Having a baby is life-changing, but not always in the way we expect. Sure, we know that there will be sleepless nights and diaper changes and so much love it hurts. But for a lot of moms the arrival of a new baby also means that they re-think their careers or their lifestyles in other big ways. Today I will talk about two moms who did just that.

Melissa is a Labour & Delivery nurse, and during her third maternity leave she sustained a back injury. In her post A Formula Rep turned my Maternity Leave Injury into a new career as an IBCLC? Really? she explains that she was worried about returning to work in her high-demand job with limited mobility. She struggled to find a solution that would allow her to support her family and use the knowledge she already had. Here is part of what Melissa had to say:

I spent many nights crying and wondering HOW I could work ??? How could I go and be on duty…running all over to keep up with the pace, helping people thru labor and delivery…respond to emergencies…how?? I could barely care for my family! I called many friends while I was on periods of bed-rest and had various treatments during the time I had left of maternity leave. (I eventually did have to extend the leave a couple weeks for more recovery. I ended up with a 5 month leave altogether). I was searching for ideas.. visions of something less physically taxing which could combine my knowledge of labor/delivery/postpartum and neonatal care….. and allow me to continue working. I was, after all, the major bread-winner in our family!

I particularly enjoyed Melissa’s post as well, because of the perspective it offered. Melissa took her maternity leaves in the US in the 1970s and 1980s – it’s interesting to hear about how things worked for her.

Melodie worked full-time in health care. When her first child was born she expected that she would be eager to return to work around the six month mark. But, like many of us, she found that her daughter really required her presence. Even after a full year of maternity leave, Melodie wasn’t ready to leave her daughter. Through some creativity she and her husband were able to arrange things so that Melodie could stay home, which she tells us about in her post My Maternity Leave Stories (Or How We Sold Our House So I Could Be A Stay-At-Home-Mom). Here is an excerpt describing her anxiety as she considered the prospect of returning to work:

Soon I would be working 8 hours a day and commuting 45 minutes each way for a total of 9 1/2 hours away from home. This was not an ideal situation for properly mothering my daughter. No child was ever more attached to the breast than she. Bottles? Ha! I was sure she would have preferred to starve. Food interested her, but she certainly didn’t eat enough not to supplement, and she hated cow’s milk. I didn’t blame her. I don’t like it either. Maybe if she had been a different child, like my second daughter, I wouldn’t have worried so much, but I assumed she would starve in child care and that it would be all my fault.

I’m sure a lot of us can relate to that anxiety, no matter how things worked out in the end. I know I can, even though I ultimately did return to work.

How about you? Did you change gears after your baby is born? Or did you go back to work in a different way than you expected? I know that Melissa and Melodie aren’t the only ones!