Every day is now a little bit different, but here is a blow-by-blow of my yesterday:

4:49 AM: Hayden wakes up after 6 hours 35 minutes. I feed him and change him.
5:24 AM: Hayden goes back to sleep in the nursery without a fuss, I also go immediately back to sleep in our bedroom.
7:00 AM: Up time. Adrian fetches Hayden from the nursery and brings him into bed. We play and talk, and Hayden joins in with loud cooing “aaaah ooooh yoooo uuuuub”. He is becoming a lot more aware an interactive. It is fun. Pepper and Mint join us too, and I am happy that we have the whole family on the bed together.
7:30 AM: I pick out his outfit for the day and get him dressed and feed him again. I fill out his sleeping and eating notebook for the creche while Adrian gets himself ready and packs Hayden’s milk.
7:45 AM: I say goodbye to my two little guys and get ready for work.

8:00 AM: On the metro, I read through my work schedule on my Blackberry and work my way through the emails from have arrived from the US overnight.
8:30 AM: I boot up my laptop, and file all my emails out of my Inbox and into my @action folder, into subfolders. A subfolder that starts with 0 has to be done today, a subfolder that starts with 1 has to be addressed this week, etc.
9:00 AM: No meetings this morning, so I have time to get stuck into my projects. I compile a list of future data sources for 2012, give my comments on a systematic literature review protocol, read through the epidemiology section of a disease area review, and create a slide-deck that will be presented next week to the global team. Adrian sends me a photo of Hayden asleep in his pram.

10:30 AM: Pump.
10:45 AM: The publication officer pops into my cubicle to ask me about my plans for congresses and publications next year. I would like to submit an abstract for a congress with a deadline of mid-January, but it has to go through three review and approval cycles before it can be submitted, and I don’t think we’ll have time to do that as most people are taking of most of December for vacations (myself included).
11:15 AM: One of the statistical programmers sends me an instant message. The statistical analysis plan calls for a statistical test that seems inappropriate for that particular data set. We discuss various options and decide on a better alternative. I update the statistical analysis plan to reflect that change in design.
12:00 noon: Lunch time! Normally I go for the salad bar, but I treat myself on Fridays with the fish and vegetables. Today we have sole with mushrooms, Brussels sprouts, and ratatouille. The chef corrects my pronunciation of “ratatouille”, but I can’t hear the difference between the word I says and the way that he says it. I am sure that he can, though. I talk with my colleagues about their upcoming travel plans to the Ukraine, Mexico, and Romania.

12:30 PM: The head of the department drops by my cubicle to see how I am adjusting to being back to work, and reminds me that out of all my projects that I have to manage, Hayden is my most important. He talks about his children and about how his youngest has just learnt to walk.
1:00 PM: I meet with my team members and we do a practise run-through of our presentation to the global team for Monday.
1:30 PM: Pump
1:45 PM: I reply to emails, then complete an online training course to certify that I am compliant with the new Standard Operating Procedures that have just been implemented.
3:00 PM: 9:00 AM on the West Coast. The emails start flooding in from the US office. I have a teleconference with a US vendor to check on the progress of a new database that they are delivering to us.
4:00 PM: I have a teleconference with the UK office to discuss how I can support upcoming products in the pipeline and in early clinical trials.
4:30 PM: Pump
4:45 PM: Print out materials needed for Monday morning, make sure I have completed all my necessary tasks for the week. Water my plant.
5:00 PM: I leave on the dot so that I can get to Leuven by 6. I reply to more emails on my phone on the metro and then on the train.
6:00 PM: Arrive at the restaurant in Leuven for a friend’s birthday, joined by Adrian, Hayden, and a few other friends too. They all enjoy a drink, I have a Croque Hawaienne for dinner – a toasted ham cheese and pineapple sandwich, in which the pineapple must go on top of the bread instead of inside, for cultural reasons I do not understand. I feed Hayden and play with him, giving him lots of kisses until everyone else wants to hold him too.

8:00 PM: Hayden is sleepy so we head home. In his pram, Hayden plays with his kitten mittens, looking a little confused as to how his hands have turned into animals again. On the train we sit opposite a guy who is trying to study, but Hayden wants to talk to him and babbles loudly at him the whole time. Hayden is also really stinky.
9:00 PM: We arrive home, I feed Hayden and put him to sleep in his cot in the nursery. Adrian gives treats to Pepper and Mint.
9:30 PM: We put all his bottles and pump parts into the dishwasher, tidy up the house, and go to bed.
11:00 PM: I feed and change Hayden and pop him back into his sleep sack and back into his crib. He quietly sleeps until 6:00 AM the next day.

Today is my first day back at work since July. On my last day at work I was 8.75 months pregnant and it was the middle of summer. I now return to work in autumn, having experienced 16 hours of childbirth, 509 nappy changes, 1158 breastfeeding sessions, and 94 nights of broken sleep. I have also experienced seeing Hayden’s first smile, hearing his first laugh, and being the first person to greet him every morning with the sun rise. We have boated in Brugge, navigated Norway, cruised past cows in Cambridge, loitered in lively London, and ambled through Amsterdam.

I feel very conflicted about returning to work. I do enjoy my job and I am looking forward to the feelings of intellectual challenge and productivity that come with it. However, when I think about being apart from my very little bear for so long, I do feel a bit sad. I don’t want him to forget who I am. Still, I guess this is part of what parenting is all about – letting them go, bit by bit.

This trip to Atlanta for work was my first experience flying business class. The express lanes through check-in and security were very nice, as was the business lounge with complementary snacks. The meals were better, even served on an actual plate, but the very best bit was the dessert cart that came along with a variety of treats and toppings, so that I could enjoy a custom-made ice-cream sunday while watching Reese Witherspoon in How Do You Know.

Though afterwards I felt a little self-conscious tilting my seat 160 degrees to sleep with a quilted blanket and eye mask, when I knew that my boss and other business colleagues were sitting directly behind me, and then trying to talk with them a few hours later when I had terrible bed hair.

Two years ago, I left my position as a senior post-doctoral fellow in Seattle. I then spent the summer back in Australia working though some intensive courses to get closer to finishing my Masters of Public Health. When we arrived in Belgium, I still didn’t know what kind of job would be possible for me, especially as I only speak English.

Now I have a permanent internal position with a pharma company. I have a laptop and blackberry and a corporate credit card. I work a 40 hour week. I have presented my findings at an international conference, and we have just learned that our paper has been accepted into a peer-reviewed journal.

My transition from an immunologist in academia to a pharmacoepidemiologist in industry is complete. I am so glad that I made the change.

Photo from JBird