The Transition.

Reminiscing back to a year ago, I thought this would be the perfect post to start off my series of working mommy posts.

Only two months into mommyhood and my little pumpkin and I headed back to work. I started with just mornings first. We quickly settled into a routine which consisted of us arriving around 8:00 and little missy sound asleep in her car seat for the first hour or two. Then I would nurse her in my boss’s office…

Okay, I know what you’re thinking. Please let me clarify with explaining the set up before you start judging me, ahem! At the time I worked in a the Department of Statistics at this university. I was the office manager and first point of contact when students, faculty, staff, and visitors came to the department. So my office was, well, the main office, which equals NO PRIVACY! Off to the right was a door that leads you into the Chair of the Department’s office (my boss’s office). Fortunately he had another office two floors down where he spent most of his time with students and preparing for classes he taught. He would only come up for about an hour a day to check in on the department and sign miscellaneous items. When we discussed the situation of me coming back to work he offered up his office for me to use for whatever, as he put it, “baby reason” I might need it for (aka: diaper changes, nursing, pumping, etc.). It had a locking door and I would always put a note on it saying I was in there just in case he came up and forgot. I think I’d die if I heard keys jingling in the door while I was hooked up to my double breast pump with both boobs getting the life sucked out of them, but that never happened so no worries! =)

Back to the story… So I came back to work just 8 weeks after having my little one. I thought I would take more time off, but the situation couldn’t have been any better. I was only working mornings and my boss was okay with me bringing my baby with me and he offered up his office for my “baby use”. My babe was a trooper. She slept most of the morning. I would sort through my work, nurse her, change her, put her in the front pack, do some more work, walk down the hall to visit faculty members when she was fussy, let her play in her bouncy chair, she’d sleep some more and then it was time to leave. The perfect situation, right? Well, the perfect situation would be: me at home with her full time, but that’s beside the point. We did this for about a month and then she began daycare (we like to call it school) three days a week. I took Tuesdays off and my mom watched her on Thursdays. It made the transition back into work much easier, but I must say it was weeks before I was able to drop her off at “school” without crying the entire way to work. Yes, I was a hot mess most days!

If I had to go back to work this was the best case scenario for me. I was able to slowly introduce myself and my baby to the idea of being away from one another. The childcare center she was at and still currently goes to is wonderful! That also helped with the transition. I am now working full time at a new job that I love which fell into my lap! It really was meant to be that I go back to work, but more on that later.

So tell me, what was your experience like going back to work? Did you have major MOMMY GUILT like I did? Do share! =)