As maternity leave comes to an end on Wednesday, I’m trying to think of all the great times I had with my little girl and be thankful for this time we had together versus how much I’m going to miss her during the day when I’m at work.

For maternity leave I took the 8 weeks of short term disability, plus an extra two weeks. I’ll then go back to work part-time (working Wednesday and Friday and working from home on Thursday) for two weeks and then going back four days a week. I figured it was good to ease back into things…

I honestly can’t believe how fast it went by. The day before she was born was my first official day of maternity leave and was thinking how these 10 weeks were going to feel like an eternity and now that I only have two days left, it unfortunately felt like a week. I will say we definitely made the best of our 70 days together. We took days of rest, but we also did stuff to cross things off on our summer bucket list. Here is a collection of photos that sum up maternity leave…

// Slept a lot…
 // Some of us took showers…
// Had a lot of doctors appointments to check on her weight and my incision…
 // Took lots of selfies…
 // Got to hang out with grammie and she did a lot of housework for us…
// Went out for ice cream…

// Played with toys…

// Went to dad’s baseball games…

 // Wore the baby…

// Got newborn/family photos done…

// Went on walks to the beach almost every day…

// Went to the zoo…
// Went to a parade, celebrated the fourth and saw fireworks…

// Met new friends…
 // Lounged at the pool…
// Got frozen yogurt…
 // Went to ski shows…
 // Opened a savings account…

// Spent time with my cousins…

// Played at the beach…

In returning to work, what I’m most sad/worried about is missing little milestones like her first giggle, rolling-over, sitting up fully on her own and just all the little endless smiles that I get from her on a daily basis. I’m also not able to wrap my head around how I’m going to “take care” of our home, aka cooking, cleaning and just keeping up with all the work that comes with owning a home. My time with Emerald is going to be super limited to nights, weekends and Mondays that I don’t want to waste my time cleaning our house, I definitely want to spend every waking moment with her!

The good thing about returning to work is who is taking care of her during the day. My mom will watch her two days a week and a good family friend is watching her the other two days. She will be so spoiled and well taken care of, so I’m thankful I have nothing to worry about there!

I’m trying to remember that there is a season and time for everything, sadly this maternity leave season is over, but here comes a new season and hoping there are blessings there. Oh and here comes the tears…