By Isabel Prystawik – Motionally Counselling and Facilitation
Somatic Counselling in Vernon, British Columbia | Okanagan Valley

Remember your baby shower? The tiny clothes. The diaper cake. The party games. How much did it actually prepare you for childbirth and early parenthood?

A baby shower celebrates your transition to parenthood, but it can’t really prepare you for what comes next. Though we had lots of ideas about parenthood—from family, friends, books and social media. What we couldn’t know was what becoming a parent would mean for us, with our particular family and our particular baby.

And then, just as we’re beginning to figure that out, another transition arrives: parental leave ends and we return to work.

We think that transition deserves preparation, community support and celebration too.

From Leave to Launched is a kind of rite of passage for what comes next. It’s six weeks to prepare for the changes that come with becoming a full-time working parent, alongside other parents who are making that transition too.

woman carrying diaper bag, pushing stroller in park

Going back to work is about more than going back to work

Of course, there are logistics to figure out: childcare, drop-offs and pickups, feeding, naps, work schedules, sick days, dinners and getting everyone out the door in the morning.

But the logistics are only part of it.

Who am I at work now?
How am I going to leave my baby with someone else?
What if someone else sees the firsts?
How am I going to be a full-time working parent and still have enough of myself left for my baby, my partner—and me?
How am I supposed to get everything done when there were already barely enough hours in the day?
And what will this enormous change be like for my baby?

You may have mixed feelings about all of it. You can be looking forward to returning to work and dreading leaving your baby. You can feel confident about your childcare choice and still find drop-off difficult. You can miss your work and wonder how the person you are now will fit back into your old working life.

There doesn’t need to be anything wrong for this transition to be hard.

Preparing for the transition

That’s why we created From Leave to Launched.

Over six weeks, we’ll explore the parts of returning to work that don’t fit neatly onto a to-do list: your changing identity, the mental and practical load of combining work and family life, what happens for you and your baby as you begin spending more time apart, preparing for childcare, and reconnecting with a body that may have changed through pregnancy, birth and postpartum.

I’m collaborating with Nicole Greenstreet RCC, Zoe Raffard OT and Kristin Bicchieri, Guild Certified Feldenkrais® Practitioner because no single professional perspective can speak to all of that. Together, we bring experience in counselling, occupational therapy, pelvic health and childcare, as well as our own lived experience.

And the other parents in the room are part of it too. There is something important about preparing for this change alongside people who are standing at the same threshold: having a place to talk honestly about what’s coming, learning from one another, and taking some time to recognize and celebrate the transition together.

Your baby shower marked the beginning of one enormous transition