Nuisance!

Thanks to those who expressed sympathy regarding nuisance below. That is how I regard it - career going "bung" is something I half expected and was prepared for when I got on this wild ride to parenthood, so previous post title is meant as a joke.
It's a nuisance, because it's so much easier to know what the future holds if you have secure, confirmed employment to go back to. Easier to arrange which days you child can go to childcare, easier to budget, and easier to prepare yourself for any changes you might have to make such as moving to a place with cheaper rent.
If you don't have secure, confirmed employment to go back to, you have to juggle job application, interviews, arranging child care, and all the above within a short timespan. Some of the mum's in my mother's group had no maternity leave pay, but employers have been most accomodating in arranging for them to come back to work (probably to make up for lack of former), and I'm beginning to think that in some ways this is better, in a society where maternity leave pay is neither standardised nor compulsory.