Articles From the Team
Hi Ho Hi Ho – its off on maternity I go…
If someone had asked me this time last year what I was going to be doing for Christmas, being the only sober one at the Christmas Party would not have been my first response! I LOVE our Christmas party – I LOVE to be the last one standing (if I can manage it), and I genuinely LOVE catching up with with BCL friends, both old and new from our expanding network of offices. This year was certainly different, especially as it was to be my last day in the office before I go on maternity leave.
As my final blog of 2016 I thought I would talk about pregnancy at work – and the prospect of leaving work behind in exchange for stinky nappies and no sleep. I have been incredibly fortunate, in that I’ve not had a massively difficult pregnancy. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve hardly been blooming, with flowing locks and glowing skin, in fact I look pretty dreadful – and have really suffered with back pain and sciatica in the last few months – but I have been very lucky having very supportive work colleagues, allowing me to work from home and leave that little bit earlier from work in order roll myself up the slightly inclined hill to the train station in the evening.
So on my last day in the office, I genuinely felt ready for some time off, to rest a little and put my feet up. It only sunk in as I was walking out the door with Christmas festivities going on around me, that actually I was off on a huge adventure of my own – very different from the day to day workings of BCL. And yes I burst into tears – floods of them - completely unexpectedly as I genuinely thought I was ready to go (way to put a downer on everyone’s fun and frolics)…
In the whole lead up to me leaving, the most frequently response I have had to ‘when do you finish work’ is ‘oh I bet you cant wait to have a year off work’. Well yes – I guess so – but also I have NO idea what to do! Yes I can’t wait because it means I get to meet my little one, yes I cant wait because it means no more work for a year (anyone who says other wise is probably lying) – but if the truth be told, I will miss work, I will miss my work colleagues – we have a ball at BCL, its not an easy job by any means, but if you are quite career minded like I am, the prospect of NOT getting up every day to go to work is actually quite daunting. It’s all I’ve ever known. It’s taken me this long to find a job that I enjoy, and that I am good at – so the thought of that just stopping over night is really alien to me. I know the second the baby arrives I am sure that will all go out of the window, but in this interim ‘limbo’ period, I will really feel strange getting up in the morning and NOT logging on, and speaking to my clients/candidates every day.
Well things just got real. Tomorrow morning I will wake up and not have to log on. I better get nesting before this baby arrives! See you all soon – this time as a Mama
For more information contact Rozie Hunter at BCL Legal.