Thoughts on Becoming a First Time Mom

I’ll be honest, I stepped away from blogging, social media, and even took a break from client work for a while when the suckiness of my first trimester hit, so I want to get real and share a few other thoughts on becoming a first time mom. Pregnancy has affected me and my business in ways I couldn’t imagine and ways I couldn’t have hoped for too! I’m so excited to see how this new little life growing inside of me will forever change so many things in my life, our family, and this business.

This is the first of many posts I expect to share throughout the coming years on mama-related and lifestyle stuff since my business is so intertwined with my family and lifestyle anyway!

1. Pregnancy surprised the heck out of us!

Alex & I have always dreamed about being parents; it’s probably our number one life goal! We’ve had lots of conversations throughout our relationship about how many kids we want, when we want them, how we want to raise them, etc. And you guessed it, we had been planning on waiting a little while longer before having a baby. I felt like this business was my baby and it needed my absolute full focus, how could I have room in my life for a human baby yet? We knew it was a possibility that a baby could come at anytime, and sure enough, God had other plans for us and surprised/blessed us with this sweet pea! The shock wore off REALLY quickly and we were left with nothing but joy, excitement, and gratitude. It’s a blessing in so many ways but more on that later.

2. Pregnancy is tough

It’s true. I can’t sugar coat it, my first trimester hit me like a ton of bricks and I was basically incapacitated for an entire week and severely limited for a few weeks after that. The learning curve was relatively quick though and I somehow managed, with Alex and my practitioner’s help, to stay constantly fed and hydrated to minimize the nausea. Hopefully if we have future pregnancies, I’ll be so much better equipped and prepared and can handle those first months better!

It was also super tough to hold in the news to myself until we felt like the pregnancy was at a safe stage to share with family and friends. I just wanted to shout it from the mountaintops! Instead I had to hold all this fun inside and wait impatiently for just the right moment to spill the beans. As it turns out, it was kind of tough to figure out the right way to “break the news” anyway, especially to be sensitive to those who want babies and haven’t yet gotten pregnant. As the third trimester rolls around later this week, I’m expecting many more tough things about pregnancy (hello peeing constantly, clothes not fitting, serious decrease in lung capacity, swelling, etc) but will do my best to gracefully embrace them.

3. Pregnancy is so rewarding

There is a HUMAN growing in this belly! How can that not be rewarding?! Alex says his favorite part about me being pregnant is that I’m happy and smiley non-stop, even more than I was before. I can’t help it when I feel those cute baby kicks and wiggles and either get to share them with the people around me at that moment or keep it a secret to enjoy all by myself. It has also given me extra motivation and therefore such a rewarding feeling to be diligent with my exercise routine, eating habits, and healthy emotional practices. I know every day I care for my own well-being I’m caring for my baby’s too.

4. Pregnancy has been tough for building my business

Rewind to the beginning of this post – I took essentially a cold-turkey break from my business and had to trust that my clients at the time would be understanding and gracious when I broke the news about why I wasn’t responding to emails or duties as timely as I wanted to be. Plus, the momentum gained during all the hard work put into social media strategy since starting this company completely stagnated while I took that unexpected break and it’s been an uphill battle getting that momentum going again. Which leads straight into the next and last point!

5. Pregnancy has been great for building my business

Although I knew that I wanted to build my business in a way that was completely scalable from day one so we could expand when it became time, I thought that time was still a long way off so I had been postponing creating solid backend systems that were easily understood and replicated by the Kate & Co. team. Once the morning sickness wore off and the reality of an eventual maternity leave set in, I got my rear in gear and have created so many processes, streamlined tasks, began using Aisle Planner and have migrated all the company information into one central spot. As well as having not one but multiple back up plans in the case of an emergency when Alex or I wouldn’t be available to complete client work or attend a client event.

There’s nothing like having a hard and fast deadline looming to get you motivated, am I right?! I’ve always been one to work really well under pressure, especially right before a deadline and I have been so thankful that this deadline is such a fun one that I’m looking forward to! I’ve set so many new goals for myself like pre-writing all blogs, scheduling social media posts way in advance, and generally scheduling as many things as possible in advance so I get in that habit before baby arrives and not have to worry about anything falling through the cracks again like it almost did when the first-trimester nausea hit full-force.

I’ll be doing another blog post on goals and tips for being able to take a maternity leave while still running a business, so stay tuned!

Now tell me, have you experienced any of these?! What are your coping mechanisms for the tough parts of pregnancy and how have you grown from being a mama?

xo, Kate