Bye-Bye Maternity Leave!
Goodbye Maternity leave, hello school.
"Well, that worked out perfectly!" Ugh! It did and it didn't. When we had our little mister at the end of April the hubs and I were over the moon. The bummer was that the new daddy only got to spend a week home with us and soon left me to fend for myself. By myself I clearly mean myself, the baby and of course, the baby nurse a.k.a. the greatest gift from my mom. Nurse Jackie stayed with me for the following 2 weeks. Teaching me the ropes of caring for the mister and setting me up for success. When she left to go home I cried... a lot. It wasn't that I didn't think I could do it. I enjoyed having her at the house as company and reassurance that every "coo" the baby made was natural.
The Timing...
I was thankful that I had 6 weeks of paid leave to bond with my little one and take the time I needed to adjust to my new roll as "mommy". When my six weeks were up, summer vacation began. It was perfect timing - six weeks of leave fell exactly before summer break. This gave me a total of four months of mommy-baby time. Four months of my life were dedicated to creating a routine for my little guy: wake ups, feedings, laundry, walks, and daily adventures. While the little one napped, I created Easy Baby. Yup, built a company from the ground up in three months and was selling by month four. When that alarm finally went off and it was time to go back to my full-time work.
Leaving the Baby
Looking at our situation realistically, we knew that having me stay home to care for the bubs, although would have been amazing, was not going to work out with the fact that we had a mortgage to pay and liked that we had food on our table. I agonized over which day care he would go to and what would happen if he cried. It tore me apart thinking that I was abandoning him for 9 hours of the day. What if he crawled for the first time? What if he said "Mama"? A little piece inside of me crumbles thinking that these milestones would be ones that I could potentially miss.
First Day Back
The first day back I was checked in by my hubs hourly. My coworkers were all ready to support me if the inevitable meltdown happened. One coworker was filling up her juice next to me and asked "How was it dropping off this morning?". When she saw my eyes begin to swell she immediately took it back and said "Ok, ok, uhhh how's the weather?!" The day went slowly and there were many check ins to daycare (every phone call was reassurance that he was OK) When that last school bell rang I ran to my car and drove as fast as I could (Relax Greenwich Police, as fast as I could within the speed limit) to get my little guy back in my arms. He and I came home together and shared so many smiles and giggles.
The Best Part
It was then that it happened. My little man rolled from back to tummy for the very first time. He saved the milestone for me. I cried as I jumped up and down and phoned the hubs. It's like the babes knew I didn't want to miss a precious thing and so he waited.
