Jade Boyd: I had so much confidence in the team around me they seemed very capable, they worked very quickly, they were very just considerate and explained everything to me before they did it.

Today, I am sharing all things maternity leave, my birth story, and business after baby. And I have to start out this episode with a little bit of maybe a trigger warning if you had a traumatic delivery, but also , just a warning, if you have kids in the car or listening to this and are not ready to answer questions about birth and how all of that works, then you might want to wait until you can pop in your headphones or something like that before we get into this episode, because I am going to share some details about labor and not all of those details might be worth, well, they’re all worth discussing, but you might not want to discuss them with your kids at this point in time, depending on how old they are.

And I promise this episode seems a little bit out of the usual for The Business Edit. For a business and marketing and productivity related podcast, but I promise you that this all ties back to business and you’ll have to stick around until the end of the episode to see how all of this comes full circle and why I’m sharing this on the podcast specifically.

I also just love hearing other people’s birth stories. Everybody’s story is so incredibly different, and I think it’s helpful to see what wide variety there is, because you really can’t go into it expecting any, like, normal situation to happen. Everybody’s story is so different, and mine is definitely a wild story to share.

And if you haven’t already, I did an episode earlier this year that shared how I plan to take a maternity leave as a business owner and that aired this spring, so if you scroll back 12 ish episodes, you should be able to find that episode for how I planned for maternity leave, but we’re going to start this episode with the birth story, my maternity leave, and then coming back to work because this is the first time I’ve recorded a podcast in about four months. I was able to batch things out pretty far before I left for maternity leave. Now that I’m back to business, how, how I’m doing and how things are looking different and how things will look different after having a baby.

So going all the way back to June. My due date was June 15th, and I ended up delivering at 41 and 5, and it was really hard. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be, and everybody had told me due dates don’t matter that much, don’t pay too close of attention to it. It’s really more of a window, either two weeks before or two weeks after is generally where babies are born.

The date itself is not accurate, obviously, and so I wasn’t in the third trimester thinking like, I have to get this baby out of me right now. I know a lot of women feel like that, but I had a pretty comfortable third trimester. I was going to the chiropractor really regularly and I think that helped with like back pain and all of that stuff.

I didn’t have any out of the usual symptoms and definitely no symptoms that made it extremely uncomfortable. Of course, the bigger you get, the more uncomfortable it is just like to stand up and stuff like that. Obviously, it’s not comfortable, but I wasn’t to the point where it’s like, get this baby out of me right now.

I was content with waiting a little bit longer if that’s what it took. But after my due date, you start getting like a little bit more nervous, right? Of like, okay, when, when is this baby gonna come? And I didn’t expect to struggle with that as hard as I did. And honestly, after 40 weeks, I was pretty okay. I think it started getting really bad at about 41 weeks, especially because that Saturday I had done a ton of housework and literally spent like 12 hours on my feet, running up and down the stairs, lifting heavy things, like super, super active.

And it was like, there’s no way this baby doesn’t come tonight, if this doesn’t induce labor I don’t know what will. And then the next morning I woke up, no signs of labor, still super pregnant and just crying of like, when is this baby going to come? And I really wanted a natural birth. And so what was making me so anxious was that I felt like the clock was ticking on having to get an induction if I went too late and I really, really did not want to have an induction. But in America, there’s so much pressure to be induced and even going to see midwives for our labor, which is a little bit more on the natural, like, listen to your body side of things. It was still through, like, a normal hospital, and I think that influences what they have to suggest to you when it comes to labor and delivery.

And so, induction was suggested so many times, really didn’t want to do it. and felt like the clock was ticking and if the baby didn’t come on its own soon, then I would have to get induced. And that is not the experience that I wanted. I know a lot of people love inductions and think it’s the best thing ever to plan when you’re going to have your baby, but for me, I, for my first one, I wanted to experience what a natural birth would be like.

So again, every day I woke up pregnant, I got a little bit more anxious, which is not helpful when you’re waiting for a baby to come. You’re supposed to be like zen and calm and regulate your nervous system so that the baby knows like, oh, yeah, it’s okay, everything’s good. It’s time to come out now. And that was not me. I had to distract myself a lot. I made a lot of different like coffee dates with friends. I got outside every day to go on walks. I was also like doing all of the things to try and induce labor. And everyone has their own story and their own recommendation of like, oh, yeah, it’s I ate dates or I did the raspberry leaf tea, I did the mile circuit, I like went golfing or bowling or, you know, there’s like a million different things people will tell you that made their baby come. And I’m just convinced that babies come when they want to come. And there’s very little research to show that virtually any of the things that people try actually work to induce labor.

So I tried all of the things, none of them worked and next time I’m probably going to be way more chill. If we’re, you know, fortunate enough to have another pregnancy, I don’t think I would try any of them because I was going kind of crazy trying to make the baby come and it not coming. It was so frustrating. And on top of that, of course, everybody is really excited to meet baby. And so everybody’s asking any signs of labor, any signs of labor. And so while I was struggling mentally to be like, you know, I feel like my body’s not doing what it’s supposed to be doing and I’m scared of what’s going to happen if it doesn’t start doing what it’s supposed to be doing, in the midst of that, everybody’s texting me asking, when’s the baby going to come? Like, is, is she coming now? like. any idea. I’m like, nope, no idea. My body’s doing nothing. And like having to say that repeatedly to people did not help.

There was one day, I think it was like 41 in one or something like that, literally 15 people in the same day. And I’m not exaggerating. I had to count because By the end of the day, I was just exhausted and like, seriously, is this really happening? But I had to tell 15 people in one day. And at that point, I started asking people like, I, so appreciate you asking me, but please stop. Please stop asking me. The baby’s going to come when she comes and I will definitely let you know.

