I went back to work 6 weeks after having a baby. My husband had to turn his schedule upside down to support mine.

The author (not pictured) returned to auditioning for acting jobs when her baby was six weeks old.

In the days and weeks after my first child was born, I routinely asked myself a question that not every new mother has to ask: when could I tell my agent and manager that I’d be ready to start auditioning again?

I was a working actor in Los Angeles, making a living doing commercials, voiceover, and the occasional small role on a TV show or in a film. In effect, I worked for myself — no time clock to punch and no bosses to answer to when I needed to schedule a doctor’s appointment.

But in order to maintain the hard-won health insurance I had through my union, I did need to meet a minimum income level as an actor. This meant that, much as I’d love to have stared into my daughter’s eyes for the first year of her life, I had to get back to work. And in order to work, I first had to audition.

I went back to work when she was 6 weeks old

My daughter was born in November, which was lucky timing. it turned out to be easy to tell everyone I’d start auditioning again after the holidays. So, in early January, I donned a blue Oxford shirt and some dark (stretchy) pants, loaded the baby into the car, and set off for a commercial casting office.

I was grateful to have my husband with me so that I wouldn’t have to navigate this new reality alone. And, of course, I wasn’t alone. As a commercial actor, I didn’t have co-workers in the traditional sense, but I did have co-auditioners. These friends and acquaintances (all in their blue Oxford shirts and dark pants, albeit less stretchy) were delighted to meet the baby, and I was right back to the cozy feeling I so often had at auditions.

When I got the job, things became slightly more complicated. We’d be shooting at a car dealership a few hours from our home in Los Angeles, so I’d have to stay at a hotel for several days. Our baby was still nursing on-demand, so it was non-negotiable — the whole family would travel to Palm Springs.

I had to ask for breaks to pump

The morning of the shoot, I woke very early and dream-fed my sleeping daughter, then hopped in a van outside the hotel lobby to be shuttled to the dealership. Hours passed of hair and makeup and the obligatory breakfast burrito from the catering truck. By the time I was called to set, I hadn’t had a private moment to pump, so my costume was getting increasingly snug.

I had often found it hard to advocate for myself when surrounded by crew, producers, and advertising execs — I would have worked with a broken leg and insisted I was fine. But somehow, advocating for my baby felt different. I had been careful to tell the second assistant director that I would need a break to pump or feed my baby after a few hours on set, so he made it happen when I told him I would need that break very soon. I got back to my trailer and found my husband there with our baby, smiling and ready.

My husband’s schedule was turned upside down at times

It didn’t always feel so seamless. Not long after the car commercial, I was cast in the role of a store clerk on a cable show, and production on the episode couldn’t begin until the mall had already closed for the evening. Once again, I nursed the baby and crossed my fingers. I finally finished shooting at 3 a.m. and raced home across empty freeways. When I arrived, the baby (who never took to a bottle or a pacifier) was agitated; she’d woken in the night, been briefly content with her dad, and was now looking for me.

It was like this for months. I often took my daughter to commercial auditions, scrambled for babysitters when I needed to go to a callback or a TV audition (it was too challenging to focus with a baby in tow), and relied on my husband to turn his schedule upside down when I was cast in a role and needed to shoot. More than once, we had to come home early from a family trip so that I could make it to a shoot I’d been cast in while out of town.

It was a juggling act, but like any circus, it was also exhilarating. I’d played all kinds of parts, but becoming a mother was turning out to be the role of a lifetime.