Returning to Work After Maternity Leave: What Nobody Tells You

In July, I'm going back to work after over a year on maternity leave. The details feel hazy. I don't know if I'm going back part time, full time, or somewhere in between. The team I'm returning will have some new faces, and some aspects of my role seems to have evolved.

I help women navigate career transitions for a living — and I'll be honest with you, even knowing everything I know doesn't make this feel straightforward.

If you're in a similar boat right now, this one's for you.

The moment it gets real

Mine happened on an ordinary Tuesday morning. I was walking with my daughter at 11am. Just the two of us, no agenda, nowhere to be, and it hit me. I won't be able to do this anymore. Not like this. Not just because I feel like it on a Tuesday.

It certainly was not a dramatic moment which I thought it would be, no, not at all.

Nobody really prepares you for those small, specific losses that come with going back. Not the big stuff, everyone talks about the big stuff. For me, it's the 11am walks. The slow mornings. The fact that you've spent a year building a life around this tiny person, and now the shape of your days is about to change completely.

You’re not the same person who left, and that’s not a problem

There's a word for what happens to a woman's identity when she becomes a mother — matrescence. It's the psychological and emotional transformation of becoming a mum, and it's as significant as adolescence. Your brain changes. Your priorities shift. What mattered before might feel completely different now.

For me, everything has reorganised itself around my daughter. While my workplace is incredibly supportive and very flexible; very limited childcare options makes this return hard. In fact, I have to admit that my shift in priorities has even had me quietly considering what it might look like to work entirely for myself one day. How funny, it's often easier to help others find clarity than to sit with your own uncertainty. But here I am, doing exactly that.

If your priorities have shifted too, it’s matrescence doing exactly what it's supposed to do.

The year that went everywhere at once.

A year sounds like a long time. In some ways it has been, obviously in the early weeks, the nights were endless and everything felt more manageable when the sun came up. BUT somewhere along the way, time started moving differently. Faster. Like becoming a mum quietly changed the speed at which everything passes?

Now I'm here, and July is suddenly very close, and I'm feeling both excited and nervous in equal measure. Excited to reconnect with that part of myself. Nervous about walking into a team with new faces, building new working relationships from scratch, and figuring out what this role looks like now that both it — and I — seem to have changed.

If you're feeling that same strange cocktail of emotions, you're in good company.

Why it can feel harder than expected

If your return has felt bumpier than you anticipated, you're not being dramatic.

Research from the University of South Australia (Potter, 2024) found that the majority of Australian women (91.8%) experience real difficulty returning to work after having a baby — from being overlooked in meetings they used to lead, to finding that the flexibility they were promised doesn't quite match the reality. The gap between what workplaces say they offer and what women actually experience on return is still significant.

Knowing that won't fix it. But if you've felt invisible in a room you used to own, that feeling is worth taking seriously. It's not in your head.

What actually helps

Know your entitlements. You have the legal right to return to your pre-parental leave role, or an equivalent one. Changes to the Fair Work Act in 2023 also mean your employer must genuinely consider any flexible work request. The Fair Work Ombudsman website is a solid starting point if you're unsure where you stand.

Ask for flexibility — in writing. Even if the culture doesn't make it feel like an option. You're not asking for a favour.

Give yourself a runway. The first few months back are rarely a reliable indicator of how you'll feel long term. Try not to make permanent decisions based on temporary overwhelm, easier said than done, I know.

Notice the "going through the motions" feeling. If you're doing the job fine but feel completely disconnected from it, that's worth paying attention to. It doesn't mean you need to do anything drastic right now. It’s information and it deserves more than being pushed down and ignored.

Talk to someone outside your workplace. A mentor, a career counsellor, a coach, having a space to think out loud about what you actually want from this next chapter matters. Not because something is wrong with you, but because this is one of the biggest transitions you'll go through and you deserve proper support.

The Takeaway

I'm not going to wrap this up with a tidy resolution, because I don't have one yet. I'm in the middle of this, just like you might be.

What I do know is this: the disorientation you feel right now is not a dead end. The shifted priorities, the uncertainty, the strange grief of leaving the 11am walks behind — means you're human, and you're in the middle of something significant.

The path forward exists. Sometimes you just can't see it clearly until you've had a little more time to find your feet.

And if you'd like some help with that part — that's exactly what I'm here for.

I work with women navigating career transitions — including the messy, unresolved ones. If you'd like to explore what your career looks like on the other side of maternity leave, get in touch or take a look at how I work.

Sources:

Potter, R. (2024). National Review: Work Conditions and Discrimination among Pregnant and Parent Workers in Australia. Safety Science. University of South Australia. Available here.