The End of a Pandemic Maternity Leave
In the Final days of my maternity leave, I had this dewy glow on the brain as if I were graduating from high school or looking back at Christmases from my childhood. I was reliving the nostalgia of this incredible baby time and soaking up every moment. I played with my baby’s hair and stared at him with the same deep love stare that babies give their parents that says “I love you” without saying a word. I held his tiny hand. I nuzzled his little nose as he laughed.
I thought I would be sadder going back to work. But I wasn’t sad, and I didn’t feel guilty like I did with my first baby. I felt calm, accomplished, hopeful, and grateful. I had a birth experience that changed my life. I established a fulfilling and lovely breastfeeding relationship with my baby. Though I couldn’t have a ton of people over to ooh and ahh over this little boy, I was ok. I checked in with friends often. I took walks in the sun every sunny California day that I could. I listened to podcasts and watched every movie I ever loved over again.
With my first baby, I spent much of my postpartum time recovering from injury, feeling like a failure for not being able to feed my baby through nursing, and doom-scrolling all the fun my friends were having going out at all hours in New York City where we lived at the time. I felt so isolated then.
And now, even after a year of pandemic isolation, I didn’t feel isolated. I felt strong, and most importantly, I felt loved. Perhaps this difficult year that challenged our sanity as a family as we tried to work from home while watching a toddler made me stronger. Perhaps it was the fact that no one else was doing anything fun, so staying home with a baby wasn’t so bad. Maybe I was getting the hang of this parenting thing with my second, so it was easier. Maybe it was all of it combined.
The time of what could have been isolation felt like a deep introspection, one that was long overdue after years of ignoring my own needs because kids’ birthday parties, job deadlines, or vacation plans kept me very, very busy. For once, there was little in the outside world to distract me, and I was forced to look at myself honestly. What mattered to me? What really made me happy? I found that it was actually the simple things that were making me happy like unstructured time to walk, read or sitting in the sun and feeling the wind. I had always loved Henry David Thoreau, though I wasn’t living alone in the woods miles from neighbors as he describes in Walden. But for the first time in a very long time, I channeled the type of presentness he wrote about purely because this baby coaxed out a side of me who was happy to be going more slowly and enjoying the simple moments.
As I go back to work, I hope to hold on to this glowing nostalgia, remember to breath, give my family lots of hugs, and to feel the sunshine. If I forget, I’ll take my baby into my arms and look him in the eyes, and I’ll be sure to remember.
