Baby, Baby, Don’t You Feel the Maternity Leave Heat?

They say you don’t really know a person until you walk a mile in her shoes. This adage particularly applies to those big comfy shoes pregnant women wear.

The other night, The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart pointed out how quickly Fox News commentator Megyn Kelly changed her tune about maternity leave after returning from her own such temporary time off.

Before her own pregnancy, Kelly talked about how there are too many entitlement programs. She argued that men shouldn’t be afforded such leave—after all, men don’t have babies.

After her own baby, however, Kelly became very familiar with the Family Medical Leave Act. She seemed to have made a complete about-face as she gave another talking head a hard time about criticizing her maternity leave.

While I may not always agree with Kelly, it’s difficult for me to chastise her for her former ignorance. Before having babies, biological or adopted, most people are completely clueless.

I know because I was one of those clueless people.

While I would never have made such disingenuous arguments against the Family Medical Leave Act, I didn’t understand why maternity leave needed to stretch out over such a long period of time.

After all, can’t a woman just wait until she’s in labor to take off? And does she really need months to take care of her newborn child?

Then I got pregnant.

Suddenly I had baby, baby, baby on the brain.

Not only did it blow my mind that I was harboring a mini-me, but I also felt extremely aware of how careful I needed to be as I neared the end of my pregnancy.

Unlike many of my fellow women, I was unable to focus on anything other than, “Holy cow, I’m growing a human being!”

Luckily for me, while I was pregnant, I worked for a great company that understood the importance of maternity leave. They assured me it was OK to take a month off before having my daughter.

Once Quinn was born, it didn’t get much better.

First of all, I am very likely the wimpiest woman ever to give birth. While I entertained ideas of a natural childbirth during pregnancy, once I actually experienced an hour’s worth of contractions, I was begging for an epidural.

And just as the pain of labor ended, the struggle to breastfeed began. I can’t begin to tell you how wrong I was when it came to breastfeeding.

By the time I finally got comfortable in my new mom skin, it was time to go back to work.

I wondered why we weren’t living in Sweden, a country that gives working parents 16 months’ paid leave per child. Even better, two of those 16 months are required to be used by the parent who would not be spending the majority of time with the child.

Despite my jealousy of Sweden’s parental policies, I’m happily American so I had to accept our 12 weeks of leave.

Leaving my little daughter felt worse than being waxed. It sounds utterly ridiculous to compare the two, but that feeling of standing in the elevator after leaving Quinn for the first time was a hundred times worse than painfully quick hair removal.

I repeatedly dabbed my eyes throughout the day, thinking of my daughter without her mom.

I worried whether Quinn would know I was gone, whether she would cry and not feel content without me, and whether she would think I abandoned her.

The truth is she was fine without me, thank you very much, but in my head she was an orphan lost amid a freezing blizzard.

It was around this time I finally got why women choose to opt out of the work force to be stay-at-home moms. While it wasn’t my personal choice, I completely understood.

More than two years after that first step in mommy shoes, I’ve grown to further understand and empathize with my fellow mamas. After all, there’s a big difference between pre-baby stilettos and post-child Aerosoles, even if that change has more to do with what’s inside the lady in comfy shoes.