Guilt

I never knew the capacity of guilt until I became a mother. When you are raising a child, it sometimes seems as though the weight of the world falls solely on your shoulders. Your child relies completely on you to foster their development, to give them nourishment, to coddle them and snuggle them when they need reassurance; everything they need rests on you as their parent. We are in the process of moving right now, so the last couple of weeks I have spent a lot of time packing and cleaning and organizing what we have. This is absolutely necessary because I am going back to work on Monday, and moving, working, and mothering a 3 month old is going to be a lot to deal with. Even though I feel as though I am accomplishing a lot for our move, I cannot help but feel guilty about not spending as much time with my baby as I could be. I really do try and get everything done during her naps, but there have been a couple of times where she has woken up from her nap (after only been sleeping for like 20 min) and I will have the whole kitchen on the floor packing, or all the linens on the floor from our closet, and she is crying but I HAVE to finish what I am doing so I just let her cry for 15 minutes or so. The guilt is so hard to deal with sometimes knowing that she is crying for me, but I need to finish what I am doing. Now, that guilt is workable - I can sort of handle that. I know that she will eventually get held and snuggled, I know that she will get some much needed tummy-time, and we will play for awhile, but I am not sure anything can compare to the guilt I feel about going back to work. When I was pregnant, I always knew I was going to go back to work. In fact the first thing my boss said to me when I told him I was pregnant was "You are planning on being a working mom, right?" to which my response was immediately, "Of course!" I never thought about what that really meant to me until I was actually, truly seriously, a mom. Man - was I really going to leave my daughter, the one that the Lord so intricately melded inside of my body for 9 months to another person for 40 hours a week?! They won't know that whenever she is fussy all she really wants is your pinky to suck on, or when she is being changed, she laughs when you give her zerberts on her belly, or that she really likes looking at everyone, so carrying her facing out is the best thing to do, and she is ALMOST rolling over when is on her stomach. I am really not going to be the one to see her completely roll to back?? This guilt is insurmountable. Every time I have gone to get her in the AM this week I have broken down into tears thinking that our time together is coming to a close so quickly. I know that it is something that I have to do, and will do come this Monday, but I am so not looking forward to handing her over to someone else for 8+ hours. I know that she will be okay, and that SO many other moms do it all the time, but wow - I have a whole new respect and understanding for the two words that I will soon become - working mom.