Mum gets honest about her 'biggest' maternity leave fear
"If you think having a baby is hard, giving away the job you love for a year is even harder"
In case you haven't had a chance to watch it yet, The Replacement is a new 3-part drama from the BBC that focuses on the paranoia that can come with handing over your job while you head off to have a baby.
While, just one part down, it looks as though this particular story is going to get pretty murky - and go a fair bit beyond the regular woes women can have when they get 'replaced' at work - it's been great for getting women to chat about their experiences of handing their role over to a stranger while they become a full-time mum.
Writing for The Sun, Lynsey Hope says the biggest fear she had about going on maternity leave was losing the job she loved and had worked so hard for to get.
"It’s so incredibly painful to hand that over to someone else. Someone who’s probably five years younger than you and ambitious as hell," she says.
"You worry no end if that person is only interested in their career and probably not too bothered about family and kids (for now at least).
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"This is someone who probably doesn’t have to leave the office to pick up their kids at 6pm and who can go to the pub with colleagues after work, too.
"It’s only natural that they want a promotion - and for them, that means your job.
"It can make you feel incredibly insecure and you do become suspicious of everyone in your office.
"People you thought were friends suddenly become your competition."
And for Lynsey, the worries don't end once maternity leave's over. When you're back in the office you wonder how you'll cope if your little ones get ill and you need to take time off, and, in fact, just how you'll manage with the juggle on a day-to-day basis.
Not to mention, says Lynsey, you might go down the path of comparing yourself to other mums at work and (possibly) wondering how they seem to have it so together when you find, at times at least, you're struggling to do it all.
What do you think?
Did you feel worried about going on maternity leave and handing your job over to someone else - or were you ready to forget about your career and concentrate on becoming a mum by that stage?
Tell us in the comments below or over on Facebook
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Authors
Tara is mum to 1 daughter, Bodhi Rae, and has worked as Content Editor and Social Media Producer at MadeForMums since 2015
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