I got married in April of 2000 after living with my now-ex-husband for several years. At the time, I made a good living from my job in advertising, and like many of my colleagues, I’d been doing freelance work on the side for years.
In 2001, my husband and I became proud homeowners, one of the many Americans who used a subprime mortgage in the early 2000s to finance our first home, all my idea. We even leased a new car that year.
Then came 9/11. Amidst the tragedy, the advertising industry ground to a halt. When I got laid off that year, I took the opportunity to start my own marketing consultancy. I’d been talking about going out on my own for years, and it seemed like the right time to take the plunge; after all, we were talking about starting a family, and working for myself would give me the flexibility I’d need as a mother.
I thought it was a foolproof plan. Now, more than two decades later, I look back and see how naive I was.
I started a business and our family simultaneously
As I got my business off the ground, with all the stops and starts that entailed, I soon found myself incubating another project: In late Spring 2002, I got pregnant with our first child. My first pregnancy was eventful to say the least, but after spending most of the last three weeks in the hospital, I delivered a beautiful baby boy.
There is no “right” or “perfect” time to have a baby. I firmly believe that. However, I either overlooked or blocked out one key fact that’s important for solopreneur moms without a financial cushion: Even as I was healing from major abdominal surgery, and getting to know this actual human being I’d just brought into the world, I’d still need to be earning money. We had bills to pay.
As a result, the memory that’s seared into my mind from my first days at home with my gorgeous newborn boy is of sitting in my bed furiously typing away on my laptop on one side of my body while simultaneously nursing him on the other. I’d cradle both the baby and the computer on my nursing pillow at all hours of the day and night in an effort to be productive; that, looking back on it, bordered on lunacy.
I did the same thing three years later when his baby brother came along.
I have regrets
When I think about those days, I can see how comical that picture is, and I feel a little sorry for myself. But I also know that I was determined to do whatever it took to power through the situation. I am incredibly grateful to have the ability to make a living working for myself, but during that time, I cheated my clients out of my best efforts, and more importantly, I cheated both myself and my sons out of that early time together.
In perhaps the most ridiculous example of how desperate I was to keep all the balls in the air, I was late to my scheduled C-section for my younger son because I was trying to finish up a work project. We laugh about it now, but at the time, I was getting it from all sides. There I was, trying desperately to wrap up a job for a client who had no idea I was supposed to be headed to the hospital — I never told clients how far along I was for fear I’d lose work — and he was yelling at me because the project was clearly finished in a rush. Meanwhile, my then-husband was perturbed and exasperated, in utter disbelief that we were actually going to be late to our own son’s birth because I wouldn’t get off the computer. I just wanted to bill the job so I could have a minute to breathe.
Except there never was a minute to breathe.
I’m not sure things are any better for new moms now
While it makes me furious that the United States can’t get its act together on paid maternity leave, it’s my biggest personal regret as a parent that I didn’t somehow plan that time better, so that my babies and I could have had those important days and weeks together without so much stress. Those early days with an infant are impossible to recapture. But I wonder, in order to do this with any kind of sanity, are women, are people, being priced out of having babies these days?
The woman who does my hair recently told me that she is pregnant. She’s doing it on her own, and she, of course, also owns her own business. She’s already planned out her maternity leave, and after a short time away, will initially come back to work part-time. I feel strangely proud of her. I’m proud of her for figuring out another way, and for having the financial wherewithal to carve out time to be with her daughter. I know she’s worried, even though she doesn’t show it. But she has a village around her, and I hope to be part of that village so that if she needs support, she’ll get it.
As for my sons, both are wonderful young men in their early 20s now and I’m very proud of them. Clearly, they don’t remember those days when they were infants, and I was juggling breastfeeding and my laptop, but I do. And sometimes it breaks my heart.
