My Maternity Leave: Part 2

As I write this, at the end of November, I’ve just begun what I’ve been calling my maternity leave: part two. It’s not something I planned, and it’s certainly not something I thought I’d need. A few months ago I was feeling rather pleased with myself. I’d had Sasha in July and taken about six weeks off, and then eased back into work in a way that felt surprisingly comfortable. The original idea was to stick to three days a week until February, but it all felt so straightforward that I slipped into five days without thinking much about it. For a while it worked and I’ll be honest, I felt pretty smug. People had warned me that the early months would be a total write off, but I seemed to have managed all that.

However, big surprise… that confidence didn’t last. Over the last few weeks it’s become clear that whatever rhythm I thought I’d settled into wasn’t as secure as I’d imagined. I won’t go into the full list yet, but the short version is that everything has started to demand more from me at the same time. I kept telling myself it was fine, that I just needed to push through, that I should be able to cope. And of course, when you’re the person running the business, it’s very easy to fall into the trap of thinking you can’t possibly step back, because everyone else is depending on you.

But eventually I reached the point where I could see I wasn’t coping as well as I wanted to pretend (I hasten to add – I didn’t really see this clearly, but my ever wise husband did). That’s what’s prompted this article - the realisation of how stubborn I can be about asking for help, and how reluctant I am to admit when something is becoming too much. I’ve spent years encouraging other people to take a breath, slow down, give themselves space creatively. All those pieces of advice I tell others, it turns out I’m rather less good at doing it myself.

So that’s where this article begins - I’m pausing work again until the end of the year and trying to work out why it took me so long to recognise that I needed to.