Balancing act: The unique journey of the working mother.
“It’s a boy!” Congratulations they say, enjoy your last days of sleep they say, get as much as you can they laugh. It’s a wonderful thing announcing you’re having a baby. Almost immediately you notice your body changing, things get larger and darker and aches and pains become the norm. Then, as if by magic, a small person is in your care, completely dependent on you. If you’re lucky you have a partner or close-knit family and friend circle to share some of the burden, but the reality is your brain is no longer focused on one. Sometimes your body leaks at the sound of another baby crying, things are definitely changed, forever. But, you are to return to work and act as though nothing has changed.
Whilst you are reminded that “you can do it all” by TV adverts and glamorous post-pregnancy women who look incredible doing top jobs, you don’t have the time, capacity or energy to consistently do as you did pre-children. If you are lucky enough to have the help you can just about get back to what you were, but can you ever be what you were? Do you really want to be what you were?
The constant juggling and fear of the dreaded chicken-pox, for which there is now a vaccine, but still a reality of “you’ve been in contact with a child who has chicken pox, stay away from people with vulnerable immune systems”. Oh joy, another case of…
