I can’t remember why I did it. Probably because I can’t remember much from nearly five years ago. A lot has happened in between.
I had our first child in 2018, traversing life as a new parent after years of infertility, and then decided to try for another baby through IVF again at the start of a pandemic, just as hospitals shut their doors and we disappeared behind masks.
Five rounds of IVF, one miscarriage and nearly three years later, I am due hopefully to give birth at the start of January 2023. All being well. Please god. (Insert any other good luck, non-tempting fate conversational caveats you like to deploy when you are terrified here.)
And that thing I am referring to having a dim memory about? Penning a letter to myself just after I finished my final shift ahead of maternity leave, in a bid to remember everything I liked about my job and how to do it well. The note genuinely starts with “Hi Emma”. I meant business but didn’t want anything too formal.
It wasn’t a great work of literature by any stretch, but on the rare occasion I’ve mentioned this self-generated strategy to anyone, they are intrigued. Having just finished my last radio shift this week on Woman’s Hour and filmed the last episode of my Bloomberg TV show before going on leave again, I am planning on writing a similar document this weekend.
As I wrote my first letter, I remember being overwhelmed with a desire to help myself return to work feeling as close as I could to the person I was when I left (minus the swollen ankles and incredibly itchy stomach). I saw this document as a sort of time capsule of my working self and an attempt to insure against feeling wobbly about my return, whenever that was.
While I had no idea what was about to happen to me in terms of becoming a mother, I did at least know who I was at work. And I was attempting to preserve that sense of self as I entered the unknown.
After at least six months away from the daily grind, I knew I would be concerned about remembering how to do my job well and getting back up to the same speed I was when I left. I would need some kind of reassurance that even if things had changed around me, my core skill set was still intact. These worries haunt many women’s final weeks of maternity leave.
My multipage letter was saved on my desktop, clearly in view, but not to be opened until the week or ideally the night before my slated return. It also included some of the banal but essential basics, chief among them how to log in to the office network, password clues and my odd work username.
I made sure to list some of the short cuts I had discovered about our operating system and how to log in as fast as possible while Nicky Campbell, the presenter then on air before me on BBC Radio 5 Live, vacated the same studio with only seconds to spare before the red light went on again. There was no way I was not committing some of these hard-earned tricks to paper memory.
But then I got pretty serious pretty fast, reminding myself in this note about certain interview techniques that had worked a treat and those that hadn’t, which questions to the audience struck a chord and how to deal with it when they didn’t (in short – move on).
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I covered how to think about the news agenda and what strategies work best in the various daily planning meetings and conversations about filling a programme with guests. I reminded myself to smile, breathe and enjoy being on air with listeners, because live radio is a relationship and always flows better when you allow yourself as the presenter to have fun with it.
The reason I am sharing the details of this mini insurance policy document is because I think it speaks volumes about what it entails psychologically to put one’s career in the deep freeze for some months and then return to it.
Of course, maternity leave is a privilege not all jobs come with. Nor can many women afford to take it, despite state provision. Even if their work does technically allow it, they might not be going back to the same role or even have a job to return to – despite what the law says. One glance at the cases the campaign groups such as Pregnant Then Screwed handle provides a sobering wake-up call on this front. That reality in itself creates fear around returning to work in that you can feel more vulnerable to losing your job thereafter.
However, should a pregnant woman find herself staring down the barrel of maternity leave and with a job she wants or needs to return to, then thinking of ways to equip yourself to feel that little bit more assured as you make the transition back into working life can only be a good thing. A prescriptive letter filled with instructions, tips and some of your work highlights might not be everyone’s cup of tea. But something else might be.
I personally found the first few months of motherhood discombobulating, knackering, joyous, emotional, frustrating and quite frankly odd. I often felt like a stranger in my own life. And while things got easier as our beautiful boy grew bigger, the return to work still loomed large for me and my new parent pals.
I remember when I did return, I wondered whether I would still react in the same way as I had before – coming out with the same fast-paced retorts. Could or would I still be the same?
A spot of luck was on my side on that front: only days after I returned to my 5 Live show did one of my political interviews go viral precisely because I was listening so intently. Rory Stewart, then a Conservative minister, came on to extol the virtues of Theresa May’s Brexit deal, claiming 80 per cent of the British public supported it.
Yet the Brexit deal had only just been revealed, so how could he have such a statistic, I asked, genuinely confused. He was forced to admit he had invented a number to support his argument and apologise on the spot. I felt like I was back after that. I think having those moments of confirmation post maternity leave are vital while you find your feet.
Much ink has been rightly spilled over how hard and exorbitantly expensive organising childcare is and the juggle between work and parenting. What I am focusing on today is trying to arm you so you can return with some sort of spring in the step, thanks to that reminder from yourself that you know what you are doing.
During Covid, some people with office-based roles who were suddenly forced to work from home or furloughed faced a few of the same existential questions many women turn over in their minds during maternity leave, namely: who am I? Why do I do what I do? Is it what I want to do? Am I any good at it?
These are not easy questions to process at the best of times – but especially on less sleep than normal and with a new love bundle competing for your entire attention.
In 2018 I signed off my personal letter with: “JUST REMEMBER EMMA – YOU HAVE GOT THIS.” In big fat capitals. It made me smile on the eve of my return last time, so that’s the one line I am copying and pasting over when I pen my new note this weekend.
And so, as I sign off my last column with you for a while, remember you too have got this, whatever “this” is. I very much look forward to sharing some more thoughts with you in the not too distant future.
Emma Barnett is the presenter of ‘Woman’s Hour’