Done.

I picked her up to kiss her--my six-week old baby--goodbye, and the tears started flowing. I drove away, glancing at the empty car seat base in my rear view mirror, and the tears flowed some more. I made the familiar trek from my car to my classroom, realizing that I'm a different person from who I was last time I walked toward that door, and my eyes welled up with tears. I walked into my classroom and went into hyper drive getting ready for the day, holding back those tears. My colleagues came by to offer support, and then I cried. Really cried.

It went about like that for the rest of the day. I was fine when I was in energetic teacher mode, but whenever I had some downtime, I went into broken mama mode.

In some ways, I'm relieved. I'm not relieved to be back at work, but I'm relieved that this day is over. Klara, of course, was fine. As Auntie Jessica said, "She will be fine. She's a McGowan woman! Strength is part of who she is."

We did it, Baby Girl.