Out of Office to become a Mom?

What to do when maternity leave ends...

There’s a moment that we don’t think about critically enough when we prepare working women to become parents. We do a good job of discussing labor pain management and throwing advice for sleep training & baby feeding. We have also begun to start having conversations about their pelvic floor (which is huge progress, btw). But we don’t talk enough about the moment they leave their baby and return to work.

For some women, this transition feels manageable, even welcome. But for many others, it feels disorienting and heavy in a way that’s hard to name. There can be a quiet dread in the weeks leading up to it, uncontrollable tears the night before, a lump in your throat during the commute, or a strange sense of being split in two once you’re back at your desk.

Typically the women on my couch will respond to this phenomenon with confusion:

“Why am I reacting this way? I should be ready by now.” and “but I knew this day was coming, and I love my career.”

If this sounds familiar, let me tell you what I tell any new parent: there is nothing wrong with you if returning to work after having a baby feels difficult, anxiety-provoking, or even depression-inducing.

In fact, if you think about it critically, it makes perfect sense. From a psychological and biological perspective, the postpartum period is not just a phase to “get through.” It is a profound, literal reorganization of the self. The concept of matrescence captures this well: becoming a mother is not just about caring for a little being with the survival skills of a potato; it is about becoming someone new entirely. And that someone new is navigating a tension our culture doesn’t make much room for.

On one hand, many women hold identities that are deeply meaningful: being competent, independent, intellectually engaged, financially contributing. These are not superficial roles; they are core parts of who they are.

On the other hand, there is something far more primitive, embodied, and instinctual unfolding at the same time. Please take a minute and try to remember that as a mother, your body was your baby’s home for nine months. Your nervous system learned their rhythms. Your brain quite literally reorganized itself to attune to their needs. And then, often within weeks or months, you are asked to separate: to return to a pace and a structure that doesn’t always account for what has just taken place inside you. So, OF COURSE, your body feels uneasy being so disconnected from your baby’s smell, touch, and cries.

You might find yourself sitting in a meeting while part of your attention drifts elsewhere, wondering if your baby is sleeping, eating, crying, needing you. You might check your phone more often than usual, feel a surge of anxiety when you can’t reach the caregiver, or notice how difficult it is to fully settle into tasks that once felt second nature.

This is not you losing your mind or a lack of resilience. This is attachment (and the major reason why humans have made it this far on earth, btw). Attachment is incredibly adaptive, and ensures safety and connection across generations.

There’s a very real biological story unfolding beneath the surface. In the postpartum period, your brain is not the same brain you had before. Hormonal shifts, particularly in estrogen and oxytocin, reshape how you process emotion, threat, and connection. Areas of the brain involved in vigilance and attunement become more active, while chronic sleep deprivation lowers your threshold for stress and emotional regulation.

Your system has been wired, beautifully and intensely, to stay connected. So when separation happens, it makes sense that your nervous system doesn’t just quietly accept it. It protests. It scans. It tries to close the gap.

And layered on top of all of this is something else women are often navigating quietly: judgment. Judgment if you return “too early,” as though your ambition or financial reality somehow diminishes your love. Judgment if you don’t want to return at all, as though staying close to your baby is a lack of drive or independence.

Women are asked to be devoted mothers and fully engaged professionals, and then criticized no matter how they attempt to hold both. It creates a double bind that is not only unfair, but psychologically taxing. Because now, you’re not just managing your own internal conflict—you’re managing the projections and expectations of everyone around you.

A big part of the work I do is helping these new parents learn that two truths can exist at the same time:

You can love your work and long to be with your baby.You can feel grateful for your career and feel grief when you leave.You can want independence and feel pulled by something deeply dependent.

Lean into permission; give yourself permission to grieve, feel conflicted, and to move kindly while you figure this out.

Over time, many women do find a rhythm. The nervous system settles. The separation becomes more tolerable. The identities begin to integrate rather than compete. But that doesn’t happen because you forced yourself to push through. It happens because you allowed yourself to feel what was true and natural.

Until the next one,

— Maria