work after mommyhood

this relates to a comment left by my friend and fellow stationer, erin mccall, on my post below. just so everyone knows what she said:

Hey Nic:

I'd love to hear what your plans are (business-wise) for when the baby comes. As a fellow indie designer, I'd love to know what you will be doing. Are you going to tell your clients you're off for a while? Work right away after he/she is born? It's not something I have to deal with now, but it's something I've often wondered about. "The logistics of being self-employed as a designer while raising a baby/child!"

Take care,

Erin

this is something that i thought an awful lot about before we even decided to try for a baby. my work is very important to me, even though i don't have a monetarily successful business right now. but i'm proud of the work i do, i want it to grow, and i have an INCREDIBLY supportive husband who is willing to continue with the sacrifices we've been making so that i can continue to move forward.

thankfully, we have families on both sides that are just so excited for the arrival of our child. and my mom, being both nearby and awfully generous, offered a long time ago to help with childcare during the week so that i could take a few days to work.

so we have a plan. i'm going to stop working in early december, since i'll be in my 9th month during holiday season (which i feel will be stressful enough without also working on top of it). i've let my clients and my collegues know this, so that i won't surprise anyone. there will also be a notice put up on my blog and on my website.

until then, i'm working with my clients to finish their jobs in time, as well as working on my own stationery for my etsy store. i want to get enough stuff in my store that could be purchased from me while i'm on "maternity leave" -- which, since i work on my own, is clearly an unpaid leave. hopefully that will help us have some extra funds in the beginning. additionally, i'm going to be launching a new "base" website in the new year to bring new and more diverse design work my way, to grow the business potential.

and yes, i'm taking a leave from work. i have enough kids in my life to know that getting back to work right after childbirth is just not in the cards! i need time to bond with our baby, get the kid on a schedule, and figure out how to function with a new little life in our home. however, i'm hoping that my leave can be ended in march, when i can get back to work in time for wedding season. and a couple of my current clients will be holdovers until the spring for some other items, so that will also help. in getting back to work, i'm not sure how long it will take to be on a 3 day schedule, but as soon as i'm ready for that my mom will be helping out by taking the baby off my hands for those days -- so i can concentrate and get my work done without baby block crying in the background.

in the end, i just want to make sure that i keep certain parts of my identity. my work and my willingness to grow as a professional is very important to me. but so is being a present mom. i'm actually hoping that having just those 3 short days a week will actually propel me forward in my career -- doing it for myself as well as to be a great role model for my kid. and at the same time, i can keep quite a flexible schedule so that i can spend a ton of time with baby block, take her to school and pick her up, etc. it's ideal if we can make it work, so dave and i are going for it.