Let the guilt commence

It’s my last week of maternity leave. This time next week I will be having my tea break on my second day back in the office. It’s the end of an era. Talking to a pregnant friend the other day I felt compelled to warn her – ‘you are fucked once you have a baby, your heart will never be your own again! ‘ – I didn’t say that, of course, but I wanted to prepare her. For the gut-wrenching feeling you get when you leave them with somebody else; for that arrogant and heartbreaking belief that nobody can take care of them quite like you. For the fact that from the minute they’re born your every waking moment will henceforth be filled with thoughts about their welfare – is the baby OK? Is he too hot, too cold, hungry or tired? Is he putting on weight as he should, reaching milestones on time? You get the picture. Life is never the same again. And yet it must go on, at some point, as normal; unless you are privileged enough not to need to work, or content enough not to need privileges. The babymoon must end at some point and it it’s place begins a sort of half life – half mummy, half editor in my case. Like the low fat Flora on an anorexic’s toast I must now spread myself extra thin – work, child care, housework, wifely ‘duties’ – will I ever be able to give anything my full, undivided attention ever again? Will I be able to juggle it all? Will I disappear under a pile of ironing whilst Bubs enters the early stages of going ‘off the rails’ due to parental neglect? Maybe not. But I’ll tell you something for nothing, it’s not going to be easy. And I’m knackered just thinking about it.