Four Things That Suck About Going Back To Work After Baby

Good news! I got a job!

Bad news! It is really hard to remember you have a blog to update when you work 8 hours a day and also keep up a house and also have a baby. Oh, and of course having to pump every 4 hours. That's fun.

This is pretty much how I wake up every morning now.

To preface this post, I have never seen myself as a stay-at-home mom. After doing it with one child for three months, I can easily say it was really hard, and, sincerely, I greatly admire all the parents out there who do it forever and with more children. I have no idea how you do not go insane, because kids are weird and things come out of every part of them.

So, as soon as I was mobile after birthing Ripley, I started applying for jobs. Luckily for me, my Bell's Palsy had gotten to the point at that time where people really couldn't tell there was something wrong with my face, so I really wasn't worried about interviews. Thank god for bangs, though, because the only thing that has really not come back has been my eyebrow. That thing does not move, like at all. It's kinda like a fun party trick at this point, really. An icebreaker, if you will.

"Ah, yes, that is an excellent story. Now, let me show you what I cannot do with my left eyebrow."

I digress.

So, to get back on point, I was offered a position at the university that Grey works at. I was really excited to get started. Then I started work, and realized there were things that I just was not prepared for. As always with my blog, my pain will now be placed on the Internet for all of you, and in list form.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH why can't everything be easy all the time forever?"

1. GUILT NEVER ENDING GUILT

The morning comes, I'm all dressed up for work, Ripley is in her car seat, and we drive to town. Everything is peachy. We pull up to the day care center. She's snoozing in the seat, looking so sweet, and we take her in. Still doing good. The ladies at day care are very excited to have the new baby to look after and are professional and good with the kids. We put Ripley in her designated crib, and she looks up and smiles at us while we walk out the door.

....

Okay, not good anymore. Opposite of okay. Smacked in the side of the face with a giant, slimy piece of hefty, terrible emotions.

The physical manifestation of my failures as a parent.

I start my day at work being introduced to my new coworkers and getting my desk sorted, and not paying attention to any of it because I was trying hard to not burst into tears. I kept seeing Ripley, in that crib, laying there, wanting her mommy and wondering why she abandoned her one and only child.

It was getting so bad that when my supervisor was telling me the timeline of my training, my only thought was that she was wasting her time because I was going to quit and go back home.

Screw this desk, my baby needs me!!!

Grey and I went to lunch with some of his coworkers, where I cried into my chicken pesto panini. I thought the husband was doing better than me, but while I was eating my emotions, he told me he was trying hard to not lose it too, which actually made me feel better. If you're going to be making a scene at a sandwich shop, you might as well make it a group event.

Now, since our munchkin eats like a grizzly bear, it is necessary for me to drop off milk to her during lunch. This provided us with an excellent excuse to go see her. We drive to her daycare, both of us sniffly messes. We go in, and contrary to all of my guilt fueled nightmares, our child is absolutely fine.

In fact, she's actually having fun, and interacting with other babies. When she sees us, she giggles and reaches out for cuddles, but once we put her back on the play mat with the other kiddos, she goes right back to playing. She didn't really care that we were leaving, and that was the best.

"It's alright. Our baby doesn't need us. We're free."

In all seriousness, she was and still is doing really well in daycare. The ladies who run the baby room are super sweet, and Ripley gets to play with other tiny babies. Seeing her giggling and not at all unhappy made both of us realize that there was nothing to feel guilty about.

That doesn't mean I don't still deal with a little bit of guilt. It's a weird emotion. I'll just be typing away, answering some e-mails, then I'll see my desktop wallpaper, which is, of course, my freaking adorable child, and BABAM, there's that stupid guilt again, telling me that there is something wrong with me wanting to work and not being home with her.

But I think that guilt is a totally self-imposed thing. No one besides a mean part of my brain has ever told me that I was doing the wrong thing; my baby is a ridiculously happy kid and our checkbook is a much happier being too.

So, basically, I need to just tell my brain to shut up, because it is dumb.

Shush you. You're not the boss of me.

2. Get Ready to Be Sick For Forever

Fun fact!

Day care centers are cess pools of disease and you do not have the immunities to fight against them yet.

Picutred: How I feel about pretty much all other children right now.

Grey, Ripley, and I have all been passing around all sorts of fun bugs, and everytime we all start to get better, a tiny child sneezes, and we start the whole fun coughing, sneezing, pghlemy grossness all over again. It's gross, but by the time we get through all of this, I think our immune systems may be made of pure steel.

Until then, we're just going to have to deal with a house full of snotty tissues and cough drops.

On the plus-side, Ripley really likes the electronic aspirator. It's super weird, but I'm not going to question it.

3. Pumping at Work Sucks

You know what's fun? Sitting half naked at an office desk attached to a super loud machine sucking boob milk out of yourself. That is awesome.

So cool to do, wish I could pump all the time forever, yay.

First off, let's start off with the logistics of even bringing the pump to work. There are many parts to a pump: the machine, the charger, the tubes, the breast shields, the bottles to go with the breast shields, bottles to put the milk in afterwards, and a washcloth with which to wipe things off with afterwards. So many parts, so many that I end up leaving something at home all the freaking time. This has resulted in me needing to hand-express, which suuuuuuucks and hurts your boobs and gets like no milk out, at all, so you are left with hurty breasts and a wet bra for the entire day.

"My boooooooooooooooobs, ugggggggh."

On the days I actually remember everything, this is my normal day. I take this giant bag of breast pumping goodness to my desk. Then, I go to a spare office, lock the door, set up and plug in the breast pump, attach the breast shields, take my shirt off, pop those boobies right on out, set a timer for 12 minutes, then sit in said empty office, pumping away. Then afterwards, I clean up, put everything away, then go to the bathroom to clean off the breast shields and bottles, which doesn't get weird looks from all the random college kids, at all.

This happens twice a day. Well, it's supposed to at least. My job entails going to meetings a lot, and unfortunately, the world does not schedule itself around my milk production. This results in quite a few days where I am sitting in a meeting trying to ignore my poor aching baby feeders. This is completely deal-able, but still sucks.

"Ugggggggggggggggh, boooooobs."

The worst thing about pumping at work is the one thing that makes most things awful: other people. Despite having a room with a lock, I have been walked in on several times. Having a locked room doesn't mean too much when other people forget they have a a nursing mother working at the office and they also have keys to rooms that have previously been open storage spaces.

One day, my boss accidentally walked in on me while I was pumping, with a guest speaker. This guest speaker served as an advisor to Ronald Reagan. So, a president has vicariously seen my boobs.

Can I add that fact to my resume now?

Since then, I have gotten a private room on a different floor, printed off a sign telling people not to come in, and I have never had anyone walk in on. Yet.

4. You Will Go to Work With Pee, Poop, and/or Spit Up on You

Yep.

Sometimes you are late for work, so if you get spit up on, you only have time to wipe off with a burp rag, angle the car air vent down, and hope everyone is polite enough to not mention that you smell like semi digested breastmilk.

My tiny outfit ruiner.

It is just baby's way of reminding you that they love you?

Yeah, let's go with that.