Babies on Zoom, nursing between meetings and snotty clothing: The reality of returning to work after maternity leave in a pandemic

While many office workers packed up their desks and decamped to the kitchen table in March 2020, Cathy Adams went on maternity leave. The way of working she’s returned to is not exactly what she had imagined

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Shortly before 5pm on 6 March 2020, I walked out of my office in Central London for the last time until, I assumed, January 2021. Little did my colleagues know that just a few days later, they would walk out of the office for the last time that year as well.

When my son was sliced out of my stretch-marked middle in mid-March 2020, moments before the UK hurtled into the first lockdown, I thought I’d be a pandemic parent for a snappy three or four months before the world returned to normal. Ha!