Back to work
Today was my first day back in the office. I’d worked from home a bit last Thursday and Friday while my father took care of LP, but this was the first time I was away from him for work.
It was hard. I’m glad that the daycare we chose is really nice and let us sit in the classroom for 30-45 minutes twice last week, so everything wasn’t totally new for him. It also gave me confidence to leave him there. But it was still hard for me.
Being in the office was so strange. So many little things have changed and I have to get use to a routine of doing work and fitting in pumping sessions. Mostly I felt very emotionally numb, just going through the motions of the day. Then I found out they took away the Mother’s Room on my side of the building and I almost broke down because now it’s a much further walk to go pump and it changed how things were going to work in my head. People kept seeing me around and saying, “Welcome Back.” I would just smile or say a quiet “Thank You” because it hurt every time. I wanted to say to them, “I don’t want to be back. This is ridiculous. I want to be with my son.” But nobody wants to hear that. But I made it through the day. I even started to feel somewhat like my work self again about half way through my weekly team meeting when I was able to offer suggestions about the big project we have going on. Still, I couldn’t wait until my 4 hours were done.
LP had a fine time at daycare. Apparently he is totally chill and awesome and spent most of the day just watching everything. However, he had some trouble taking a bottle and only took two oz. This is my fault as I meant to make sure someone was feeding him a bottle once a day every day last week, but I got so wrapped up in my father’s visit and emotionally prepping to return to work that I let it slide. He also only did two 30-45 minute cat-naps instead of having at least one long morning nap. So when we got home, he nursed for a long time, fell asleep for an hour and a half, then we nursed again, we both took an hour and a half nap and he’s still sleeping.
I’m really glad that I’m easing back into work with half days for the next two weeks, with the exception of taking Wednesday off and starting full time next Friday. But ultimately I still think it sucks, especially when I look at what the rest of the world gets.
Originally published at my baby blog. Please leave any comments there.