My guest this week, Carly, and I talk about the postpartum period. There are so many changes that occur during that "4th trimester". As you approach the end of your maternity leave you might find yourself excited to return to work but also guilty about having to leave your child. You've just gotten into a rhythm of being a mom and then you get thrown back into work and trying to figure out how to merge that new mom life with your work life can be hard! Especially when you have to navigate a new normal at work in the form of pumping - how to pump, where to pump, and when to pump. Can you ever really figure it out?

As a primate keeper, Carly has some amazing experiences training gorillas for maternal behaviors and she and I also talk a bit about primate behaviors and whether or not great apes can sense pregnancy changes in pregnant women.

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As a working professional, when you suddenly step into the world of motherhood, it can sometimes feel as if you now have two identities. Motherhood, and in the case of most of this podcast's guests, zookeeper. My guest this week, Kristine Duplisea, and I talk a little bit about this. We also talk about how maternity leave can feel so isolating, especially if you don't have a "village" to help you out. We put so much emphasis on learning how to be a mom prior to having a baby that after their arrival it often seems that we forget about the immense amount of support that new parents, especially mothers, need.

Returning to work has its own set of challenges to navigate, especially if you are a pumping mom. Kristine and I talk about navigating finding the time to pump at work and trying to find the balance between the bigger picture of needing to provide food for your child and the responsibilities of your job, in that very moment, that need to be finished before you can take time to pump.

Finally, Kristine and I also talk about the self-inflicted guilt that comes with taking your child to daycare on your day off. Time alone is so precious to some, but it sometimes comes with a side of guilt as we feel bad for sending our child to daycare when we know we are capable of taking care of them at home.

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Animal care professionals work so hard to get into the zoo field. Internships, commutes, low pay, time spent away from family and friends - all this because they love what they do and oftentimes consider it their passion. They can’t imagine doing anything else. My guest this week, Kristen, and I talk about how it feels to be working your dream job but also feel like you hate leaving your kid to do it.

Kristen has definitely worked hard to make it work throughout her career. From being a mom during her internship to living far from where she worked, she has recently considered whether her dream is the best for her family; and thus, she recently decided to step away from being a zookeeper for a bit.

We talk about the emotions that come from leaving something you worked so hard to obtain. When around her amazing coworkers and animals, she loved her job, but as soon as she stepped away from the good things at work she would think about everything she was missing at home. Her and I talk about feeling like she was “being split in half”. A feeling I can also relate to as a working mom - and one that we have discussed on the podcast before because so many women also feel like they have two different identities; zookeeper and mom.

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