Five years ago, I left my full-time job as an editor at a publishing company to go to Korea to pick up our daughter HJ. She was 15 months old. I had waited over a year for her to come home, and I was more than ready to be a full-time stay-at-home. At the time, I thought there was nothing else that I wanted than to be home with my daughter every possible moment.

We had a lot of help from family and friends during that transition home, but for that first year, I was still a very anxious, first-time mom trying to survive from moment to moment.

I still remember how challenging it was to even try to figure out when I could take a shower. I actually called my dad to come over and watch HJ, who was napping, so that I could take a shower without worrying about what would happen if she woke up and started crying. That’s how crazy I was during those first few days.

A few months later, when the dust had settled, I realized that I really wanted to start working again, even if it was just at a freelance level and from home, so that I could keep my skills up and keep my brain occupied with thoughts other than sleeping, pacifiers, attachment, feeding, and whatever various baby/toddler concerns were going on at the time.

I don’t know if it was the combination of post-adoption blues, the shock of becoming an instant parent to a toddler, or simply lack of sleep, but I can honestly say I was not a great stay-at-home mom. Even though I had never thought of myself as an extrovert, suddenly being at home with just HJ made me feel more isolated than ever before. Many other experienced moms had warned me about how difficult it was being home full-time, and yet, maybe I thought I was different? Turns out they were right of course!

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In order to find some social interaction, I think I dragged poor HJ to every Gymboree, mommy and me class, and playgroup that existed! Unfortunately, these day-to-day outings were not a match for HJ’s personality, so pretty much we were both not happy campers.

Things gradually got better as we settled into a routine, but then we moved, Lila was born, and HJ started preschool, and everything was chaos once again.

Looking back, though, I’m thankful that I had freelance work that allowed me to work odd hours, and not have to go into an office in order to stay connected with the industry I was in. It had its cons as well, such as trying to start working at 9 pm at night and falling asleep on the couch at midnight, and then waking up early in the morning to meet a deadline. But overall, I was grateful for the flexibility.

Now, with HJ being in first grade, and my other daughter starting preschool, I’m getting ready to make the transition back to working full-time. Thankfully, the type of work I do still allows me to work from home day-to-day, but the downside is that there will be some travel involved in meeting clients and starting up the project.

Although I’m excited and feel like this is the right time, my mind is still whirling with the changes that we’ll have to put in place to make this transition work. We have had steady childcare once a week up until now, but now we will have to find new arrangements for when my younger one is not in school. That’s probably my biggest stressor at the moment.

And even though it’s been five years, part of me wonders if I haven’t really appreciated not having to work full-time. I think with HJ I was too stressed most of the time to really appreciate the little moments we had together everyday, but now I realize that those moments are long gone! And with Lila being only three years old, I’m already starting to feel some working-mommy guilt about having to miss out on things like being a mystery reader at her preschool or helping out with the class parties. Such is the tradeoff I suppose…

For those of you who have made the switch to going back to work, what have you done to make the transition easier? How have your little ones adjusted?