different

When my first child was a baby, I worked full time and he was formula-fed. His grandmother took care of him while I was at work (thanks BKG!) and then he went to preschool.

With my younger two children, I worked from home when they were babies and toddlers. Yes, I definitely worked, but since I did it at home (as full-time freelancer) on a flexible schedule, I was free to mother on their schedule. There were never worries about which parent would miss work when a child was sick, and neither of them ever took a bottle of anything. I nursed them when they needed nursing, often while I did phone interviews for my work, or wrote. When I needed to go somewhere, they came with me. When one of them needed to go somewhere, I took them. Occasionally I needed a few hours of childcare, and then I could rely on grandparents (thanks BKG!) or my wonderful next door neighbor. When each of the children turned three, they started part time preschool.

Now, fifteen years after child #1 was a baby, and 9 years after I last had a baby, I am expecting baby #4. This time, I have a very demanding, fulltime, outside-the-home job that I cannot quit. I won't even get much of a maternity leave. Probably only about 8 weeks. Plus, I drive about two hours a day on the days the children are with me and not their father to get them all where they need to be (school, lessons, etc).

Jon and I have started talking about how this whole babycare thing is going to work, given my schedule. It's clear it's going to be a very, very different experience for me and for the baby. For starters, I will be separated from the baby many more hours than I would like each day. I am hoping that Jon's mother will help with childcare (she says she will but we have yet to discuss specifics). And Jon works for a family business, so he has far more ability to create a much more baby-friendly, flexible work schedule than I do, so I expect that Jon will be as involved - if not more involved - with babycare as I am.

This all means, of course, that our baby will have to learn to take bottles of pumped breastmilk, and that I will have to make pumping and storing breastmilk a regular and major part of my daily life. I cannot say that I am looking forward to this. The only time I have pumped regularly was for the few weeks E. was in the NICU and couldn't yet nurse. I did not enjoy it.

I am getting pretty nervous about all of this. I know lots of women work full time outside the home and manage to be wonderful, attached mamas, but I think I am going to find it very hard to leave the baby each day. And I do sort of dread all that pumping...