Leaving the workforce was not easy for me. I spent many a mommygroup crying in the bathroom after other moms declared that being a stay at home mom fulfilled everything they had ever hoped for in life—the best job ever! I mourned my career, and the role where people listened to me, where there were right answers. That couldn't have been the farther from the truth as a mom. Turns out that you can graph milk intake in many different ways, but it still doesn't mean your five-month-old will sleep through the night.

Today, I am the mother of four kids. People often react to that information with "Wow, you must have your hands full". I often say back with a laugh, "I am very competitive," and it's only partly a joke. I always wanted four kids, having had such a great childhood growing up in a family of six. I wasn't willing to compromise on the life that I wanted, though I knew that it would delay my re-entry into the workforce even longer and solidify my role as "mom" for the long haul.

As a stay-at-home mom, I have struggled with guilt, boredom, and feeling overwhelmed, coupled with moments of intense gratitude for being able to be there for my kids. I am aware that by moving from a profit center (making money) to a cost center (costing money), I have limited the choices that my husband has for his career. I know how lucky I am to have a partner who supports me in all ways, taking on more than his fair share of housework and parenting, sharing my philosophy, backing my ventures and listening to my struggles. It has not been easy, but we have tried our best to impart to our kids that what we do shows what we value- and we value our family above all else.

My "years off" have not been without accomplishment. I have been able to leverage my skillset to take on key volunteer roles and hopefully make a difference in my community. I created a neighborhood preschool and co-founded a synagogue. When a local charter school asked me to write their business plan, I got more involved, eventually chairing their board, reorganizing their org structure and expanding their schools. When people were having trouble finding great nannies, I started a nanny agency and ran it for a few years. Currently, I am working on a web startup called Momstamp that features trusted recommendations for service-providers and products.

When my fourth child enrolled in kindergarten, I realized the day had come: I was ready to lean in again. But how? As many of us lift our heads up after years of raising kids, the prospects of returning to the workforce are daunting, even though many of us would like to go back. Many of the structural issues that made work so difficult to sustain once I had kids seem even more insurmountable now.

I definitely can't go back to the 100-hour workweeks, so that type of job is out. Because I leaned in so much in my 20s, I created a no-win situation for myself in my 40s. I trained for a high-power management role, one where you can't really pickup where you left off after being absent for over ten years. By leaving the workforce, I lost all of my accumulated experience and expertise—exactly what made my company want to negotiate family-friendly parameters with me before I left.