Maternity leave

Oh maternity leave, I love you so. I want to wrap you up and give you a big kiss.

I think I'm having a better time with X than I did with K for two reasons. First, I have learned to put the baby down. I used to hold K and let him sleep on top of me all the time. He'd be understandably cranky when I tried to move him and got really hard to put down on his own. I take the occasional nap with X, but he's mostly swaddled and sleeping by himself, leaving me free to do things like shower and cook.

The second reason is that being on leave has made me realize how incredibly stressful my job is. Whether I'm busy or not, I'm constantly on call. I have literally had days where I sat around all day with nothing to do and billed zero hours from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., ended up staying late and missing K's bedtime because of an emergency assignment that came in at 6, checked my email before going to bed at 11 and found additional work that needed to be completed "before the end of the night", and then checked again at 6 a.m. only to find an urgent assignment waiting for me that needed to be completed ASAP. All of that melted away the moment I headed to the hospital. I was so happy waiting in the hospital room that morning even though I knew I was headed for either induction or a C section, neither of which I had wanted. I was happy because I knew I was done. No more worrying about being hit with a sudden demand out of nowhere. No more waking up at 4 a.m. making a mental checklist of what needed to be done and wondering if I should be checking my email.

When I realized that X's early arrival meant that a six-month leave would have me back at work for all of September, my very favorite month, I asked JW if he would mind if I stretched out my leave for one more month. He snorted. "Sure, whatever you want." "Why did you say it like that?" "I know you," he said. "You're not going to last all six months. You'll be begging to go back to work early." We made a bet. If JW wins, our family gets a couple of extra months of my salary. If I win, I get extra time off. Either way, not bad.