So there’s that. I don’t think I’ve heard a lot of people talk about the mental struggle that happens when you go that far past and when you are committed to having a natural birth, especially. And so for anyone else who’s in the same boat there, just know that you’re not alone. That it’s hard no matter how prepared you might be to ignore the due date. It’s so hard when the due date passes and the baby still is not making their way. I think especially for your first, because it was my first, I was way more nervous about it. Again, if I was in that situation again, because I already went through it. I think it would have, it’ll be a lot easier if that happens again. But the first time is like really, really hard because I didn’t even know what to expect or what labor would look or feel like. So, you know, I’m on edge, like trying to pay attention to everything. The positive part about going that late is that I had time to read Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth, which is a really frequently recommended book about labor and delivery.

And it’s something that had been on my reading list forever, but it’s like a thick book. So it’s sitting on my bookshelf and a little bit intimidating, but because I was out and walking so much that week, I was able to listen to it on audio book. And I went from having like a five out of 10 commitment to having a natural birth and several people like, healthcare providers, chiropractor, whatever, had asked me, like, how committed are you to having this natural birth? And my answer was basically, you know, five out of 10. I want it to happen, but if it doesn’t happen, it’s not the end of the world. I’m not going to be torn up about it. And then after reading that book, my commitment level went to a nine out of 10, like, this is going to happen.

I’m going to do everything that I possibly can to make it happen. But also, if it doesn’t happen, I’m not going to tear myself up about it. But I really, really, really want it to happen to be able to experience it. And I would definitely recommend that book for anybody who’s considering a natural childbirth and is kind of on the edge of like, I kind of want to do it, but maybe not.

It’s just such an empowering book to read and it basically most of it shares stories of different people’s labor and delivery situations and what happened and will just get you hyped for what women are capable of doing and what our bodies are built to do naturally in childbirth. It is incredible and again, hearing other people’s birth stories is that much more empowering to show you that it can look many, many different ways, but our bodies are really smart.

They know how to birth a baby. And I think that our modern medical system has kind of, you know, for various reasons, shied away from letting women’s bodies do what they’re meant to do and have birth has just become really, I don’t even know the word for it, not medicated, yes, but just really I don’t even want to say the word unnatural. It’s just not the way that, it’s just not the way that it used to be. And I think a lot more women are capable of having natural births than end up having natural births because they’re not aware and kind of get scared into doing things that they maybe didn’t want to do in the first place. And I do think that if I hadn’t read this book, I probably would have made very different decisions during my labor, and I would not have felt as confident or as empowered as I wanted to feel going into this having a natural birth.

So that is the one positive thing that came out of going a little bit late. I had time to do some extra reading, which made a huge difference.

Okay, so going into birth story again I did not want to have an induction and at 41 and 3 there was still no signs of labor at that point I had had three non stress tests and all of them were normal. Very normal. She was doing fine in there, just chilling and hanging out, not wanting to make an appearance, and so at 41 and 3 mentally, I just couldn’t take it anymore because they do say after 41 and 6, at least this is what my hospital recommended. They said that still birth rates slightly go up after that and they go up, the rate at which they go up is so small. But, you know, I have that date in my mind and I was trying to balance not having an induction, but also being a responsible parent and not, you know, putting her at risk unnecessarily.

So it’s such a difficult line to toe and honestly I’m not sure what I would have done if I had not gone into labor earlier, but at 41 and 3, I just had them swipe my membranes, which started labor for me. It doesn’t for everybody, but I’m glad that I did it because, like I said, for my mental health, I just needed to get things going.

And so that was a Tuesday at like 4 p. m. and then that night contraction started and by like 1 a. m. they were actually waking me up. I wasn’t able to sleep through them but they were still really, really mild. Like I would wake up a little bit and be able to go right back to sleep. And then the next day, Wednesday, the game plan, I was still in early labor, so I was just kind of ignoring the contractions. My husband still went to work. my little brother actually is going to the University of Iowa this fall. And so this summer he had his summer orientation and my sister and I were supposed to go. And that was the day when I was in labor that the orientation was. So I actually went to that with him, which, we lived like two minutes from downtown Iowa City, and so it would have been really close to the hospital and to my house if anything were to happen. So it was a good distraction and as the contractions got stronger, I did stand in like the back of the room for orientation and kind of like swayed through contractions, was tracking them on an app, but still super manageable and ignorable and nobody obviously knew that I was in labor. They probably just thought I was uncomfortable sitting in uncomfortable chairs and that’s why I was standing in the back.

And so that kind of happened all day until 3 PM. And at that point, I told Caleb, you need to stop working. This is getting harder. And by 5 p. m. we had called our doula and she came to our house and started different like pain management techniques. I had back labor the entire time and that was due to a couple different things, I think. But if you’ve never had back labor and have never had somebody describe it to you, it’s, it just basically feels like somebody stabbing you in the back every time you have a contraction.

It’s just really. centralized stinging pain. And for me, it was like in my lower back felt like it was in my spine. And a common pain management technique for that is to apply counterpressure. we were also using a tens unit, which is like a sticky thing you can stick to your back and it, It kind of not electrocutes you, but it kind of like buzzes you, you know, to distract you from the pain or to like eliminate some of the feeling of the pain in your back.

So we kind of did a combination of applying counterpressure, which basically looks like putting the palm of your hand, think of like putting the palm of your hand on somebody’s lower back and really planting your feet and shoving into their back as hard as you possibly can with like all of the strength that you can possibly muster, that’s what applying counterpressure looks like, and it is exhausting. So again, this is 5 p. m. on Wednesday when this started and It was a long labor. So my doula and my husband were very exhausted by the time everything was said and done But I had back labor and we labored at home for about four hours things progressed really really quickly at home and then by like 9 p. m. ish, we went to the hospital. I was far enough along that it was time to go. And we lived close enough to the hospital that I only had two contractions in the car, which was so uncomfortable. And I feel bad for anybody who has to travel an hour to get to the hospital and has to labor in the car that whole time, especially with back labor. Oh my gosh. I’m so, so grateful that we lived that close to the University of Iowa, which is where we delivered. And that’s going to come up again because I’m so grateful that we had a hospital that great, that close to home. And that’s, I, yeah, I’m so grateful that that’s where we ended up delivering.

