A bad time to be away/a good time to be away

I love being on maternity leave - spending time with my new little one, watching her grow, nursing on demand without having to pump at work and recovering from a "good" night of only 4 wake ups or a bad one of only a couple of bouts of 30 minutes of sleep. I'll say it again, my babies aren't good sleepers. Given what's going on at work right now, it's a hard time to be away. I'm not part of all the discussions and the rumours and the details of all the upcoming layoffs. Given that I moved groups (on paper, not physically) about a week before I left, I really wasn't getting any information other than a little from friends in my former group. Yesterday was the day. It looks like I'm safe, although some friends got hit. I have to say, it was a good day not to be at work. Although I was stressed during the day and not at the meetings, I can't imagine what the feeling must have been at work. Well, I sort of do because friends told me that nothing was getting done and nobody wanted to talk too much - you don't want to casually chat with someone, not knowing whether they'd been asked for a meeting after the main meeting in the afternoon. While I would still be nervous as I would have had to wait a couple of days to receive my letter, fortunately it was announced that my group of me and 1 more person now was too young to be aaffected as they are unable to assess the needs. So I breathe a sigh of relief. Being the family breadwinner has never be quite this stressful.