From Manager to Maternity leave.

Three things I found helpful to switch off my work brain and switch on my mom-to-be brain.

When I first found out I was expecting, one of my initial thoughts was "time off work" and while this is very true, in reality it's time off from one type of work where you can sign off at the end of the shift and instead taking a full time 24-7 role preparing for and looking after your newborn baby. I'm also the type of person who likes to be extremely organised and plan everything, so as the time began creeping closer and closer to the start of my maternity leave, my brain kicked into overdrive. As a manager I had non negotiable responsibilities that I needed to complete daily, along with finalising a business handover, training my replacement and completing any tasks I wanted to achieve before I signed out for several months.

In my mind, my brain told me I can absolutely do it all and even have time to spare but in reality my pregnant body was on a total different wavelength. Tiredness, brain fog and the sudden inability to multitask (due to forgetfulness) all hindered my ability to function as a fast paced manager and I really struggled with this.

Mentally I was ready and willing to work and knew exactly what needed to be done but my changing body simply couldn't keep up and I was overcome with guilt. I felt like I was failing. Instead of ticking things off my to-do list I was adding more and more to it as some days I just barely got through the basics. Determined to prove I could do it, I pushed hard to get myself through the mental fog but just as I began to find the rhythm of my new workining ways, my pregnancy sciatic pain flared up and left me struggling to stand and walk without the aid of crutches full time. Suddenly I wasn't able to physically move around to do the basics. I felt I was now losing my independence as a person as I had to rely on others for help, I also felt I was losing my capability within my working role and the "mental mountain" I had created for myself was getting steeper and steeper.

I was struggling.

Struggling both mentally and now physically and after a lot of tears and feeling defeated, I soon realised I had no option but to slow down and listen to my body. After a few days of an internal struggle with my ego I remembered the importance of my health for the nurture of my growing baby and so I implemented the following 3 things and they helped me to overcome my struggles, switch off my manager brain and prepare for maternity leave.

1. Lists, lists & more lists. As I mentioned earlier I'm a very organised person both at home and especially within my career. I wrote down every single thing that needed to be done at work, I then organised that into a prioritized list of importance and then broke that list down into bite sized chunks that could be completed daily over my remaining time without overwhelming my "baby brain".

2. Talk it out. "A problem shared, is a problem halved" as the saying goes. I spoke with my peers and colleagues and voiced my struggles with physically moving around and together we made a clear plan of how I was going to get through the final weeks without causing any further damage to my health- physically and mentally. (Side note, this step took a lot of self-encouragement as I'm not usually someone who asks for help but it was worth it in the end, so if you are similar in traits to me then I encourage you to try to remember this).

I also talked it out at home. I don't believe anyone should take their work home with them if at all possible but in this situation when my health not only affected me but our unborn baby, I felt it was important to discuss my struggles with my partner so there was an understanding if I was quiet or seemed preoccupied, he knew that my mind was still in work-mode and didn't need to worry. (I was likely making another mental-list to work through).

3. Visualisation. In the evenings after I came home from work I often sat in the soon-to-be nursery room and visualised how I wanted it to look and pictured myself in there caring for my baby. This brought everything back in to perspective and reminded me of the much bigger picture. I then made -you guessed it- more lists. Lists of what was needed for the baby and for the nursery room and I planned out how we were going to use our time to get organised at a nice enjoyable pace so when the time came to finish up at work, I wasn't going to be overwhelmed by the next challenge of preparing for our little arrival.

It was certainly a challenging few weeks but I got through it and was still smiling in the end and getting myself organised with these steps has allowed me to enjoy the start of my maternity leave.

Now I ~patiently~ wait for our little arrival.

Xx

If like me, you love a good list, I've linked a nice "to do" template for you to download and print.