Thinking with your head, heart or hormones

So, if you’ve read my blog before or just seen the approximately 20 million photos I post of my daughter, Sienna a day on Instagram, you’ll know that for the last nine months I’ve been on maternity leave.

Now, as much as I’ve loved having all this time “off” with Sienna (I use the term off loosely as anyone who has had a baby knows, maternity leave is anything but a holiday) but I have always known that it will eventually come to an end…this ending began on Friday with my first full KIT day.

Before the big day, I got an email with an agenda and I’m not going to lie I got quite excited. Meeting nice new people, a lunch where I could use both my hands and absolutely no pooey nappies! I also knew that Sienna was going to have a fun day with her daddy and nanny, and I knew that a day apart would do her and me the world of good…I knew all this but unfortunately as Friday came around, thinking with my head changed to thinking with my heart.

As I got dressed in my best, baby sick free, Everything5pounds.com outfit, Sienna was uncharacteristically quiet (If you’ve ever met Sienna you’ll know just how uncharacteristic her being quiet is.) Luckily, Stu was there and could see we were both feeling a bit funny so made Sienna some yummy toast to distract her gave me a kiss and hug before telling me how lovely I looked (superficial I know but this helped us both😂)

Getting in the car, I of course gave mum a ring and as we got into one of our typically random conversations I soon stopped worrying about Sienna.

Arriving in the hotel staff car park, everything felt the same but different, with lots of new faces along with my favourite familiar ones. Thankfully, I’d managed to time my walking in with the arrival of the staff shuttle bus, so I got to walk in having a chat with some of my old friends.

Chatting away, I literally felt just like my pre baby working self and was buzzing for my first meeting. My first meeting was absolutely lovely in the hotel’s beautiful restaurant. Sipping my hot coffee, without having one eye on danger magnet Sienna, was so nice that (and I feel bad for writing this) my guilt for leaving in the morning began to drift away.

The next meeting and lunch were equally lovely and it almost felt like I hadn’t been away ( I say almost because when it got to 2pm and I’d had almost six hours without feeding Sienna my boobs were ready to burst so I had to nip to the HR office for a pumping session, that was definitely a first!)

Boobs suitably deflated, I enjoyed a couple more meetings before heading home. By this point, the novelty of being away from Sienna was starting to wear off and I was desperate for a cuddle.

Driving down our road, I’d managed to time my home coming with Stu getting back from a walk and to my delight (and relief) Sienna instantly smiled at me when I got out the car. I then grabbed Sienna from Stu in the same way I normally grab my phone or ice cream from him and gave Sienna the biggest/ tightest cuddle ever.

Sienna and I then had the most magical bath-time together and I felt so positive. I’d had a great day at work and what’s more Sienna had survived and had a nice day too – win win win!

Sadly, the next day, those logical positive thoughts in my head got slightly muddled by everybody’s favourite emotion inducing…hormones!

Stu and I were talking about our plan for Sienna’s childcare and suddenly I got an actual physical pain in my stomach. I knew this had been the plan all along and I knew this is what I wanted, but I couldn’t help but feel my baby was being taken away from me.

A standard crisis call with my mum later, I was feeling much better and knew our plan for Sienna was the best for all of us…that was until the following evening. Stu and I were sat on the sofa chatting about things we needed to get for Sienna and for some reason I went from feeling ever so slightly teary to letting loose the ugliest tears ever – think Rylan Clark X factor or Sienna here when she wanted a biscuit.

Stu obviously trying to console me, told me it would all be okay and no one was going to steal my baby, but again I can’t explain the physical sickness I felt. This sickness continued all evening as I watched I’m a Celebrity (definitely wasn’t this making me sick by the way) right up until bedtime.

The next morning, I woke up thankfully not feeling teary or sicky but still a weird sort of greyness. I went about my morning as usual and thankfully I’d already planned to see Lovedean’s best agony aunt (aka my mum) and as soon as I saw her I told her about my outburst I’d had the night before. True to form, Mum gave some typically amazing advice and I left feeling a lot better.

Sienna and I then had a lovely afternoon together and even managed to find a break in this crazy rain for a walk. Walking along one our favourite maternity leave walks, I suddenly got a wave of positive emotions and realised how lucky I am to have such a perfect daughter, perfect husband and of course perfect mum. Feeling so positive,

I was also able to see the positive things about going back to work at a job I loved.

I’m sure there will be more tears on my return to work journey and I know there will definitely be more hormone infused irrational thoughts. But I also know whatever happens Sienna will still be my baby girl and however many days we have to be apart, no one can take her away from me.

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