In my third trimester of my pregnancy, I had an epiphany that I would not be “lawyering” for over a year. This was difficult to even imagine, as my identity as a lawyer has been engrained into my personality for the last 6 years. I truly feared that taking a year off would make me feel lost. I even thought, well maybe I can work part-time for the first few months since all they do is sleep (I found out later how wrong this statement is). My colleagues discouraged me from doing this and encouraged me to take the time off with my daughter.
After my daughter was born, I found it very difficult to disconnect from my work. I constantly called my colleagues, requested updates on the files that I worked on, would ask them if they needed any help or wanted to discuss strategy. My colleagues were very kind to my requests but continually reminded me that I need to embrace this precious time with my daughter and truly disconnect from work. Disconnecting from work is something that I have consistently struggled with. So, this was not an easy task for me.