I can’t believe that it’s been eight years since my first maternity leave. It loomed so large for me at one point — and not just because I was about to give birth. I remember spending months prepping my team and boss at the weekly magazine where I worked, spending weeks prepping for the stress-free labor I was sure I was going to have (!), and spending hours with HR trying navigate all the intricacies connected with making sure my pay would be covered for the 12 weeks I'd be home with my baby.

The end result: My husband’s eyes would glaze over the moment I started taking about the complicated dance of paid sick days, one paid parental week and short-term disability plan that would cover some weeks fully, others partially. It felt like a part-time job just keeping everything straight, and I remember having to call the insurance company at least once a week to straighten something out.

Luckily, we had a phone upstairs then. (You remember land lines, right?) In our duplex apartment back then, the bedroom was upstairs and it would take all day for Gwendolyn and me to get out of the house. Thursdays were a particularly big deal because that was the day my new-mom group met at a local coffee shop to swap stories of cracked nipples and green poops. Too much information? That was exactly what we traded in back then!

All of which is to say thank goodness I had those weeks to get my bearings. In those few months home with my new baby girl, I figured out how to breastfeed; I connected with other new moms with whom I still keep in contact; and most of all, I got to slow my days down to something less than a crawl. It would take all day for Gwendolyn and me to get downstairs and even longer for us to get outside for a stroll. But that was exactly a speed we were meant to go — and I remember those sunny summer days fondly even now as I watch my now-third-grade steal my iPad to play all the games she and her little brother have downloaded.

Sigh.

—Jennifer Owens, Editorial Director, Working Mother

@working_mother