But when we got to the hospital, they check you in and make sure you’re far enough along to admit you and at that point, I think I was eight centimeters dilated and 10 would be fully dilated for anybody who has either forgotten or never gone through labor. Which was great, and I was like, wow, this baby’s going to come before midnight, this is gonna go really fast, everything up until that point had been really smooth. That’s not what happened.

They did say like, great, your contractions are strong, they’re steady, you’re almost all the way dilated. Let’s admit you, they only had one room left at that point. Which was the smallest room and they apologized like hey, we only have one room left sorry it’s super small. And I was like no problem as long as you have a room this baby’s gonna come so we got in the room and we tried literally everything from that point on to try and make this baby get into position and we were in the tub we were doing like standing, sitting, lunging, squatting, birthing bar, like leaning over the back of the bed.

I tried every single position. It was moving my hips every which way and this baby was just not moving down into the birth canal. And so again, admitted at 9pm, I didn’t start pushing until 6am the following day. So that’s another nine hours of staying up all night trying to get this baby to move down when I was admitted thinking no big deal, like, this baby’s gonna come in a couple hours. This is great! It did not end up being like that. And by 6am, of course, we’re all exhausted. And at that point, I finally felt ready to start pushing. And started pushing. And still was not making progress. And at that point, the midwives switch shifts.

They take 12 hour shifts. And so I got a new midwife who assessed me and kind of figured out that the baby was moving down when I was pushing, but then kind of slipping back up every time, which was so discouraging to hear. Also, I’m so grateful that I had a doula because when you labor for that long, you really need somebody to encourage you every single, every single time I pushed, which was literally every two to three minutes. I would hear like, great job. You’re doing great. Like, this is awesome. Keep going. You got this. And I needed to hear that every single time because at that point I was just like, I can’t do this. This is physically impossible. This is not how, this just isn’t possible. Like, my mind could not wrap around how this baby was going to exit my body when it had taken that long. So I needed somebody to be like, this is good. You’re doing great.

And after, I think, like two hours of pushing, they assessed me again and baby was at station zero still. And obviously very discouraging when you’ve been pushing for two hours every two to three minutes and time and labor just moves differently, too and I remember them saying oh it’s been two hours already and I was just like what how did that go by so quickly because you were so in your body and everything else around you It’s almost like it doesn’t exist or is kind of happening in a dreamland and then I had my eyes closed like the whole time just in my body, resting between contractions as much as I could with back labor. It’s really hard to rest in between contractions. And then again, they were applying counterpressure every single time I was pushing. So I was exhausted.

And then we waited another hour and around. Like, three and a half ish hours, I would say. I got assessed again and things had not progressed. So at that point, my midwife was basically like, if, if we don’t get this baby out soon, then we’re going to have to start thinking about other interventions like vacuum or forceps or potentially C section, like that couldn’t have gone on for much longer.

And I think that lit a fire in me because again, I wanted to experience a natural birth . I was so frustrated that things were not progressing the way that I wanted them to. But also, I didn’t want to have any interventions. I wanted to be able to do it on my own. And I don’t know if it was a mental shift or something else, like I said, we had tried every single position for both, working the baby into the birth canal and also for pushing, except for laying on my back because I was having back labor. And also a lot of women say when you have a natural childbirth, laying on your back is not very comfortable.

For me, that is what did the trick and in the future, again, lesson learned. Maybe that’s just my position and that works better for my body. I have no idea. Or maybe it’s just the way that she was positioned, but I would definitely try that a lot sooner next time because it was magic. And when I flipped my back to start pushing, she came within like 10 to 15 minutes. It might have even been less than that.

So finally, after pushing for almost four hours. She came out, and when she was on her way out, when I was pushing on my back, her heart rate dropped to below 70, and at that point, the midwife was like, okay, Jade, she has to come out now, like, we’re not gonna wait to push. We’re not gonna spread this out. She has to come now. Her heart rate’s in distress. And, like, she, is in trouble if we can’t get her out quickly. And at that point, Caleb, my husband said that he noticed a sea of people gather outside of the delivery room door, like tons of people ready for if something bad did happen when she came out, or, you know, if she needed to, like emergency, I don’t even, I want to say yeah, just like a sea of people ready to like jump into action if anything bad were to happen. And he said as soon as she did came out, they all just kind of disappeared, which is crazy.

I will never wrap my mind around how organized hospitals are. They seem pretty disorganized at many times, but that’s insane that they gathered that quickly and then also dispersed that quickly.

So anyway, yeah, her heart rate dropped, but after that it lit another fire under me and I was like, okay, she’s coming out now. And again, I don’t know if it’s the mind body connection or something else that made that happen, or if it was really just the position that I was in, but was able to get her out naturally. And at that point it was about 10 AM on Thursday. So again, got my membrane swiped on Tuesday at 4 PM. She was delivered 10 a. m. on Thursday. So I know it’s not the longest labor, but it felt like a pretty long labor to me.

And at that point I had a second degree tear, I think from how quickly she exited, but also her arm was up by her head and her umbilical cord was wrapped around her arm. So she couldn’t have moved her arm down because her umbilical cord was keeping it by her head. And that’s probably the reason why it was so hard and so long of labor because she could not, it was just a struggle to get her to fit into the birth canal in the right position and also make her way through the birth canal.

So that’s maybe also why I had so much back labor, but I was able to do it without an epidural. And in those last four hours, when I was pushing, there was definitely three or four times where I was like, okay, I can’t do this. Where’s the epidural? Bring it to me now. I want it. And at that point. They were just like, it’s probably too late by the time you get an epidural, and it actually kicks in, she’s probably already going to be here, and then you’re not going to be able to walk, basically.

And I know epidurals affect everybody differently, but it was not the opportune time to get an epidural. And at that point, I was still thinking like, she’s coming just on the next few contractions, right? Every contraction feels like this is the one, even though it wasn’t. And so I didn’t end up getting an epidural and I’m glad that I didn’t and was able to experience a natural birth.

