I took off work almost a whole month before my due date. Per doctors orders I had to be on bed rest until I gave birth, but if you know me you should know there was no bed rest :) Maternity leave also meant time to prepare for baby's arrival by getting her clothes, furniture etc., in place. We also had to move that following week and we didn't find a place til the day before we had to be out of our old condo LOL! Talk about last minute go doers hahahaha
I gave birth a week early on March 31st to my beautiful baby and the family of 3 turned into 4 :) For the next days, weeks and months I spent every waking moment with my daughter. I left her twice to run up to the store and I can't believe I actually went inside the store found what I needed and went straight to the register, checked out and zoomed quickly home. I'm a shopper so usually it takes me a while to find things I want and when I do I tend to mozy around checking things out and taking my time. Long gone are those days LOL! My main concern was getting home to my baby. The thought of missing out of being away from her just killed me inside! A lot has changed since giving birth. All that was on my list (so many things) to do and accomplish pretty much have been placed on the back burner. I can spend hours and hours just staring at my baby and I even tear up at how beautiful she is and how grateful I am to have her. So all this time we've been together every day/night if she's not with daddy or sleeping she's in my arms.
Maternity leave at work is up to 3 months and I intended on taking every bit of that and if I could I would take more. I guess even though I was so busy with mommy duty, returning to work was always in the back of my mind slowy easing it's way to the front. As time got closer for my return I found myself feeling very anxious and confused. Feeling sad and worried about my baby and let me tell you, major separation anxiety!!!! I struggled with the fact that soon I would have to leave her to return to work and cried for many weeks leading up to that 1st day back at work. As July 8th approached I think for that past week I was crying secretly in my room alone not letting my husband know. He knew I was sad but I'm sure he didn't know the extent of it. The whole week before returning I would hold my baby and I would talk to about going back to work, as if she was old enough to understand. There were many tears leading up that day.
After much time spent going over our options for daycare for the baby we decided that it will be best financially and for the baby for me to only work on Hifo's days off, Friday and Saturday. The morning of, I got up early started our usual routine, except this day she decided she would sleep in instead of getting up at 5:30a.m., I just couldn't get myself to wake her so I let her sleep in as I went on and got ready. I was pretty strong all morning long, laughing and talking with my husband. I'm done getting ready and I say goodbye to Cowboy and Daddy and as I go to hug and kiss my baby I just lost it! I could no longer hold in my tears and I stood there holding her for at least 10 mins crying and kissing her. I think that was the longest ever hug. All sorts of thoughts were going through my head about not being home with her and my anxiety grew even stronger once I realized yes I'm really going back to work. I was running late already and had to leave.....
Crying on the way to work and even at work, I realized what I was feeling was normal. Every mom experiences anxiety about leaving for the 1st time and it was something I couldn't avoid. In the end my day was busy at work making time speed by super fast and before I knew it I was home with my baby, husband and my other baby Cowboy. The look on her face when I walked in the house was definitely priceless. I'm ever so grateful to be a mommy and especially for my beautiful baby. I'm also very grateful to have a job that I can return to considering todays economy. I'm so glad that 1st day is over with and the next time we'll face another "1st day away from mommy" day will be the 1st day of school
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