a sweet, laid back baby girl…this time around feels different. I feel calm, capable. Or maybe it’s just a softened version of the first week’s euphoria. After all, there are a lot of sleepless nights ahead.

I think it helps that it’s spring. This is my first spring baby, and the longer days will go far to combating the baby blues.

Last night was the first night of waking every two hours…so, I’m signing off to eat some food and get ready for an early bedtime.

Coming up for air…

Originally published on February 21, 2010, on my old bloggity blog.

So, three weeks ago, I started running a fever. And coughing. After five days, I finally went to see my doctor: turns out, I had pneumonia.

Isn’t pneumonia one of those things that went the way of the dinosaur? I mean, I know a small handful of people who have had it (including my daughter), but it still seems obsolete to me.

Needless to say, I was dead to the world for almost a week and a half. I missed nearly nine days of work, between caring for Sofia the week before and then my own sickness. She’s fine (it was just a virus) but I’ve been slowly coming back.

And then, this week hit: I was back to work full days, with two special events this weekend (I work for an arts non-profit, so it’s all hands on deck). Between deadlines that gathered dust while I was gone, and preparation for the events, PLUS my own life & home to care for, it’s been a very, very long week. The hubby has been great and was my backbone while I was sick, but even he’s been on his last bit of strength after carrying most of the weight for two weeks.

Thankfully, I’ve been able to both rest this weekend and catch up a bit today. The sun is shining and we opened up the curtains and cut off the heat for a few hours in the house. It’s like a breath of fresh air.

All of this to say: I feel like February sort of swallowed me alive. And that this week has been intense. Most of the time, we’re running around like crazy trying to get everyone where they need to go on time, making sure we’re keeping up with deadlines and stocking the fridge and keeping the pile of dishes from ridiculous heights. And yes: I realize this is only one kid. That we haven’t even seen anything yet.

But last week, in the middle of the whirlwind, I saw this episode of House and gosh, but it was great. So often, tv shows seem to give only the gloss of motherhood, of working motherhood. Or show the extremes: you’re either a shabby, tired housewife (this irritates me so much!) or a sharky working woman. And House hasn’t shown much of Dr. Cuddy except as a working mother; becoming a mother was an important plotline, but because the diagnoses were the point of the show, we haven’t seen more than brief mentions of her life as a mother.

And then last week’s episode was devoted entirely to Dr. Cuddy (to the point that you only saw the diagnostic team when they were asking her permission for certain tests, etc.).

See the episode on Fancast here.

If nothing else, watch the first five minutes or so: the whole time, I was like yes! That’s it! So true! Of course, she’s got a nanny, but still, it was a familiar montage. But TELL me you aren’t annoyed with her boyfriend’s insistence on a morning rendezvous, how he prances in, oblivious to everything she had to do to get to the office!

If you have time, the rest of the episode is interesting as far as gender politics. The plotlines are a bit far fetched and dramatic, but it’s also raw: she gets called a bitch & an an idiot twice. And the whole stereotype that women can’t be successful in business because “emotions” get in the way is thrown in there, too. I would assume it’s intentional that she doesn’t cry during the whole thing, which actually, almost wasn’t believeable (if it were me, I would have needed a minute in the bathroom to collect myself). But what’s great is that not only didn’t she cry, but her only display of emotion is concern for her daughter (in private) and then a moment of joy later in the episode. No tears, no drama, just calm leadership through the frenzied day.

It was a relief to see, even if it was fictional, and overwrought in its own way.

I’m curious to hear your reaction: there’s a cross section of working moms, stay-at-home-moms, and everything in between, in my collection of reader friends. Even if you don’t have time to watch the whole episode, tell me what you think of those first few minutes, and how it relates (or maybe doesn’t) to what you’re experiencing as a mother.

I hope you’re all experiencing better health that I have! And that sunshine is making is return to your corners of the world.

Here’s to keeping our heads above water!