However, like painful that would be. I think it’s made me feel that much more confident going into anything else, specifically labor, like future labors, being really confident that my body is made to do this and it’s capable of doing a really crazy thing because pushing for four hours is no joke.

And the fact that I was able to do that with no medication, and I won’t say that it, it didn’t suck. Obviously it sucked and it was really, really hard. But looking back, it was, it was really doable and I would do it again. If I knew that I was going to push for four hours, I would probably do it again. I might change my mind next time I’m actually in labor, but I’m really glad that I was able to experience, yeah, just what labor feels like without an epidural, even though I was definitely begging for one at the end.

Anyway, when she came out, because it was so fast and because her arm was by her head, I did have a second degree tear. And then I hemorrhaged. So you spend all that time thinking like, oh, when she’s out, everything’s going to be done. Like, we’re just waiting for her to come out and then everything is like, going to be good from there.

And yes, birthing the placenta and all that, but I thought that I was done, basically. And that was not the case because I hemorrhaged. So they think part of it was from the second degree tear and part of it was probably from the placenta detaching. So bleeding from my uterus and weight wise they estimate that I lost 25 percent of my blood in just those few minutes And again a sea of people came in there were doctors and nurses like talking to me about what they were doing Injecting me with pitocin, like injections in the IV in my arm. They put another IV in my other arm. They’re injecting into my leg they were trying to find where the bleeding was coming from, people’s hands are inside me. someone was pushing on my stomach to try and get the placenta to come out. My baby’s on my chest crying. It was just chaos, like pure chaos.

And again, you think like once the baby comes, the pain is going to go down and things will kind of wind down. But at that point, it just got all the more painful. And meeting her for the first time was incredible. Like, I have never experienced anything like that in my life. Makes me want to tear up just thinking about it and yeah, I just remember Caleb and I looking at her and how perfect she was and like, how relieved we were to finally meet her.

And after the heart rate situation, she was doing great and that really special, like those special moments and seeing her the first time are also combined with all of the chaos of getting a million needles and stitches, you know, all of that was happening at the very same time. So obviously a very overwhelming experience, and I don’t think I processed all of the trauma from that more on that later.

But, she was finally there. Again, I feel so grateful that we delivered at the hospital that we did, because amongst that whole thing, I was not scared of dying or anything like that. Like, I would have imagined before then, had I hemorrhaged, I would think like, this is not good. I’m afraid that something bad would happen, but I had so much confidence in the team around me they seemed very capable, they worked very quickly, they were very just considerate and explained everything to me before they did it asked for permission for things before they like touched me or did anything and so overall even though it’s a terrible experience it was also kind of a great experience and again, so glad that we have a hospital like that two minutes away from our house.

Okay, so baby comes Everything is taken care of. I’m resting. She’s in her little, like, hospital bassinet, like the plastic tub things, I don’t know what you call them. Caleb is exhausted, because I hemorrhaged, I couldn’t even hold my water bottle, I couldn’t sit up, like, I couldn’t hold her at all. Caleb could barely stand because he was so physically depleted from applying counter pressure and being up for that amount of time, you know, just emotionally, physically, both of us cannot stand up and we cannot take care of her.

And everybody had left our room besides one nurse who was kind of like in and out to check on us. But I was not expecting that, you know, you’re expecting to have the baby and then be able to like snuggle and hold them and we just couldn’t. And also after being up for that amount of time and going through that much physical trauma and then you have a newborn who needs to eat every three hours and you don’t know how to feed them yet, just crazy.

Birth is insane, especially for your first one. Again, in the future. I won’t be as shocked by something like that, but in the moment I was just like, wow, I don’t get to sleep. And that was the first time that I had recognized it’s 10 AM and I can’t even stand up, but also I’m not going to sleep like ever. Because I have this newborn now and we could have absolutely sent her to the nursery where they feed them and take care of them So that you can rest but at that point we had just met her and so it felt weird to be like, yeah, just take her away now So we didn’t plan on having visitors in the hospital in the first place But we did have my sister who lives locally come and help us that day just so that somebody could hold her and take care of her in our room and we wouldn’t have to like send her to the nursery and be apart from her, but also we couldn’t take care of her.

So that first day it was super helpful to have her there to keep my daughter close to us and then that night at about midnight we did send her to the nursery for six hours so that we could sleep. Which, those six hours are not enough, but they’re a total game changer when you’re feeling that depleted.

So then, again, I was iron deficient, super weak. still recovering, like waddling when I walked to the bathroom, but I was feeling by the next day, like so much better, could hold her, could take care of her, could stand and like rock her, not for long amounts of time, but enough so that we could take care of her on her own.

Caleb was feeling a lot better the next day too. And then the whole next thing comes of figuring out how to take care of a newborn for the first time. And because of the hemorrhage, my body was like, hey, we’re not going to make milk yet. Let’s make some blood first, and then we’ll think about making milk later.

So usually your milk comes in on days like three to five, they say. But for me, they told me it would be 7 to 10 days and before your milk comes in, you’re supposed to pump, every time your baby eats basically for 15 minutes and in the hospital, it’s, it’s insane. They give you all of the things to wash the baby parts in the sink and to sterilize them. And they have a pump in the hospital, but every three hours, and in my mind, I was thinking like, Oh, if the baby stops eating at 8am, then they start eating at 11am. That’s three hours. But no, no, no, no. It’s when the baby starts eating. So when they start eating at 8am, then they will also start eating at 11am.

And if they don’t wake up, you have to wake them up. Anybody who’s a mom already knows all of this. But that was a shock to me. It’s like, oh, so we literally get an hour of sleep every three hours. This is great. And again, I had that feeling of like, I can’t do this for much longer. Where’s like the opt out button?

But in parenthood, there’s no opt out button, just like in labor and delivery. I was like, okay, I’m done now, like, I gave it my best, but I’m ready to be done. There’s no just done, like you just have to go through it. And I’ve experienced that level of, like depletedness or that experience and feeling of, I can’t do this anymore.

