When I was pregnant with my first child in 1992, I was put on bedrest at 36 weeks for pregnancy-induced-hypertension. I was working for a company that did not offer any kind of maternity benefits, so my time on bedrest and my entire maternity leave was unpaid time. This was a huge bummer, especially considering that we’d signed the papers on our first home the very day I was put on bedrest. There was no talk of work to be done from home, and since we did not even use the internet at work yet, there was no logging in.

In 2001, I was pregnant with my third child. Now living in a bigger city, I was in a much more intense job, working for a demanding boss. No surprise that I went into preterm labor at 35 weeks, so once again – bedrest. This time, with a laptop and high-speed internet connection (which I actually had to talk my husband into getting), I was able to do my bedrest and still work a few hours each day, and my boss agreed to pay me my full salary while I was out. This helped the bedrest time go by a lot faster and kept me in the loop at work a little longer. And I was still able to take my originally planned 3 months off after the baby was born.

My fourth child was born in 2004, while I was a SAHM. However, had I been working at the time, no doubt if I wanted to be connected to a workplace during my time on maternity leave, it would have been even easier to do so.

I returned to work in 2008 and was concerned about how we would handle those inevitable days off for kid events (sick days, days off from school, school events, and so on). Now when my husband or I have to miss work, we are able to log into our company’s networks and get a good bit of our work completed. So far, our bosses have both been understanding and appreciative when we keep up while we’re away from the office.

It’s not a perfect arrangement – perfect for me would be working from home and setting my own work hours – but it is a lot better than it used to be.

Looking at how technology has changed just in the time since my first child was born, I have to wonder where we’ll be 18 years from now?  What will working moms be like then?