The end of an era

This is the eve of my first week back to work full time-my last day home as a mostly stay at home mom. What a strange and wonderful world I have made for us-finally for myself-learning how to let go and just be every day. I think something potentially tragic happened at the end of my pregnancy and beginning of Gillian's life that put everything in my current life world into perspective. Before that-what did I run around so unbelieveably busy doing, functioning at the highest frequency, wired with the energy and power of "gettin' it done", every single day? I was so productive, so single-minded, so purposeful. Keeping insanely busy was some kind of rush. I was the person on the blackberry all the time; I was the person that gave residents my cell phone number for use after hours and on weekends; I volunteered for emergency response assignments and being sent out on a moment's notice, and I chaired several major groups and committees, all while getting a PhD. Sometimes I was in the field for weeks at a time, and I loved every minute of it (I remember squatting in a marsh collecting water samples at 6.5 months pregnant and was in the field when I got sick at the very end). Then my world collided with a tiny little life I made and the universe stood still, and way before I thought I was ready. I mean, I hadn't read that far ahead in my books-I wasn't ready to be a parent yet. And even if I had read that far ahead, I wasn't going to read about c-sections or spinals or having a premature baby (you see, that wasn't in my plan)...but those things happened anyway. The truth is, God has different plans for us sometimes than the ones we have so carefully plotted out for ourselves and our lives. And you're always amazed at how you can adapt if you have no other choice. My growth has consistently been forced by these monumental challenges, and even though at the time I didn't realize it, they have always been good for me, no matter how hard they seemed at the time. Gillian has taught me purpose, in the truest sense. She is the greatest joy of my life.

I have been on maternity for seven months, two weeks, and six days. I have been home with Gillian for six months. Tomorrow I become a "working mom", just like millions of other women. But this is my experience, not theirs. There must be a collective sorrow for all the women who have left their babies in the care of someone else when they go back to work....some sisterhood of loss. It's like taking your heart out and leaving it somewhere till the end of the workday; with someone else that you know couldn't possibly love or care for her the way you do (even if that person is your very able husband). I am sure I am not the first woman to worry that she would miss some vital moment in the development of her child, or that she might come to prefer the other caregiver, or that she might forget the comfort of her mother somehow.

I felt so sad when nursing Gillian tonight, sad to be the one who has to be away from her, thinking how unfair it is that Sean would rather work and not stay home and I would rather stay home and not work (at least for the time being), and neither of us get to do what we want (then I hear my Marine-Corps-less-than-senstitive father's voice in my head saying something smug and apropos like "it's good to want" (a favorite line for me as a child)). As usual, I will shut off the self-pity and get on with it (who has the time to be down for long?), but I reserve the right for intermittent moments of wallowing on Sean's chest as I acclimate to the life of a working mom.