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I wasn't until about week 8/9 and then i was like, SO OVER IT. i was getting bored, antsy, and anxious about being around other adults again. Give it some time!

Then again, you may not be like me AT ALL

I didn't think about it too much but then I was sort of glad that someone else had to fight to get her to nap

I dreaded it so much my whole maternity leave. I cried a little the first day back. It was so hard to leave my baby all day! Now that he's almost two, it's a lot easier, but I still miss him.

I was ready to go back. I wasn't at 12 weeks, but I sure was at 16!

I haven't gone back from a maternity leave yet, but I did go back to work after 3 months on disability for a major health issue, so I think it might be similar, although probably less emotionally jarring without a baby to think about. Personally, a week or two leading up to going back I had a lot of anxiety. I knew once I went back and got back into the swing of things I would be okay, but the dreading and worrying is the worst part.

I think the most helpful thing for me gearing back up was being open and talking to my support system about my anxiety. DH always wanted me to talk through what my fears were and if there were practical things we could do to fix some of those things, we did so. For instance, I extended my leave an extra week and made it my "going back to work" week. I practiced getting up in the morning and going through my new morning routine. I tried to do a focused task of some sort for an extended period of time, sitting at my kitchen table (like a desk), to get in the habit of getting back into a work task. I picked out my outfits, had some beauty appointments, and just got a lot of supportive feedback from my family and friends. Also my coworkers started texting me saying they were excited for me to come back, so that was encouraging.

The second thing we did was make the transition back work for us. Granted, this realllly depends on your employer and what agreements you had beforehand, but I didn't have to make any decisions about how I was coming back until the last few weeks of leave. I went back at half-time for a month, specifically asking for 10-3pm M-F, so that I could get back into the habit of going to work everyday, but have a little more time to get ready in the morning and avoid the stress of traffic. That schedule also allowed me have an hour lunch in the middle to give myself a break in the middle. After a month I felt ready to ramp up to 6 hours a day for 2 weeks, then finally to 8 hours a day. After a month at 40 hours a week, I was ready to work my normal schedule, which has to allow for a certain amount of overtime to accommodate the office's work flow. I felt a little nervous about all these accommodations, but surprisingly my office never said one thing about it and gave me what I wanted. (In truth, I never really asked - I just said this is what I'm thinking of doing and my bosses said fine).

Given my prior experience on this, I feel a ton better planning my maternity leave now that I'm finally pregnant. Obviously lots of things can change between now and then, but DH and I have started having the same kind of conversations to try and keep my anxiety as low as possible. How much leave would work for us and our circumstances, what kind of stressors can we avoid, what kind of accommodations do I need to request from my employer. The bottom line is to be kind to yourself and try to make the transition less jarring for all of you. Following along the lines of my last leave, I will likely take a 6 month maternity leave, taking the last 3 months unpaid (which is stressful on its own!) to avoid an extremely stressful time of year at the office for me and a busy time for DH at a time when my baby will likely not be sleeping through the night. At a good friend's recommendation, we will probably try putting our baby into home-based daycare near our home leading up to the end of my maternity leave, letting the baby (and me) get acclimated and familiar with the faces and the new normal. We'll run through the morning routine, practice keeping a pumping schedule, do a trial run of the commute + pick-up, and I've already told my bosses I'm probably coming back at 3 days a week for the first 2 months, then to 40-hours a week for a month, and then back to "normal" work hours.