Like now it’s time to opt out. I’ve experienced that so many times after becoming a mom and have obviously never been able to opt out. You just have to go through it, which has been, oh my gosh, newborn life is rough, It’s been a journey.

But anyway, my body did not start producing milk until day eight. And so every three hours. Even after we went home, we would first try and latch. With my baby and she was pretty little she was a little over seven pounds and did not catch on to breastfeeding right away. So we would try to latch just for the practice, she would probably end up screaming most the time sometimes she would latch sometimes she wouldn’t and then Caleb would give her the bottle and then I would pump enough milk for the next feeding and then when she was done eating and I was done pumping, I would hold her upright to help with reflux and burp her and Caleb would go wash all of the pump parts, sterilize them once a day as well, and the bottle and then we would maybe get an hour to, like, lay down and rest after she was put back to sleep, obviously. And then we would, by that time, have to start the entire thing over again. And we did that every three hours for eight days. And looking back, I have no idea how we did that. Like, that is so little sleep and so much stress. And between that, we’re like learning how to do all of the things, learning all of the rules for thawing milk.

In the first eight days, we did take some like donor milk home from the hospital, and then we got some milk from my sister, and we ended up having to get some milk from a friend, just to supplement to make sure we had enough for those first eight days before mine came in. And, you know, you’re learning all the things about parenthood and things that you didn’t think to learn before the baby actually came and Googling everything, calling my sister a million times a day of like, hey, are we doing this right?

So that was the first eight days. And then postpartum symptoms for me were crazy. I don’t think I experienced any of the normal things that most women experience. Like, I didn’t have any diastasis recti, which is when your abdominal muscles separate, mine were closed by the second week appointment, so I don’t think they did separate.

I didn’t experience the bathroom scaries that many women experience after postpartum, but here’s what I did experience. I have many contact dermatitis allergies and I think it was something in the hospital, probably the laundry detergent in the sheets or the towels or just all the bandages because I was injected so many times.

They had a ton of band aids and a ton of, like wraps on my arms and wearing disposable underwear. I don’t know what it was, but I had full body contact dermatitis. Like, hives all over my body and super itchy, which meant that the one hour that I did have to sleep every three hours, I usually could not sleep because I was so itchy that I couldn’t fall asleep.

And in that first week, my face also swole up, which is a common thing that happens to me when I ever come into contact with something that I am allergic to. My contact dermatitis like trigger is half of my face swelling up and to the point where sometimes my eye has swollen shut from it.

This time it didn’t get that bad, but I looked like a wreck. And again, it was so itchy and so uncomfortable on top of everything else. I also had a few other symptoms that I’m not going to share on the podcast. I thought I might, but I’m thinking it’s a little bit too personal, but a few other things that happened that I had to get medications for again, like not common symptoms of postpartum, but for me I think because I had so much skin sensitivity, especially to disposable underwear and, the like, wet pads, what are they called, the tux pads that you have in your underwear as well. Yeah, just had a few different things happening down there that was very unpleasant that are not typical to happen in postpartum, but it felt like it was one thing after another and, like, one doctor’s visit after another constantly for, like, the first month, honestly.

And even after that was done, because of the iron deficiency, it also gave me restless leg syndrome, which is a common side effect from having an iron deficiency. So again, even now, every once in a while, even when I can sleep, I can’t because I have restless leg syndrome and can’t fall asleep.

So postpartum physically has been one thing after another. I have had more doctor’s visits in the last three months than I have ever had in an entire year in my life. I’m pretty sure. I’m, I guarantee it because we’ve been in and out of the hospital and in and out of like telehealth visits constantly.

This week alone, I had three hospital visits for another postpartum thing that I’m dealing with and so physically postpartum my body is just like freaking out and any complications that can happen will happen, I’ve determined. And overall, I’m doing fine. Like I’m living my normal life. It’s not like I’m unable to go about my daily activities, it’s just really uncomfortable and time consuming, honestly, to do all of the stuff that it takes to keep up with all of these, different symptoms and treat them.

Okay, moving on from postpartum. At the same time, when she was three weeks old, we bought a house, which we did not plan to do. We had been keeping an eye on Zillow for the last few years, honestly. We’re constantly looking at Zillow to see if the right house would come up. We didn’t plan to move this summer, but the right house came up randomly. We saw it at 10 a. m. We went to see it in person at 2 p. m. So we saw it online in the Zillow listing at 10 a. m. Saw it at 2 p. m. Submitted an offer by 5 p. m. owned the house by 9 p. m. the same day.

So it was kind of a whirlwind, again she’s three weeks old, and so I remember we were waiting for the buyer to make their decision because there was a couple competing offers and I had already gone to sleep because I put her to sleep and I’m trying to sleep when she’s sleeping and Caleb was staying up talking to our real estate agent and he woke me up and is like, we, we own a house like, yay.

And I was like, that’s great. And then I went back to sleep. That was our little celebration, but we spent the rest of the summer after that, preparing our house to sell. And that looked like Caleb doing all of the work and me taking care of our daughter during the day while he did all of the yard work and finished up, we renovated our house and so there was a few different projects that we had to fix up inside the house as well as outside the house and like painting things, you know, like all of the things that you need to do to get your house ready to list.

And we did that in three weeks. So, almost every single day, I was solo parenting during the day, and Caleb would come in and like, check in on us and do stuff, bring us stuff, help with diaper changes, stuff like that throughout the day, but mostly, I was just solo parenting so that he could get as much done as possible. And we had friends and family come help us finish projects during that time. We did an insane amount of work on our house in a very short amount of time. And I think that’s the power of a deadline, bringing this back to productivity.

If you have a real deadline, you can get stuff done. Like why did it take us five years to renovate our house when we could get that much done in three weeks? I have no idea. Deadlines are so magical.

