Well, I made it. I survived my first week back to work after having Belén. It was, at times, quite painful and slow and emotional, but I did it. Each day was less emotional and dramatic than the last, so let me start with Monday. I set my alarm for 5AM. I woke up, fed Belén, pumped the other breast and then got on the spin bike for 45 minutes while Andy went for a run and Belén went back to sleep. Mondays and Wednesdays are Andy’s workout mornings outside of the house. After my workout, I got myself ready for work and then proceeded to gather all of the things Belén needed for her first day away from home. I thought I was almost ready at 7:20AM but when it was all said and done, I didn’t end up leaving the house until nearly 8:20AM. Belén and I arrived at my parents home a little after 8:30AM. I attempted to harden my heart to get through the drop off. My mom was trimming her roses as we pulled up and she happily helped me get everything Belén needed out of the car. We took her inside and I tried to think of it as just dropping her off at Grandma’s for some play time. My hard heart melted when it became time to say good bye and the tears started. My mom was no help as she watched us and said, “Oooh, I cannot even imagine how hard this must be for you.” My mother is very sympathetic, but she definitely does not know the things to say to help you be strong when you are trying to avoid waterworks. I left and started crying more in the car. The only thing that could make me focus on getting to work was stopping at the Human Bean for some coffee. For some reason, coffee was my savior on that first day back. It was the only thing I looked forward to besides the end of the day. I put on my sunglasses so the barista wouldn’t think I was a basket case and ordered a decaf skinny cappuccino. I love the Human Bean because they put a chocolate-covered coffee bean on the top of your drink. I could do this. I drove to HP and tried not to think of Belén. At HP, I parked very close to the building I work in which was surprising since it was nearly 9AM when I arrived. I deduced that the company had continued to empty Buildings 8 and 4 to make room for the employees from the former EDS to move into and to save money. Therefore, the parking lot was quite empty. I put on my backpack with my laptop in it and grabbed my breast pump, lunch bag, water bottle and purse and walked into the building. I looked like a fashionable sherpa. I used the wheelchair buttons to open the doors without using my hands and proceeded as a wide load through the doors. I was immediately struck by the smell of Herman Miller cubicles and made a mental note to update my Facebook status with that observation. I walked down the long hallway to my team’s aisle and then walked down my aisle and arrived at my cubicle. It had not changed much. After docking my laptop and erasing my out of office messages, people started coming by my desk to welcome me back. It was nice that people seemed genuinely happy to see me and very much interested in hearing about Belén and asked when I would have some pictures up. Between visits from people, I began delving into my email. I was only about a week behind as I had gone through the email once a week or so while I was on leave, just to keep the email load manageable. I must have looked at my watch every five minutes. There may have been a stretch or two where I made it ten minutes without looking. Time went SO incredibly slow. I went to get another cup of coffee to have something else to look forward to. At 10:30AM or so, I went to the locker room attached to the bathroom in my building to pump. I sported the fembot getup for the occasion and it actually worked quite well and I was in and out of there in under 20 minutes. I was quite glad that nobody walked in on me because I will fully admit I created a strange site. I had planned to pump twice each day, but after recognizing what a pain it was to set/clean everything up, I decided to skip the afternoon session and instead leave at 4 and feed Belén and then on later days, move my pumping session to 12 or 12:30 over my lunch hour. My iPhone is a lifesaver to give me something to do/read while I pump. I usually get caught up on what the twitter world is doing (I reluctantly admit I am a convert) and if I get through that, then the news. I called my mom a couple of times that morning and learned that Belén was not taking the bottle. Both Belén and my mom were crying which didn’t help my mental state. Neither did my mom’s proclamation that it was obvious how much Belén missed me. I had confidence that my mom would handle the situation and also knew that Belén would not starve. I felt a little guilty for not doing a better dress rehearsal while I was on maternity leave but didn’t beat myself up over it too much. I worked through my lunch hour so I could leave early. Many fellow working moms emailed me to tell me that they knew what I was going through and that it would get better. I think I heard the words “hang in there” twenty times. (thanks everyone!) My admin picked up where she left off from before I had the baby and was protective of my conversations with people who stopped by my cube. Before I had the baby, she wouldn’t let people tell me labor horror stories. On