Having a child and returning to work should be easy, right?  In a frank and honest personal account, solicitor Lucie Sleeman explains how the relentless approach of the end of maternity leave brought new challenges she could never have expected a confident professional woman to have to face.

As a child it all seemed relatively simple. I was a girl and that meant that one day I would grow up and become a mother. I would stay at home with my children and look after the home. But then I became an adult and it all became rather more complicated. What I once saw as a clear path to follow had suddenly become overgrown with difficult choices and decisions. It was no longer at all obvious which direction to take and there was no indication of the right path to happiness.

I came from a very traditional family. My father had his own business and had very little to do with the day to day upbringing of my brothers and sisters. My mother stayed at home to raise four children and did not go out to work. She was there each morning to wake us, to prepare our breakfast and get us ready for school. She drove us to and from school every day and was on time to bring us home without fail. She was at home with us every evening to help us with our homework and prepare our tea, and she bathed us and put us to bed every night as far as I can remember. My mother was always there. She was a constant in my life that as a child I took for granted and never imagined I would be without. Her presence represented a reassurance to my siblings and I and accounts a great deal I believe for the confidence and self belief that we each have. I grew up thinking that all mothers should be just the same. That every child should have a mother just like mine and that I would one day become a mother just like my own.

When I reached the stage in my life when I realised that the only thing that really mattered to me was having a child, I had achieved many of the goals that I had set for myself in relation to my career. I was a qualified Solicitor in an established firm, heading up the department that I worked in and had just been made a salaried Partner. I was confident in what I did at work and who I was in the Firm. But suddenly there was a huge shift in my thinking. I was expecting a child and my role in life was about to change dramatically.

I was blessed with a straight forward pregnancy and an uncomplicated labour. I gave birth to a beautiful and healthy baby girl two days before Christmas with my husband and my mother at my side. Our blessings continued and my husband and I soon came to realise that we had somehow produced a textbook baby who we were soon able to settle into a good routine that worked out well for all three of us. I blossomed as a Mother. I realised that nothing would ever be quite as important to me as my child and the other children that I planned to have. I loved every moment of being a new mum and I embraced the challenge of a new born in a way that surprised even my own Mother. Friends and family noticed a new aspect to my confidence and saw my character develop in ways that were most unexpected.

During my pregnancy I had planned to take nine months of maternity leave. I was assured by some that this would be plenty of time at home whilst others cautiously remarked that no amount of time may seem enough. As the months rapidly flew past, it became clear that the latter was true for me. However, I remained optimistic that by the end of my nine months I would welcome my return to work. I was a career girl after all and I had further ambitions and goals to achieve. With the cost of child care matching our monthly mortgage commitments, my husband and I decided to rethink our roles.

He was working as a primary school teacher and it made little sense for us to hand over his salary to a private nursery or nanny agency when it was surely a more sensible idea for him to stay at home and look after our daughter full time? If he could handle thirty five year olds for seven hours a day he could surely cope with being at home with his delightful nine month old daughter whilst juggling her busy social diary of music groups and baby gatherings with keeping the home and stocking the fridge? And surely I was well adjusted enough to release full control of my daughter's every movement to my previously undomesticated husband who I obviously trusted and had faith in? It was a ground breaking decision for both of us to reach but we shared our main objective of enabling our daughter to stay at home in familiar surroundings with the continuity of an established routine and we were determined to make it work. Friends and family alike aired their mixed views but most admired enormously my husband's strength of character in taking on the traditional role of the wife and mother and my resolve that we would make this work despite the heartbreak that I knew I would experience in leaving the home.

My return date soon came along and as I set my alarm and laid out my suit that I had not worn since before my pre-pregnancy days, the reality of leaving my daughter became all too real. I opted for waterproof mascara and kept my goodbyes as brief and jovial as possible. I amazed myself that I only called home once during my first day and I only cried myself to sleep for three nights during my first week. I had agreed with work that I would finish at 5pm each day in the hope that I would make it home in time to see her having tea and to take over for her bath and bedtime. It was an exhausting routine but most difficult of all was trying to make myself sleep through when she woke in the night and allowing my husband to go to her whilst I turned over and reminded myself that he could settle her just as quickly as I could and that my alarm would shortly be telling me that it was time for work, so I must sleep.

For the first month or so I wrote out a menu and timetable for my husband to follow each day and on certain mornings I would lay out clothes for my daughter to wear before I left the house for work. My husband would dutifully follow my every instruction until one day his confidence grew and he quite rightly insisted that we dispense with the lists! He was at home now and it was up to him to decide what she would eat for her lunch and tea and whether she would take a nap before or after lunch. It was terrifying for me relinquishing the only little bit of control that I felt I had left over her routine, but with each week that passed I learnt to accept that it didn't matter if our daughter was wearing spots with stripes or pinks with oranges. My husband was learning the ropes and the two of them were finding their feet together. Our daughter was still the happy, sunny baby that she was when I was at home with her and she was clearly developing a new and special relationship with her daddy. It was a life changing time for my husband. As the months past by his skills around the house rapidly developed and I soon discovered that he was far better at tackling some of the household chores than I was.

I conditioned myself to step into my role as a Partner in a law firm the moment I closed the front door each morning. I eventually felt comfortable checking my mobile phone for messages three times a day rather than three times an hour and I gradually allowed myself to enjoy being back at work and the freedom that it afforded me. I tried to bring that positivity home with me in the evenings when my real job as a mother could resume but this was not at all always easy.

I still feel the guilt that I imagine every working mother feels when I can't get away from work on time or when I miss her teatime completely and only just rush home in time to give her a kiss goodnight. I will always feel that I am missing out on part of her life while I am sitting at my desk or in a meeting but her daddy is there is witness it for us both. We created her together and while we can't always be there to enjoy her together, we can share in the experiences and memories that each of us has with her and must be grateful that at least one of us is there to witness it.

Having children involves sacrifices. For one parent at least that can mean missing out on a milestone event such as their first steps or hearing their first words. But it is so important to remember that there will be many more steps to see, and there will be many more words to hear and you will have the opportunity to see and hear them for yourself, just on another day. Only time will tell whether we have made the right decision to reverse the traditional roles of man and wife and all parents have to figure out what works best for them. I may not be replicating the role that my mother had in my life when I was a child and I may not be the parent who spends the most amount of time with our daughter, but I hope that the combined efforts of my husband and I as active parents will lead to our daughter seeing us both as figures of reassurance and comfort. Only time will tell us if she agrees that it was the right thing to do but the sound of her frequent laughter and her look of content and confidence reassures me each day that for the time being at least, we have made the right decision.

Lucie Sleeman is a Partner specialising in private client work.