Help! Returning to work after taking the full Mat Leave (16 weeks plus a few of vaca right after). So nervous to start traveling again away weekly away from my kids. The firm now wants us in the office more than pre-COVID as well. What can I reasonably ask for to make this easier on me without tanking my career? Seems like I’m already starting this FY “behind” since I lost client time while I was out. Also none of my work clothes fit!! (And the few that do are absolutely not pump friendly).

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Re: clothes, if you plan to use the privacy rooms to pump don’t worry about it! I would get naked in there if I had to. Like take off my entire dress. I just kept a nursing bra in my pump bag if I wasn’t wearing one (though I did wear an underwire nursing bra most days which worked with the Limerick straps).

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Yep it’s fine! A little annoying that no one else has it for online forum troubleshooting etc. but it works well and is comfortable for me. I made it to a year with my first and about to go back to work with my second with the same goal.

It was also nice pre pandemic the limerick base was in every privacy room at my office so I only had to bring my tubes/flanges back and forth. I think I’m going to leave my old Limerick in the office for this reason this time and keep my new one at home for wfh days.

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I think it depends a lot on your project and support network. When I went back from maternity leave I asked for no travel except in special circumstances and moved to a local project that wasn’t quite my area of expertise (normally work on strategy projects, moved over to more of a tech capabilities and roadmapping type of project). It was relatively low stress with a huge team and gave me some new opportunities and gained some skill sets. This was pre covid so I went to work everyday, blocked off my schedule and pumped 3x a day until baby was a year old. I communicated my pumping needs and set firm boundaries on my schedule 9-5pm and usually picked up work a few nights a week after putting the baby to bed. No issues with promotion and in fact probably got promoted more quickly given how well tech work was selling at the time, I had a ton of autonomy and built a great team which I don’t think I would’ve done on the strategy side (also project teams are typically so small!).

I had my negotiables and non-negotiables, asked for what I wanted and my network supported me heavily in helping me get what I wanted; I was really lucky that it worked out. In my case I took a job with the client about 1.5 years later and made it back to corp strategy so I think anything’s possible.

Wow! This is really helpful and inspiring. Since I took mat leave between last and this fiscal year, my counselor is pushing hard for intensity of client work. If I make these clearly defined scheduling needs to support my babies and pumping schedule etc, do you think they’ll take me right off the partner (if we will even have those anymore !)/ promo track? Also, it feels like if I have another child they’ll think I’m not serious about my job. Part of me just wonders if I’m paranoid but the other part of me is hearing that it’s all about numbers for SDs and I need to show that given I had time away (mat leave) and am being compared to my SD colleagues (almost ENTIRELY male by the way, and not as many taking their Pat leave where applicable). Thank you in advance for your response!!!

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