Hi-ho, Hi-ho, It's Off to Work I Go

Fun Fact!
An extra-long ultra-thin maxi pad, such as the one I keep in my work bag In Case of Emergency, can be wedged into a nursing tank lengthwise to create a uni-boob style nursing pad if you forget to wear your nursing pads one day and you start leaking milk all over your shirt at work.

Not that I would know, personally... ahem...

The notes from my latest meeting with my boss are smeared in inky circles from the drops of milk that dribbled all over them when I set my breast pump hardware on my desk without clearing enough space. One quadrant of the cushion on the little side chair next to my desk is spattered with dark breast milk stains from that time I actually dropped the horn-shaped suction apparatus while pumping. I have a "Please Do Not Disturb" sign with a cartoon cow saying "Moo" taped to my office door. Yes, I am a Working Mother, and have the stains and pump-transport supplies to prove it.

I actually use the electric pump at work...

I've been back at work for two weeks now. I'm so sleep deprived, I have to binge-drink coffee to feel alert enough to see a task from start to finish. If it were acceptable office practice, I'd wear my sunglasses all day to protect my bloodshot eyes from the Sleep Deprivation hangover symptoms of light sensitivity and general fatigue. I drink a lot of water. I read my to-do list over and over while whispering a prayer that some project will leap from the page with a fully-formed idea attached to it. I'm pretty sure I would actually be good at my job and contribute something meaningful if my brain were functioning on all cylinders. I hold onto that hope as I plod through these days.

One of the HR team at my office asked me yesterday how my return to work has been so far. I looked at her with bleary eyes but a sincere smile and said "It would be going pretty well if I were not a half-dead zombie". She patted my arm, smiled warmly at me, and said "It is a lot of work to start a person." She then told me about her three kids, all teens now, and how she stayed home with them for a while before returning to the workforce. "It is hard either way" she said. "But either way, this tiny baby part is just one season. You'll sleep more eventually. Maybe not a full night, and maybe not soon, but more, and eventually".

More, and eventually.

That's what I have to go with today.

I have had a bit of an existential crisis about this return to work. I seriously considered staying home. It was more appealing than I anticipated. But I am fortunate in that my job is 12 minutes from home, and I only work 5 hour days. I'm gone for about 5.5 hours total, Monday - Friday, and for the other 18.5 hours of the day Baby Girl is more or less attached to my body. Even at night, her little co-sleeper bed is less than a foot from me and she's eating every two hours anyway, so we're not very separate even as we snooze. Not that I need to rationalize my decision to go back to work, but it does soothe the sting to remind myself that we're together for the vast majority of the day.

I will be honest. Honest. Those 5.5 hours have been good for my mental health, as exhausted as I am. I would be exhausted anyway, but at work, I get to be exhausted with hot coffee in my hands and program management puzzles to kick my weary brain into a different gear. I have to get up, get dressed, and leave the house every day. And when I come home, those 18.5 hours are sweet and I'm eager to resume them.

As many times as I've chastised people for doing this very thing, I have to admit it: I feel guilty for not feeling more guilty about going back to work.

Maybe my feelings will change as she gets older and I start to feel like I am missing things, or that she is missing me. Or as I get more sleep and have more energy to invest in her and the amazing wonderment that is Watching Your Baby Grow Into Herself. I don't know. I do know that I like my work, I like my colleagues, and I remember being good at it. I don't feel like it would be a huge sacrifice to give it up to stay home with Pia, but for now, it does feel like the right choice to work. I think she and I will both benefit from my time at the office. Our mornings and afternoons together have gotten sweeter, and she eats and naps like a champ for the babysitter - even better than she does for me. I guess she knows she's not getting any boob from the sitter, so she might as well drink up that bottle and go to sleep.

So for now, I'll keep rolling out of bed, getting myself dressed in actual clothes that came off of hangers, chugging coffee, pumping, and working on work stuff at an office. Because for now, being the best non-profit employee I can be is helping me be the best mommy that I can be. If it were not so, I would not be doing all those things.

Gotta go clean the pump supplies. Tomorrow morning will be here way too soon.