So again, we started that process at three weeks, so that was still kind of overlapping with all the postpartum stuff that was happening. And then on top of that, at four weeks, my daughter got diagnosed with hip dysplasia. So this is really random that she was able to get diagnosed because my pelvic floor PT in third trimester, shout out to Katie Hoke in Iowa City, who is my pelvic floor PT and is amazing.

She had me doing some like strength exercises and practicing some labor positions and breathing exercises in third trimester to prepare my pelvic floor for delivery. And at one point, I was doing this like squat position and she’s like, that, that’s kind of weird, cause I couldn’t completely do it, and she moved my hips around a few different ways and she’s like, I think you might have undiagnosed hip dysplasia, just a really mild case. And I was like, oh, that’s weird. And they asked, of course, at the first appointment, for my daughter, I think it was like the one week or two week appointment. I can’t remember.

Do you have a family history of hip dysplasia? And I said, no, but maybe undiagnosed. And they suggested we get an ultrasound just to check just in case, just to be safe. And lo and behold, she had a very mild case of hip dysplasia, which means they have to be put in this harness thing that straps like around their chest, over their shoulders, and then pulls their hips up into the side. So their hips kind of look like upside down goalposts. Their legs go directly horizontal and then straight down. And she had to be in that 24 seven other than when we bathed her, basically.

And that was a shock because we went to the appointment thinking, oh, we’re not going to have a diagnosis. They’re just being overly cautious. And so we went to, again, so glad we have a great children’s hospital at the University of Iowa. And we went to see pediatric orthopedics and it was a shock for them to literally put her in a harness during the appointment. And then she left in that harness and it didn’t come off for 24 hours.

And they basically said, well, do you guys have any questions? They explained a bunch of stuff and asked if we had any questions. And of course we didn’t cause we didn’t know what was happening. And then we got home and are like, how do I breastfeed this baby when she’s wearing this harness? How do we change a diaper? How do we dress her? Because you can’t put her in sleepers anymore because you can’t access a diaper under the harness. A million different things. So then it became a learning curve again at four weeks, which is overlapping with getting our house ready to sell and all of this postpartum symptoms.

We basically started parenting from scratch, having to Google how to do everything again. And we had just reached the point where it’s like, we got this, we know how to take care of a baby. No, no, no. Now she’s in a harness and it’s a completely different baby. And you have to buy special swaddles and different clothes. And put their diapers on in a different way and you know, all of the things. And so then that started and also it’s really like disappointing. At that point she was still in newborn clothes and she came home and we couldn’t put her in any newborn clothes. At that point we literally had to take all of her newborn clothes and put them away because we knew by the time she got out of the harness she wasn’t going to fit in them anymore.

And that was a shock to have that switch go so quickly because she still would have fit in the newborn clothes. It’s just that they didn’t work with the harness and she would outgrow them by the time the harness was off and at that point, it’s like, oh, we don’t have a newborn anymore. It’s just a huge shift and so emotionally, that was really hard. She did not mind the harness at all, like did not notice when it came on, also did not notice when it came off, didn’t care, didn’t make a difference in sleep or eating or any of that. But we found it pretty annoying.

Okay, so that’s week four. Week six is when we actually moved. I think it was around. Six or seven weeks. We moved over the course of an entire week, moved our stuff slowly because we didn’t list our house before we moved. We decided to move before we listed so that we wouldn’t have to leave every time there was a showing with a newborn that would have been really hard to wake her up from all of her naps and stuff. So, week six, we moved. And again, kind of solo parenting because Caleb has to lift all the heavy things and move all the stuff and do all the projects at both houses now. So that was happening in August. And then week eight, only two weeks later, it was the same week that we officially slept at our new house that I went back to business.

And so I had an eight week maternity leave, and then I was back to doing work, but still kind of on maternity leave. I just came back to coaching my current clients. Over the summer during my maternity leave, I had support coaches in my group coaching program, and I had pre batched all of the podcast content and email content and stuff like that for the summer.

And so it was my first week kind of back, kind of not back. And here’s what that has looked like so far. I think she’s 14 weeks now. So we’ve had like six weeks of this situation. We don’t have daycare. And in fact, we won’t have daycare until January because I wanted to do Tuesday, Thursday daycare and daycare is really hard to get into around here, the wait lists are very long, especially for part time. So that is the earliest that we would get into a daycare. We moved to North Liberty, which means that we’re not close to any of the daycares that we thought that we would want to go to, even though we only moved 30 minutes from where we used to be.

We weren’t anticipating doing that. So now we’re on new daycare wait lists, and the one that we actually want to go to closer to our house won’t have a spot until next June when she’s already one year old. So that’s the daycare situation.

We also have my friend who just moved back to the area and is able to help us with child care sporadically when I need it. So right now she’s coming on Tuesdays for a few hours just so I can get like the essential things done and be on my group coaching call without having to hold a baby at the same time, which is a huge blessing.

So. that is basically all of the help I have with childcare right now.

What I have been surprised by coming back to business is that I didn’t know how I would feel about my business after having a baby. I didn’t know if I would care as much about having a business, if I would feel like it was too much and I just wanted to be a full time mom. But coming back, I realized that I do not want to let my business go, that I do have a desire to keep doing this. Yes, it’s going to have to look different and we can talk a little bit about that in a minute, but generally, I know I don’t want to be a stay at home mom as much as I love spending time with my daughter. I want something outside of motherhood, even if it looks different than what business has looked like in the past.

It’s not something that I want to let go of and it’s something that I’m still passionate about moving forward with. And so even having that level of clarity, I need so much more clarity on what that looks like, but even having that level of clarity that I want to continue to do this has been a huge relief, because before delivering, I was kind of operating my business in that unknown of like, I have no idea how I’m going to feel after baby. And I’m sure that my feelings will continue to change as she continues to change. She changes every single week. And so life looks different every week, even at this point.

So I’m giving myself space to change my mind in the future. But for now, I really want to keep this going in whatever capacity I can while also balancing being a present mom. And I’ve talked to several different moms about how to keep your kids at home with you while running a business. I know many moms have done it. It’s really challenging to do. And later this fall, I’m going to invite, I think I want 8 to 10 of them to share their stories of what they did to make both work, how they balanced both, what was challenging, what was the best part about having your kids at home while having a business.

