This time, I'm ready for maternity leave to end

Heigh ho, heigh ho, it's back to work I go.

Well, here I am: At the end of my second, and god willing last, maternity leave. As the kids say, "this one hit different."

Three and a quarter years ago, my return to work was a grieving process that unfolded in slow motion (more about that in this post). TJ was born in early June. I knew I'd be going back to work in September. By mid-July, the dread already began setting in.

This time, my start-back date came up so quickly, it surprised me. There's a framed picture to the left of my computer as I type this. In the photo, taken the day after Maggie was born, I'm sitting in a hospital bed and cradling her in my left arm. My right hand holds TJ's hand as he lays on his back across my legs, his head touching Maggie's swaddled bottom. I'm looking down at him, and he's smiling up at me. I can still sense the warmth I felt when that picture was taken, yet it was taken 15 weeks ago tomorrow.

There are myriad reasons why the end of this maternity leave feels so different—in a good way—from the last one.

For starters, I work for myself now. With TJ, I was returning to an in-person job; to a team I loved but an organization that seemed indifferent to my talents and uninterested in my growth. I didn't really want to go back, but I was too scared to leave. This time, I'm returning to the business I spent a year and a half building before Maggie arrived. Sure, I'm anxious about whether all my clients will come back and how I'll maintain a healthy work-life balance as a company of one and a new mom of two. But there's no dread. Not even a drop.

Then there's the extreme fatigue that comes with a maternity leave when you already have a preschooler. (Digression: All of you who told me that going from zero to one kid was harder than going from one to two kids? LIARS.) Trying to stay afloat during the early newborn weeks is hard. Throwing an older sibling into the mix is double-black-diamond hard. You spend eight hours of your day, usually all by yourself, trying to pacify, stimulate, and sleep-train your baby. Then you spend your next hours trying not to lose it on your three-year-old who's in full-blown restraint collapse after school. By the time you can go to sleep, you're only doing so in two-hour clips throughout the night.

The time of year also made this maternity leave a challenge. TJ was an early summer baby. The schedule was light and flexible. Maggie, although technically also a summer baby, arrived just before the fall equinox. As soon as we came home from the hospital, we were planning the kids' Halloween costumes, deciding where we'd spend Thanksgiving, and discussing what to get them for Christmas. We ticked off as many seasonal traditions as we could: visiting the pumpkin patch, trunk-or-treating with school friends, taking photos with Santa. There was so much to do, even as we tried to minimize Maggie's exposure to crowds and avoid the viral soup that's been circulating in Central Maryland since September.

(Editor's Note: I'm not even going to get into the monumental task of trying to protect a newborn in the late stages of a pandemic that no one seems to take seriously anymore. The mental toll of returning to March 2020 life. The impossible choice between living like a hermit or exposing your infant to COVID, flu, and RSV at a time when your local hospitals have barely any beds for sick kids. That's a rant for another time.)

But the biggest reason? I haven't enjoyed this maternity leave. As guilty as I feel for writing these words, I have to be honest: I'm ready for it to be over.

Yes, Maggie's entrance into the world was far less medically dramatic than her brother's—no NICU trip, no breech-induced hip dysplasia, no eye cyst. But her early weeks have been far more anxiety-inducing. I know that sounds odd. I'd already gone through birth, recovery, and the fourth trimester before, so I new what to expect; why should I be anxious?

I didn't have anything to compare my maternity leave with TJ to. Not knowing what I was doing most of the time was strangely freeing. But with Maggie's leave, I not only had memories of TJ's but also a photographic record against which to judge Present-Day Me. I constantly wondered if I was doing things "right" based on how I did them with TJ:

• Are we keeping her awake later than we did with TJ—or putting her down too early?
• Am I feeding her more often than I did with TJ—or not enough?
• I documented everything with TJ—am I taking the same number of photos and videos of Maggie to remember her earliest days?
• TJ learned to use the bottle right away, but we haven't given many to Maggie—did I just screw myself over by making her too dependent on me?
• Have we done as much [insert tummy time/reading/singing/giggling/etc. here] with Maggie as we did with TJ—or have we neglected her physical and intellectual growth?
• I did everything by the book with TJ—have I picked up "What to Expect in The First Year" more than once for Maggie?
• I started working out as soon as I was able to after TJ—why am I being so lazy after Maggie?

The unresolved issue of childcare also loomed large for me during Maggie's maternity leave. We'd locked this up for TJ long before he was born, but the landscape of childcare is unrecognizable now after COVID. Despite starting our search right after we knew she was coming, we couldn't find a center or provider with an opening earlier than August 2023.

Almost as soon as my C-section scar healed, I began searching for alternatives during Maggie's nap times. I spent hours upon hours looking for open spots in nanny shares and researching the legal and logistical requirements for hiring a nanny on our own. I drew up a detailed job description, opened a Care.com account, and posted our job there and on some local social networks.

The effort yielded just two viable options, neither of which worked out in the end. On top of the other stresses of taking care of a newborn all day, the grueling, fruitless process of seeking childcare exhausted me. The worry I'd have to throw away all the work I'd done to build my freelance business never left the back of my mind.

[Another Editor's Note: In a true Christmas miracle, a spot opened with TJ's former care provider in late December. There isn't an adequate word in the English language to express our gratitude.)

I was physically present with Maggie over these many weeks, but not nearly as mentally present as I should have been. I have no idea how many moments and memories I missed because I was lost in my own thoughts. Instead of marveling at her beautiful tiny fingers, I worried that she wasn't on a sleeping schedule yet. Instead of nuzzling my nose across her peach-fuzz hair, I was upset that my nanny post wasn't turning up candidates. Instead of listening for the little coos she'd let out as she napped on my belly, I felt ashamed of the way my body seemed to get larger, not smaller, with the passage of time.

I've wasted so much priceless time during Maggie's maternity leave, which makes the relief I feel at its end seem all the weirder. Yet the mental load of the past three-plus months has been almost too much for me to bear. I'm hoping that balancing "parent Kristin" with "professional Kristin" helps me regain confidence in myself. I'm hoping that confidence defuses at least a few of the anxieties that surfaced in this maternity leave. And although returning to work inevitably means less time with Maggie, I'm hoping that it forces me to be fully present in the minutes and hours I do get to spend with her, and with TJ.

2019 Kristin wondered whether staying home with TJ would make her a better mom. 2023 Kristin is betting that going back to the grind will make her a better mom. We’ll see who’s right.