Weeknotes 42

Preparing to come back to work

I took my 13-year-old nephew mug painting in Manchester. Thankfully the baby slept throughout so we got to make beautiful mugs. This is mine. You can tell I designed Chayn’s logo, right?

There were no week notes in 2023 and most of it went by in pregnancy, burnout (more on that some other time), and bringing up a baby. I think I’ve worked the hardest I’ve ever worked in my entire life while I was pregnant. I moved cities, fundraised like my life depended on it and managed many projects and roles when the gaps came up. I did what needed to be done to meet unexpected circumstances. I had squeezed every ounce of energy by the time I closed my “work” mind, two weeks before I delivered my baby.

That was then. This is now.

I’ve had 6 glorious months of maternity leave and I wanted to share some memories from it. I’m full of energy and gumption for a great year ahead.

I know it sounds strange because being a first-time, breastfeeding mother is a full-time job and I should be exhausted. It started off like that but after 8 weeks, things got easier and smoother. I’ve cherished this time. My body got the rest it needed from the stress of being the CEO of a small charity, always in hustle mode and trying to fundraise while also doing transformative work and living the values that the systems we live in make so hard to do. The C-section recovery took so much more time than I had envisaged and due to catching an infection twice after the surgery, it felt like that teary period of my life wasn’t going to get easy. It wasn’t planned and I had not been looking forward to it. But it did get easy.

After Week 8, Ardeshir made his routine and I just followed it. He slept well, drank milk when he wanted, and has been going through developmental milestones well. I used the time we had together to take him on long walks, (decaff) coffee runs, tram, bus, and plane journeys as well as music, Spanish, sensory, swimming, and sign language classes. I attended my brother’s wedding and performed all the duties required of an elder sister, with a baby (thanks to my husband who had him most of the time)!

The maternity leave has been busy but also restful. Mothering is a different kind of work. I’ve never spent more time away from the laptop and more time on my phone (there is nothing else to do while breastfeeding — reading a book just wasn’t possible). Whenever he napped, either I napped too or I cleaned, cooked, showered, or did the teeniest bits of self-reflective work. My soul had been craving these moments of reflection.

It wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have some ambition to come out of the maternity leave apart from rest. I had set myself two goals: read more physical books (I had picked out 8), and finish my book draft. I failed on both accounts. I had read articles about women who had managed to finish their book drafts during maternity leave so I knew it was possible but I just couldn’t do it. I laugh about these goals now because without ever having had a baby, how would I know if it was a realistic goal for me?

Oh and I also said I would speak at an event in London for a documentary I’m featured in but I had to back out of it because my son hadn’t had his last set of immunizations yet and I didn’t want to expose him to the London transport network.

On the other hand, this was not planned, but I was able to do three quite substantive new things:

• Finished my onboarding for Tiktok’s Content and Safety Advisory Council while Ardeshir was 6 weeks old. My mother made me paratha, chai and I breastfed as I opened up Zoom, groggy and foggy-brained. That was quite an experience. It took my brain an hour to get used to the “work” type of thinking. I also attended some meetings for this throughout the leave.
• Hopped on a last-minute trip to the US to visit my unwell Uncle. This trip saw Ardeshir take 6 flights and he was an excellent companion, winning the hearts of the crew and passengers alike! Good practice for all the Chayn trips he’s going to take with me this year.
• Spoke at an Ashoka Fellow panel about AI, its limitations, and exciting applications for social impact (based on this piece Nadine and I co-wrote for Social Innovations Journal on Chayn’s experience of building and taking down a chatbot).

I wish I was able to see and meet more friends but something I realised is that people intentionally avoided messaging me thinking I wanted some alone time with the baby and I was busy whereas I was feeling isolated and lonely most days, missing connecting with other humans. This very “I’m an extrovert” longing was completely lost on my husband who spent most of my maternity leave complaining about the UK parental leave because he was envious of all the time I got with our son while he was working, leaving his heart behind every morning.

Most people I know in the UK are taking a whole year of maternity leave and that does make me envious. I would have taken longer if the statutory maternity pay was more and I had savings but “it is what it is”.

So, here we are now! I’m preparing to come back to work next month. It’s going to look very different! Our Board has been making sure I have the right support at work so I don’t have to pick up things the team doesn’t have the capacity for. I have a baby who for now is not going to a nursery. We’re going to see if I can manage both work and having a baby at home (without a nanny). The policies I put in place around flexible work in Chayn as well as a 4-day week should help. Parents who have been in a similar position to me, please send me your tips!

Outside of “Chayn work”, I’ve been thinking about what I want from this year. I’ve really enjoyed being on boards (present and past) so I want to explore that more and also lean more into narrative change work.

So what are my intentions for the first weeks of being back at work?

1. Listen. The team spent 7 months without me and must have gone through many challenges, wins, and knotty questions. I want to hear them without jumping into solution mode.
2. Adjust. Pre-baby Hera was a powerhouse. Post-baby Hera— not so much! I want to adjust to my new working realities and ease into it. I still want to continue the great habits I picked up such as swimming, art and dance class, as well as going to the Art Gallery more often. I’m more likely to work fragmented hours across the week to suit my son’s sleeping and play schedule.
3. Reconnect. I want to reconnect with our peers, staff, volunteers, partners, and users to see what they have been up to and what’s coming up for them. Email me if you would like to jump on a call. I’ll pick those up in the first weeks of Feb!
4. Breathe! This is the hardest one because as the CEO, often everything feels urgent and things never come at convenient times. You’re always hit in the face with everything all at once and it’s natural to feel overwhelmed but I am resolved to not let that feeling consume me. The maternity leave was critical for me to learn ways of adding breathing time into my day through movement, cooking, cleaning (I can’t believe it myself!), walks, catching up with people, drawing, writing, and meditation. I’ve got some tricks to “trick” me into doing this. I’ll report back on how that goes.