Make sure you hit follow or subscribe to make sure you can stay tuned later this fall for that episode because it’s definitely a balance that I’m still trying to figure out.

I know that I want to separate mom life and business. It does not feel good for me to bring Hadley to coaching calls or sit around my lap while I’m on my laptop, so I never do that. I don’t like having my phone out when i’m spending time with her. I also don’t like having to rush work while she’s napping and feeling like I have 30 minutes to get something done and just like, you know That’s spiking cortisol that you get of like, oh my gosh, I only have 30 minutes. Let’s do things really quickly That is not the way that I want to live my life and so I know that I want to separate those two things and have time to work when somebody else is giving their full attention to her and so child care is going to have to be something that I’m figuring out.

We recently met with a nanny who we’re going to start working with. And so I’m not sure where that’s going to go or how much we’re going to have or if we’re going to transition to daycare, even if it’s a little farther away in January, but that’s where we’re at right now.

Also this fall, my friend, Jamie Stahl, who’s been on the podcast before she talked about setting financial goals really, really early on in the podcast. And she had a retreat she invited me to and during that retreat, I think I realized that I don’t really know what I want. And I think we take that for granted. Even in some of the goals and like the vision I had for my business, looking at it now, I’m questioning, do I really want that? Or does it just feel good to think about how it might look or even how it might feel to have those things or to have accomplished those things.

But do I really want to accomplish those things just for themselves? Like, is it really personally fulfilling to me? Do I want those things anymore after becoming a mom? And I don’t know, like, I really don’t know what I want. There’s looking at some goals that I had in like the big picture vision I had for my business originally, it still feels a little bit aligned of like, of course I want that. But then there’s part of me that’s like, yeah, but why do I want that? And is it really worth what it’s going to take to get there? So I’m kind of in that in between phase, realizing that, I don’t really know what I want anymore. There’s so many different factors that have come into the picture.

And so I’m kind of sitting in this season of just kind of maintaining in my business and waiting for clarity to come. And again, gradually figuring out what I want in terms of, I know I don’t want to work and have my baby on my lap at the same time. I know that I want to continue running my business and don’t want to be a stay at home mom, like, I’m gradually getting clarity on those small things, but I’m only 14 weeks postpartum. My hormones are still all over the place and it’s just not enough time to figure out what life looks like after baby. And I do think that there’s so much pressure on moms to bounce back after having a baby and then go back to business as usual.

And I’m trying to give myself space to not do that. And it kills me. Like there’s so many things that I want to do to move my business forward. And that I could actually do them, but I’m choosing not to because I want to soak up the season and be present where I’m at.

One other thing, changing with business after baby, I know that I want to make The Business Edit, my coaching program, my like coaching framework more widely available. But I also know that I don’t want to take on more one on one clients, or like more group coaching clients who get my one on one attention at this time, at least. I know that I’m kind of at capacity for who I can serve well in The Business Edit for where I’m at, but again, I want to be able to help more women and there’ve been a few women who have come to me this fall saying I’m ready to join The Business Edit it. And I’ve had to tell them. No, or at least no for now.

And so I’m also thinking about how I can package that framework and make it more widely available, potentially in a different format. So I do have a marketing research questionnaire that I put together, just kind of asking some questions about productivity and business and where you’re at and what would be most helpful. And so if you’ve considered a program like The Business Edit, or if you’re just struggling in business or productivity and want to share your thoughts on what’s hardest for you, where you need the most help, what format would be the most helpful or desirable for you, I will include the link to that survey in the show notes.

And that’s one thing that you can definitely do to help me get clarity and to help me be able to better serve you both through the podcast, because a lot of the responses that I received so far in the questionnaire are going to turn into podcast episodes because they’re really good questions and really good topics to cover or through offers in the future.

So that’s a little tidbit on business after baby. My husband also went back to work in week 12. He gets really great paternity leave through his company. So he actually gets 16 weeks paid and he gets to split it up. So he took the first 12 weeks paid, which is why we were able to move and he was able to full time work on fixing up our house, fixing up our new house and also moving all of our stuff and also being able first time dad, like he’s been incredible through this whole thing and he went back to work on week 12.

The week after he went back to work, his work scheduled a team on site. So his entire team is virtual most of the time, but once a year they have a meetup and that just happened to happen a week after he went back to work. And so he left to, go to New York City with his team for five days. So I was fully solo parenting for those five days in week 13 and Hadley also got the harness for hip dysplasia off shortly before that we had gone to four different ultrasounds to check on her progress up until then at the university before she finally got the clear normal hips, which, again, she had a really mild case of hip dysplasia and so many other babies have it so much worse, especially if you catch it later, which I’m so grateful that we caught it right at the four week mark because they’re still growing so quickly. And so it’s easier for them to grow out of it, but she got out of the harness, so we again felt like we had a new baby and I again felt like, I don’t know how to change your diaper because your legs used to be like harnessed to the side and they didn’t get in the way.

And now you have free reign to move around. Anyway, a lot of stuff changed because of that. Caleb, left for work. And then he’s going to take his last four weeks of paternity leave in January when she’s a little bit older and hopefully able to engage with him a little bit more. we just thought it would be a fun age for them to spend that time together.

And then next is what I would do differently. Looking back at everything that’s happened this summer, would I do anything differently? And Caleb keeps reminding me. He has. co workers all over the world. One of his co workers is Canadian and his wife gets a year of maternity leave. And that’s just standard in a lot of countries to get a maternity leave that’s six months to a year in length, paid or unpaid. And our expectations in the United States are so low for maternity leave. Like we have so little grace as a country. We have so little infrastructure to give women enough time to become moms or to become moms of multiples and adjust to having multiple kids, dads too.