Monday, she wouldn’t let them ask me how hard it was to leave the baby. For those who wanted to ask that question but weren’t allowed to, it was SO HARD! We have packed up our lives and moved to both Mexico and China and neither good bye for those moves was as hard as saying good bye to my daughter that first day back to work. Somehow, seven hours (420 minutes, 25,200 seconds) passed. I bolted for the door. Andy had already picked up Belén and I drove as fast as I could without getting pulled over to meet them at home. It was with extreme joy that I was reunited with my daughter. Andy was very understanding that I needed to hog her and worked on getting dinner prepared while I fed Belén and acted like I hadn’t seen her in a year. I hugged her and kissed her incessantly (I know, I am sounding over the top here) and tried to drink in as much of her as I could. Suddenly I was so bummed that she is going to bed so early (7PM) and sleeping through the night and I actually wished that I was still getting up with her every two hours just so could spend more time with her. Things were okay until I didn’t get enough sleep on Monday night (stayed up late on the computer) and got up early to run on Tuesday morning. I resorted back to not knowing if I could leave her at daycare that morning. Upon returning from the Y, I walked into our bedroom and Andy asked how my workout was and I replied while crying, “I don’t think I can leave her at daycare.” Andy stepped up to the plate and was sympathetic yet logical as usual. He asked me what I was concerned about and then asserted that he would take her to daycare to make it easier for me and that it was going to be just fine. That wasn’t exactly what I was hoping he would say (I guess I don’t really know what I was hoping for), but it did solve the immediate issue at hand. I readied myself and went to work while he got Belén ready and took her to daycare and then went work. This arrangement helped me cope better with the situation but I was still entirely anxious to leave work and pick her up at daycare that afternoon. When I arrived at daycare around 4:30PM to pick her up, Belén seemed happy as a clam. I had a one-track mind and barely remember anything about that first pick up as I was in such a rush to get her out of there and get her back home in my arms. (This sounds like a romance novel, geez..) By Wednesday, things started to get better. Andy continued to drop off since I cope much better with picking her up than dropping her off…plus he gets ready more quickly than I do, so it just works out. Now I enjoy picking her up and seeing the other little kids she “plays” with. She really seems happy at the daycare and appears to be taking it all in. She also loves to watch the other kids. On Thursday when I picked her up, Max, a boy who is almost nine months was crawling up to her in her bouncy chair and attempting to drool on her. Andy said that we will have to teach her at a young age how to deal with pushy boys. 
I printed out twelve 8.5 x 11-inch pictures of her and hung them up in my cube. It is a homage to Belén in my cube. It helps to be able to see her while I work and other people have enjoyed stopping to look at the pictures. There is not an abundance of joy at work right now, so I think pictures of an adorable baby help. My job is actually more fun than I remembered. I think I had built it up in my head that it was not fun while I was away for so long. If you have seen “The Producers”, I was thinking of the “unhappy” scene/song with Leo and the accountants, “Unhappy…unhappy…very very very very very very very unhappy” and it is really nothing like that. I do enjoy being productive and just my job in general and now that I am coping with the daycare situation better, all seems good. I do, however, wish I would work part-time somehow, while keeping my job….but in the current economic environment, I will not even ask the question. In my first staff meeting with my team, I apologized in advance if I seem distant when I am talking with them for my first couple of weeks back. My mind very often wanders to Belén wondering what she is doing and if she is enjoying where she is at. People seemed understanding but I do need to continually make a conscious effort to focus on what is going on at work (while I am at work), as my team deserves that. They have worked really hard while I was gone and we are in good shape, which is nice. I like to give myself goals to achieve that upon achieving I can relax for a bit. I told myself that I only had to make it till Friday at noon, then I would call it a week. We were supposed to go camping at that time. Once the clock struck noon, I rushed to Andy’s parents house to pick her up and ever since then I have been reveling in my time with her. One quick thanks to all of the supportive moms who sent me nice notes or called or instant messaged with me this week. My favorite story was from Stacey who said that she developed an anxiety-induced rash on her first day back to work after having her twins. It made me feel like I was coping okay because I didn’t have a rash yet. You poor thing, that must have been horrible! What a wonderful network of supportive working moms I have. I am very fortunate
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