Am I being daft? Opinions please!

[Cwmtydu]

So my baby (my first) is due on the 31st July. Am just thinking about telling work when we get back after Christmas, but I know they're going to ask me, at least informally, what I am intending to do about maternity leave and stuff.

I really need some opinions about whether I am being daft -- I have this idea that certain bits of work (a new course I will have designed, championed, and organised) I really don't want to miss out on. So I've concocted a scheme that would have me working (teaching) either one or two evenings a week for three hours at a time, from the middle of september (baby will be six or seven weeks old, if s/he comes on time).

I wouldn't be working at all during the day and dh could look after baby on those evenings. I'm intending to take maternity leave for all the rest of my job commitments which add up to more than full time.

Questions then:

How practically possible is that? Am I going to be too knackered / find it impossible to leave it when it's so young?

Are my priorities going to have changed so much that I really won't care if I lose control of my precious course?

Is this just me denying the reality of how much my life will change and do I just have to go with it and the implications for my career now I have made the decision to have children?

thanks in advance for your thoughts -- I have no idea if this is reasonable or totally out of the question.

Thank you so much for your responses! It's brilliant to hear your real experiences and I've loved reading them.

I'm not much clearer about what I'm going to do but at least I have a bit more knowledge. Think I'll give myself a bit more time to decide.

I don't even know what answer I was actually looking for -- whether I wanted reassurance that i could do it if I wanted, or I wanted permission to forget work and enjoy the baby. Part of it is the latter, because I am feeling guilty about letting work down. But I also do want to keep this course. Bah.

And thanks for the warnings about whether it's even possible legally -- I'll try and find out.

Cwmtydu, you have to work out whether you really want to do the course or just feel obliged.

it isn't the case though that everyone is overwhelmed by a new baby. i felt quite at a loose end in my first maternity leave (and my 3rd one). am not a workaholic, i work part time and see plenty of my children. but being at home full time with a little baby, if it's sleeping and feeding well, doesn't necessarily occupy you fully. my first baby was very easy and i was sometimes bored, actually. she slept, ate, and then what?

at that point it was sometimes nice to have a bit of work to do.

Cwmtydu, you may find that the guilt you feel about work changes into the guilt you feel when leaving the baby!