Prelude: The Return to Work

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The countdown is officially on…hold on, who am I kidding? The countdown has been on since he arrived. The second question I was asked when he was born after, ‘is he a good baby?‘ was always, ‘When are you going back to work?‘.

I return to work this week. On Thursday to be precise. It’s not simply a case of me returning to my old job in my previous place of work though. I’m not even returning to a place I’ve worked before. Possibly, I won’t be returning to the same job. Yes, I will still have the same job title and work for the same company but so much will have changed over the past fifteen months. As if the return to work after maternity leave wasn’t hard enough.

My employer is a family friendly business and so I have been lucky to have been relocated to an office which is closer to home. Even luckier for me, my mother in law will be looking after the baby when I return meaning our ability to save the last few thousand pounds needed to purchase our new home won’t be compromised.

It’s going to be a huge shift in routine for me and for Dexter. To be honest, I’m more worried about Dexter. I’ve had experience in getting up at 5.30am to do the long commute to work and not getting home til gone 7pm, but he has not. His current routine involves him getting up at 7am, lesisurely eating breakfast at 8am and going down for his first nap by 9am. His new routine will consist of him getting up at 6am, having a very quick breakfast before 7am and getting to his nanna’s house by 7.30. From there on, I have no idea what his day will look like. New lessons will need to be learnt. Life as he knows it will change forever.

I wrote before about how anxious I am about returning to work. Somehow those butterflies in my stomach have changed. I recently visited the town I will be working in and had a peek in the office that I’ll be running. It’s almost as if I’ve come full circle. The town is very similar to the town I started out in ten years ago; with the added bonus of lots of shops and cafes. The office is small and intimate and the people seem friendly. The butterflies have calmed themselves and I’ve almost felt a few pangs of excitement.

Returning to work after over a year off is hard, harder still is returning to a brand new environment; meeting new people and gaining their trust. But it is going to be worth it. For me, and for my family. I hope to be able to tell you in six months time that we have purchased our dream home. I hope to be able to tell you that we have booked another holiday. Most importantly, I hope to be able to tell you that I am enjoying work and I’m having a whale of a time.

Because what’s the point of working, if you don’t enjoy it at all. Right?

Interested to know how I got on? Find out how the first year back in work after maternity leave went here.

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