This article was posted by Sharac on behalf of  the author who wishes to remain anonymous

Giving up work

All my life I have been career orientated. I am 37 and, if I may say so, I have done very well in my career.  I have a team who work for me and for whom I am responsible.  I have written almost 100 articles, presented my work worldwide and have books, reviews and television appearances to my credit.  After a lot of hard work my career is going exactly where I want it to be going. I am already THE expert in my field and I can see that in a couple of years I could be the big cheese, in fact I have already been advised to go for these positions now, but I am pregnant.  This is not a bad thing.  I am ecstatic about it.  It takes the relationship with my husband to a new level and will hopefully enrich our lives.  But my career will have to go on hold.  Maybe for 3 months, maybe a year. If I have a daughter I would like her to have a positive career model, I certainly don’t want to waste all my education and experience and to be honest, I like being in charge, having a secretary and making my own decisions and decisions for others.  However I have spoken to many career mothers and they have all told me that they regret not having the first few months with their child so I have decided to give up work for now and see how it goes.

Baby is 3 months

I had a daughter, she is lovely but I am so tired.  I had no idea this would be so much harder than work.  I am still breastfeed and I take my daughter everywhere I go.  Today I met up with some old friends from work.  People who used to work for me.  They tell me about their job now, all the meetings they’ve been to and the important things that they’ve done.  I have nothing to contribute, my life is on hold. I think -  I used to be important, soon I will be back, in charge and important again!.

Baby is 6 months

Still breastfeeding, still tired. I started doing some freelance work today from home, whilst my daughter is asleep. I have been commissioned to write some articles, and have also been asked to be on an advisory board, which pays me a salary and entails me answering a few questions (by email) a month.  This suits me for the moment and is stretches my mind, but is not the high powered job that I had.  It will keep me going until I am important again. 

Baby is 12 months

I have such a nice network of mummy friends now; my life has completely changed.  My freelance work and consultancy is still going and I am chair of a special interest group, which is a nice challenge.  In my job, as a high flyer I never imagined that I could have done these things.  My last job was so structured, I am not sure I could go back to the 9-5 rat race?.  Meeting up with my old work friends, they talk of work and the work politics.  I find myself thinking, get a life!!.  I have not been out to the pictures, for a meal or to the theatre since before my baby was born, but my life is so much more complete now.  My worries are also more real.  Having a concern about my daughter’s health or nursery is much more important to me than worrying about what my peers are doing or thinking or whether I have seen the latest film.

Baby is 18 months

I met up with someone from my old life today.  She tells me about her week and it seems to me that she thinks she is important because of the job that she does.  When I get home my daughter runs up to me as I enter the room shouting mummy, mummy, mummy with the biggest smile that I have seen.  She is the happiest girl in the world and I reflect on the facts that it was me who taught her how to stand, to walk, to eat, to talk, to play.  I contributed to her having her inner confidence and her happy nature.  I am there for when a tooth comes through and she has pain that she cannot describe or understand.  Only I understand her unique language, her wants and needs, her sleeping, playing and eating habits.  And in the future I want to be there on her first day at school, to organise her parties, to entertain her friends, to help her make her important life decisions.  I realise that now I am important.

I wrote this after meeting a friend, who was depressed about giving up her job, because she had no positive feed back during the day from her newborn.   Three years later I now have two daughters (neither are at school yet) and run a very successful company which has twelve employees, mostly mums working from home (many of them mums from mainstream science).  I work around the kids, its not easy at all, but it’s a lifestyle that I have chosen.  It can be done!