Maternity leave was a time of contrary impressions for me. It went by both quickly and slowly at the same time. It was at times tedious, but rewarding. I felt challenged, yet my brain on occasion felt like it was melting from all of the baby talk and lack of sleep. All of this made my return to work that much more frightening and exciting all at once.
I make the same caveat here that I made in my first post on the subject of my pregnancy: I write this as I want to share my own personal experiences on a topic that is simply not discussed with any frequency in our profession. I do not attempt to make any universal conclusions about pregnancy, motherhood, and the practice of law, nor do I intend to make any claims about anyone else’s experience. I only hope to create a dialogue, so that we can share our experiences and help move our profession towards a more considerate approach to parenthood.
I genuinely love what I do for work, so, prior to baby, I thought I would be a bit lost without the daily challenges and fast-paced decision making that are inherent in my job as a litigator. I was nervous that I would feel bored and anxious to return to what had previously been perhaps the most significant area of my life: my job.
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But I found that I felt fulfilled by those first few months of at-home life in a way that surprised me. At first, I hated not knowing what was going on with each of my cases and my colleagues, but as the days wore on, I leaned into my new role as mom and found joy and intellectual stimulation in the domestic tasks that now made up my daily routine.
I threw myself into baby-care research in the same way I would delve into research for a brief. Baby’s first bath? I had notes supported by multiple authorities on the “best” temperature, length, and method for drying baby (eventually concluding with the most obvious of answers: whatever baby likes in that specific moment — it will be different at any given moment, baby is a fickle little creature — and use a towel). Weird smell coming from baby’s neck? Consult the experts. My doctor advised that I relax (excellent advice, but not the solution I wanted). My sister, who is a mother of five and would survive even the strictest Daubert challenge on this issue, opined that the most likely culprit was milk gathered in baby’s newly chubby double chin (bingo).
Diaper and feeding times became my opening and closing arguments before a tiny, mercurial, one-member jury. My husband once came home to find me extolling the virtues of actually swallowing one’s milk as opposed to spitting it out to a very unimpressed three-week-old. When he noticed the demonstrative that I had sketched out on a crumpled paper towel, he kindly picked up baby and suggested I take a walk (which any good trial attorney knows helps to clear an over-focused mind). Thank goodness he is also a fellow litigator and understands on some level.
Through all of this, I found that I actually liked setting aside work for this moment in time and enjoyed being home. Thus, when the months had passed and my time to return to work arrived, I was anxious about my return. I was excited to get back to my cases and my team at the firm, but was nervous about how it would feel after I had reached a balance at home. Would the trial attorney version of myself still exist?
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Fortunately, the answer turned out to be yes. My first day back at work was both exhilarating and heart wrenching. Leaving baby at daycare for the first time was one of the most difficult (and tear-inducing) experiences of my life. But I found that, once I got on the train and walked into my office, wearing my go-to heels to give me confidence, that the work me was still there (although I suppose my arguments before my one-man fact finder should have reminded me of that).
While filled with challenges I could not have before comprehended, I am now finding the delicate balance between work me and mom me, and am so happy to do it. Being both a litigator and a new mom can be incredibly strange and awkward. I could write a novel on how odd it is to tell a room full of about a dozen male adversaries that I need a break from a deposition to go pump for baby (not to mention finding a location to do so), or on the best ways to store your milk during an all-day court hearing, to name but one area of strangeness.
But I still feel so fortunate to work in this crazy field we have chosen, and to, at the same time, feel challenged and stimulated at home. While perhaps a trite notion it is a true one: it is all about finding the ever-elusive balance. I plan to enjoy and learn from every moment of it that process, making myself a better lawyer and mom all at the same time.
Jillian L. McNeil was an attorney at Balestriere Fariello, a trial and investigations law firm which represents clients in all aspects of complex commercial litigation and arbitration from pre-filing investigations to trial and appeals. You can reach firm partner John Balestriere at [email protected].