Kicked to the kerb - leave or suck it up?

[Blindspot82]

Just wanted some honest advice. Before I left work last year to have baby no.2 I went for a promotion in my workplace and didn't get it. (I wasn't pregnant at the time.) If it had been just a case of another candidate being better than me I would have been ok with this - but what upset me is that the job I was in was a new role within the organisation, and I developed it, shaped it and rolled it out in my area. I basically wrote the blueprint for the role, set new objectives and told my project manager what I had done to steer the direction of the job.

So naturally, when she brought out a senior role in the same field, with the aim of rolling the work out across the other teams, I went for it. The job description I had basically written for her. And then she gave the post to someone else and tried to extend the olive branch by saying I was "an expert in my field."

Before I left, she sent me an email, offering to supervise me, if I didn't have a problem with that. I was so emotionally tired and dispirited. I just said "That's fine."

Now I've returned to my job after being on maternity leave and don't know what to do. I feel I just need a job that's safe, whilst the baby is still so little, but I feel well and truly de-moralised. All the goodwill and enthusiasm I used to have has gone. I just go in, do my hours and go home. Can't see a future there, as I feel the door has been slammed in my face. It's a crap feeling, especially after I tried so hard. Feel like a fool too - gave this woman all the ideas, which she then used to basically employ someone else. And the weird thing is, the woman she did employ has now left...…...don't know why, or what happened there but when I looked for her on our system she was gone.

She hasn't contacted me yet although she knows I'm back - my manager told her. My manager sent her a couple of meeting invites already which she declined - do I just suck things up for now or try and make peace with her?