Nobody warned me about this part of returning to work after maternity leave

Today marks my first unofficial return to work after having Cyrus at 40. And no, I haven’t been tempted back because the office closes early for Easter and everyone makes a spirited dash towards the nearest pub. I’ve been lured by something considerably more persuasive: chocolate. More specifically, the Newcastle Quayside Easter Egg Hunt.

Chocolate and coffee have become important currencies in my life lately, so there was never much chance of me missing it. But there was another reason I wanted to go. Exactly a year ago, I was six months pregnant and charging around Newcastle during the first office Easter Egg Hunt. I remember it because pregnancy had already introduced me to the experience of being discussed in terms of risk factors rather than as a woman having a baby.

I was over 40 and my BMI put me into the obese category. On paper, I had acquired labels that sounded a lot less energetic than I felt. Yet there I was, following clues around Newcastle and covering roughly six miles with my colleagues. My team, ‘Team Rabbit’ eventually won, which felt satisfying after spending so much of pregnancy hearing about the risks supposedly attached to my age and weight.

A year later, the landscape looks a bit different. This time I’m part of ‘Team Lamb’, the walking distance is shorter and I’m carrying a much heavier passenger. I think travelling with a baby should qualify a team for bonus points. There are bottles, spare clothes, nappies, toys and the possibility that somebody will need an emergency change at the least convenient time.

Childcare and commuting are only part of the return. Somewhere underneath the logistics sits another question: whether the professional woman who left still feels like you.

The Easter egg hunt is supposed to be fun, but somewhere between the clues and coffee, I find myself thinking about my real return to work, which is now less than a month away. Almost a year is a long time to step away from a workplace when everybody else’s working lives have continued while your own has been reorganised around a very small person.

People join. People leave. Clients change. Awards are won. Projects come and go. Office jokes develop without you. Meanwhile, your days become governed by feeds, naps, washing and appointments. Then the date on the calendar creeps closer and you realise that, one morning, you are going to walk back through that office door and be expected to pick up where you left off.

Except I’m beginning to realise I’m not quite the woman who left. That is the part we don’t talk about enough when discussing returning to work after maternity leave. We concentrate on childcare arrangements, working hours and whether somebody can physically get from nursery to the office before nine. Those things matter, but another adjustment is happening underneath all the logistics. You are trying to work out where you fit again.

I’ve tried to stay connected during maternity leave, keeping in touch with friends and colleagues and following what has been happening while I’ve been away. There have been awards and client wins, alongside new starters and departures. The company has moved forward, as companies do, but keeping one foot in that world means I don’t feel as though I’m returning to a completely unfamiliar place.

My welcome today helps. My new desk is ready before I’ve properly taken off my coat, and there is something unexpectedly reassuring about seeing a physical space waiting for me. A desk sounds like a small thing, but after months in which most flat surfaces at home have been occupied by bottles, muslins, toys or half-drunk mugs of coffee, it doesn’t feel small at all. It tells me I still have a place here.

I’m less certain about the logistics. I have no idea how smoothly I’m going to manage Newcastle morning traffic, Cyrus’s drop-offs and pick-ups, family life, broken sleep and doing the job I’m being paid to do. I suspect there will be mornings when everything works beautifully and others when I arrive wondering why I have baby wipes in my handbag but no office pass.

Part of the reason I engineered this unofficial return is because I wanted to test the water. Returning to work after maternity leave is usually discussed as a practical transition, but confidence is part of it too. After months away, I wonder whether I’ll remember how to slip back into conversations.

Today gives me a low-stakes rehearsal. I can meet colleagues I don’t know, catch up with people I do and remind myself that I am capable of talking about subjects other than feeding, sleeping and the contents of a nappy. Nobody is asking me to prove that maternity leave hasn’t somehow wiped my professional hard drive. I’m simply back among colleagues, joining in.

Cyrus, meanwhile, introduces everyone to the new version of me. I am now apparently a one-woman travelling circus, carrying a bottle of Aptamil, a furry bunny, my mobile phone and a rucksack containing enough equipment to survive a minor natural disaster. There is probably baby drool somewhere on my clothes. This is not how I used to arrive at work, but oddly, I don’t mind.

I haven’t stopped being ambitious because I’m a mum, and I haven’t forgotten how to work because I’ve spent months changing nappies. But my life has changed, and pretending otherwise seems pointless. The challenge is not squeezing motherhood quietly into the margins of my old working life. It is working out how the professional woman and the mother coexist.

Today helps because there is no grand performance required. Nobody expects me to prove anything. We walk, talk, hunt for clues and eat chocolate. Somewhere along Newcastle Quayside, work begins to feel familiar again and, perhaps more importantly, so do I.

I’m not proposing that every employer in Britain immediately purchase several dozen chocolate eggs and send women returning from maternity leave charging around their nearest city centre, although I wouldn’t object. The lesson is much simpler. Small opportunities to reconnect can make returning feel less daunting.

An informal visit, a team activity or even a coffee before the official first day can help remove some of the uncertainty. Because the worry is not necessarily just about whether you can still do your job. It is wondering what has changed while you were gone, whether relationships will feel different and whether there is still a place for you when you come back. Today answers at least one of those questions for me. There is.

‘Team Lamb’ does not repeat ‘Team Rabbit’s’ glorious victory, but there is consolation. The boss hands out Easter eggs to everyone anyway, producing one delighted baby and an even more delighted mum. I’m not suggesting chocolate can solve the complexities of returning to work after maternity leave, but I’m equally unwilling to dismiss its contribution.

Afterwards, H, Cyrus and I head to Persian Delight on Stanhope Street for koobideh and tea. Cyrus gets a taste too, because apparently an Easter egg hunt followed by Persian food is simply what multicultural family life looks like around here. It is not quite the conventional image of a corporate return-to-work day, but then very little about life with a baby feels conventional anymore.

By the time we head home, I realise the day has done something I hadn’t expected. I’m still nervous about going back to work. I still don’t know exactly how the mornings will work, how tired I’ll be or whether I’ll occasionally find myself sitting at my desk wishing I were at home having an afternoon cuddle with Cyrus. But I’m no longer wondering whether I can walk back through that office door.

I already have.

Perhaps returning to work after maternity leave isn’t one dramatic leap back into your old life. It happens in smaller steps: a familiar face, a new desk, a conversation you realise you haven’t forgotten how to have, and the reassuring discovery that there is still a place for you when you return.

Occasional stories, experiments, discoveries and questions from Saffron & Cyrus.