When I approached the 3-month mark with my twins, a period of time that characterized a reasonable maternity leave, it symbolized that I should have been \u201cready\u201d to go back to work. Yet I was feeling less ready than I ever had. \u00a0The twins were my 3rd and 4th children so I knew the tenuous relationship with \u2018readiness\u2018 a mother can have going back to work. This feeling was as bloated, as \u20182X\u2019 as my twin pregnancy.<\/p>\n
For each of my returns to work, I had a series of memories of expectations gone awry – naive thinking that proved so off base, it distanced me from reality. I expected my work clothes to magically slip right back on, the baby\u2019s sleep schedule to suddenly lock in place, complicated email threads from prior to my leave to have been solved and tucked away into the ether, important, \u201cmission-critical\u201d stuff to happen from 8-6 to justify precious time away from the baby. The more these things didn\u2019t happen, the more distance I put between me and the rest of the world. I figured I must be alone.<\/p>\n
No one talks about these things. These details. These imperfect moments. These instances of expectations gone awry and affective forecasts miscalculated. We talk about them to ourselves, often late at night, when we feel like we and the babies are the only ones – besides robbers, ghosts and monsters awake.<\/p>\n