Everyone else is pregnant and I have to go back to work

[estobi1]

I am in the process of returning to work and I am finding it agonising!

I have three interviews this week (one today) and I am riddled with nerves. I don't want to leave my little girl now coming up to 2 although sometimes part of me wants to fly away and leave the mundane stuff behind. I feel like I have very little self-confidence and like I am just pretending to be this other person and it is just a matter of time before I get found out. My job will be highly pressurised role and I am scared that I will have nothing left to give to my family after a hard days work.

What is worse is that all of my closest friends are pregnant. I loved being pregnant and having a little baby and I would love to fall back into the cosiness of a new baby and that emotional tie is just making it harder. I have to go back to work as we have to earn more money or sell our house. Any positive advice from anyone in the same boat or having been through the same situation?

Go for it - you'll benefit from being a real person again and not just someone's mummy. I stayed at home for 12 years and my brain turned to scrambled egg! Got a part time job at my local council now - very family friendly - I can recommend it

The first step back to work is the worst. But it really is worth it.

Good luck.

As you say you need to do this or you will lose your house, I think you should just get on with it and try not to beat yourself up. There is no choice. You need to pay the mortgage. Don't let anyone make you feel bad about it. And, you might not feel so bad when you get back into the swing of working life, and spend less time hanging around with your pregnant friends.

Couldn't agree more - and that's coming from a confirmed stay at home mum

I say jump right in. You have been fortunate enough to stay home with her for nearly two years. Some mums have to go back to work when their lo's are barely two months old. Your family may benefit even more, from having a confident happy working mum. The first week is the hardest, but you'll get over it soon enough.

You have my sympathy, it's ahrd going abck whether ythey're 12 weeks or 3 years (or with my fiorst two 9 weeks )

It gets easier, you dos till miss them but you learn to cope, and things might change in the future- they did for us- and youc an always give up work again.

(Or do what I did after a month and immediately get PG again LOL)

Thank you for all of your words of reassurance and support - please do not think that I don't appreciate how lucky I have been to be at home with her for so long, its just hard to give it up as I am sure it is for all mums.

Today's interview went well - technical interview on Friday - the true test of whether I still have milk on the brain!

It must have been very hard for you to go back at 9 weeks PBP - you msut be very strong. Like you say, I've just got to get on with it!

Strong? HA! I nearly lost Dh; we worked at the same place, i gave him Hell all the way there, tried to get him to drive to a garage tos ell his car insttead, screamed, bawled all day... I was evil Not his fault, we were just very short of money (ds1 came along very early in our relationship) and back then, maternity tights weren't so good.

But I did adjust, and with ds2 I went abck into a much nicer job elsewhere, and it was relatively fine.

Fingers crossed for you

PeachyBobbingParty have had vision of you bursting out of maternity tights tee hee I'm glad I'm not the only one who misspells things when frantically MNing!

LOL

My typing nown to be pretty terrible, believe it or not has improved a bit lately

I went back after 2 weeks. In some ways that's easier because you've never had any maternity leave to speak of so no period of getting used to being home, no huge wrench for the baby, no adjustments at home between the couple because we both worked full time all the time and no assumptions a mother is more responsible than a father for anything domestic so you can end up with perhaps a more egalitarian home if that's the kind of thing that suits you as it did us.

You did say you might partly want to leave the mundane stuff behind. May be you'll enjoy it. Good luck with the interview.