August Anxiety

It’s August 1 and my anxiety is so bad my chest could cave in. We are officially kicking off my last few weeks of maternity leave before I return to work. The thought of returning to work is awful. It’s not the job or the work itself. In fact, I enjoy working with the majority of people in my office; however, the thought of leaving my kids to go back to 8-10+ hours a day is honestly devastating.

This maternity leave has allowed me to get to know not only my newborn, but has allowed me to spend so much more time with my almost 2-year old. I love my daughter and the newborn smells and snuggles, but holy moly, it’s been so much fun watching my son grow and advance his knowledge and skills over the last 2 months. I never quite realized how much I miss by working every day until now. Little things- like the fact my kid refused to say “mama” until this maternity leave, or what his favorite show, song, and book are. These are things that are most important to me, so the thought of going back to work and losing time and the experience of growth with him is crippling me emotionally. I keep reminding myself that time with him is the most of what I make from it, but realistically there are so many milestones I know I’m going to miss. I’ll get to hear about them from his grandma and see them after the fact, but all the “first” moments that bring me such pure joy will fall between cracks.

I am trying desperately to remind myself to stay positive but it’s difficult. My family needs to eat and have a home over our heads. We just are not in a place where I could afford to be a stay-at-home mom, so I try to focus on remembering the importance of why I work and what I bring to the table by doing so. I hope that one day maybe our situation will be different while the kids are still young so I can have the opportunity to really embrace motherhood. In the meantime, I hope to get through each remaining day of my leave and make the best of it. There’s still a lot I wanted to do that I haven’t done yet (don’t even get me started on the dieting/ weight loss front) so I am hoping to really get it together and enjoy these next 4 weeks.

Anyone else have similar emotions preparing to go back to work post maternity leave?! How did you cope with the transition?