Working Mom Guilt

Wow, this has not hit me harder than it has this year. Knowing I'm also going to be gone for maternity leave this school year has had me feeling ALL THE GUILT when I need to take time off for my appointments or when Claire is sick. In fact, I'm off with Claire today, who has been around a daycare full of kids with RSV and now has the symptoms herself. She is miserable, and she needs her momma, but I feel so dang guilty that I had to miss the first day of third quarter. Why?!

For one, I think I tend to take the comments other people make a little too personally. Comments like, "Oh, you're not here...again?!" or "Wow, she's sick all the time." Luckily, I have an equally awesome balance of coworkers who have kids of their own and totally get it!  Regardless, the guilt lingers.

Any suggestions on what I can do to overcome it?  It is so real and it makes me feel sooo awful.  Awful that I'm not the most reliable employee/teacher I can be, but also awful that I even feel guilty about putting my family's needs first.

I wish I was writing a blog post about how to overcome or even ignore the guilt, but at the moment, I've got nothing...