You've been home with your new baby for several weeks and you're preparing to return to work. One minute you're excited about the thought of getting back to work for the familiarity, the adult interaction and the opportunity to wear real shoes. Then you look at your tiny baby lying next to you and you wonder how you could possibly leave such a small child in the care of another for eight hours a day. When it comes to returning to work after maternity leave, most new moms have conflicting emotions.

"When I returned to work after maternity leave, it was strange. I felt disoriented and guilty, and the longing for my baby was devastating," says Gina Worch, an executive assistant in Romeoville, Ill. "Maternity leave is a period of time I won't forget. It's trying, it's emotional, and all the while you have to try and think rationally while pushing aside the emotions you're so caught up in." Worch, who returned to work three months after giving birth to her first child, decided not to return to work after the birth of her second, and stayed out of the workforce for one and a half years.

At issue, of course, is a woman's decision whether to return to work after having a baby. Often, economics play a large part in dictating what is best for an individual family. Many women become pregnant knowing full well that they will return to work after a relatively short maternity leave because of financial obligations. Others return for a multitude of reasons, including the desire to continue working. "Now that I've made it through the most difficult time, I am glad I returned to work," says Lisa Bullock, a commercial real estate paralegal and mother of two from Cary, N.C. "With the economy the way it is, I couldn't handle the stress of not working and knowing that my husband could lose his job and we would have no income. I maintained my employment and kept my skills current."

Research suggests that the higher the potential earnings of women, the more likely they are to work, and the higher the husbands' earnings, the less likely they are to work, according to an article by the RAND Population Research Center titled "'Time Out' for New Mothers: Some Issues for Maternity-Leave Policy." Thus, with the increase in opportunities for women in the workplace comes an increase in women returning to work after maternity leave.

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