But also I took eight weeks fully off and in my mind, I thought that would be more than enough, and it might have been had not all of those other things happened, like it wasn’t just a normal birth and then we bring home baby and take care of her. There’s so many other things, which is why I wanted to go into detail. There’s so much that happened that was unexpected, but eight weeks was not enough. And in the future, I think I would like to take 16 weeks to six months of maternity leave. And again, my business has to look very different in order for that to happen, but I cannot imagine doing what I did this summer again. It’s easy to skip past it and like, oh, it was fine, no big deal, which I think we do in a lot of different areas of our life, not just having babies. If you’ve gone through anything hard in your life and then look back on that season, you might be thinking like, I don’t even know how I got through that, but then we kind of minimize it because we forget how hard it was and put ourselves in the same position to do hard things again because we don’t change anything.

And I don’t want to do that. And it was pretty manageable. I think that my business was overall set up to help me succeed, but there’s a lot of tweaks that would need to be made if I were to give myself 16 weeks to six months of maternity leave next time while still making money.

So that’s one thing. And we’re not looking to have any more babies, immediately. So I definitely have more than enough time to figure that out, but, that is something that I would want to do the next time around because I do have the flexibility and I do have the capability to prepare for that and I can make that happen if I want to.

And if you’re a business owner, I also want you to know you can make that happen if you want to. Yes, it takes a lot of work up front to do it, but it’s totally possible. And I was scared of taking eight weeks off thinking that would be too much and that actually worked out really, really well, both for me and my clients.

So, it’s totally possible. I don’t know how or when I’m going to do that, but that’s something I would want to change next time. And then also the other mistake that I made for planning for maternity leave is that I planned maternity leave on a Saturday. schedule instead of when I would go into labor. So shout out to Molly Knuth, who is my first support coach to take over the summer because last minute I was like, this baby is not coming on time, obviously, and I don’t want to spend two weeks of my maternity leave pregnant, like not even spending it with my baby. And she was really gracious last minute to be like, you know what? I’ll just start when you go into labor, we can flex it. And then I’ll come back at the end of the summer to add on weeks. And I am so, so grateful that that ended up working out and I was able to get the full eight weeks.

So next time I would be more upfront with being like, hey, I’m due this day, but plus or minus two weeks, can you take over if I do have support coaches the next time around? That is something I would definitely change because babies do not come on a schedule and you want to get all the maternity leave That you can possibly get.

Okay, wrapping this up. It’s actually very good timing. I’ve been procrastinating recording this episode for a while, and I’m glad that I waited till when I did because yesterday, like I said, I’ve had a million doctor’s appointments. One thing that they recommended that I do because of my family history was to do genetic counseling for cancer.

Again, we have an amazing hospital who has amazing services like this. And I just did that yesterday. That’s one of the extra doctor’s appointments that they wanted me to make postpartum and was very surprised by what they told me. It was really unexpected. and I haven’t even processed this for myself.

So if you’re listening to this, this is not something that I’m ready to talk about, you know, I’m happy to share this with you, but please don’t reach out and ask for details or, you know, I appreciate your kind words and everything, but just not ready to talk about this one on one yet. But they basically told me based on my family history that I have a 33 percent chance of getting breast cancer in my lifetime, which they consider high risk.

And they did give the caveat that it is only 1. 5 percent in the next 10 years. So it’s not like 33 percent immediately, but they do recommend that I start getting screenings every six months immediately, basically for the rest of my life, until my chances of getting breast cancer decrease below 20 percent and then I’m gonna do some genetic testing and do a blood draw and see the, you know, the findings of that could really affect either increase or decrease my chances of getting breast cancer as well.

And again, I’m not super worried about it at this point, but it was kind of a like, oh crap moment of 33% chance is not a low chance of getting cancer. And it was not like getting a cancer diagnosis, but it was kind of like a, wow, what am I doing with my life type of moment for me? And again, I’m still processing that and what it looks like for business and for baby.

But I do know that I don’t want to miss these years with my daughter because I can have the flexibility that I want to have, I don’t want to send her to a daycare full time if I have that option. I do want more help with daycare, more childcare, because like I said, I don’t want to give up my business, I really love what I do and it’s good for moms to have a break.

Jade Boyd: It’s good for me to have a break and I love I’m going to be showing up for this podcast. I love serving my clients. I love all things business. Like those are things I’m going to do no matter if I have a business or not. I’m still going to be learning about all of those things and probably creating content no matter what.

So again, I have a little bit of clarity, but still need to process moving forward what this looks like because having somebody tell you you have a 33 percent chance of getting breast cancer, it does stop and make you think. And I know that I want to take better care of my personal health. I want to give myself even more white space, have less stress in my life, personally and business wise, I want to experience more joy. I want to be present every moment that I’m able to spend with my family. I want to have less pressure on me to get things done.

And overall, I just really want to experience life because we, and I talked about this a little bit more in depth in the episode. This was probably a year ago with my friend Colton, who edits this podcast and what his journey looked like getting a cancer diagnosis. And how that changes your perspective on life. But we all kind of assume that we’re going to live forever. We don’t ever stop to think about what if I die in five years?

Like, that’s just not something that most of us consider a possibility. We have a very low chance of dying in five years, most of us, right? Like, it’s unlikely that something random would happen, but none of our years are promised to us. I don’t know if I’m going to be here a year from today. And again, still very much processing this, but if I don’t live until I’m 80, how do I want to be spending my time in a way that actually matters?

Like, am I investing my time both in my life and in my business in a way that’s going to make the impact in a way that is going to be worth it, right? And so those are all things that I’m considering. And I wish that I could give you this like cut and dry plan of here’s what things are going to look like moving forward.

But at least for now, my. biggest challenge for myself is to not think about it because thinking about it and not having clarity has been driving me crazy. And actually the less I’ve thought about it, the more white space I’ve given myself, the more clarity has actually come. And it’s so funny how that works.

But for now, I’m just going to keep showing up for the podcast, keep showing up for my current clients. And wait for that clarity to come. Be present where I am right now. Enjoy the season, which is not going to last forever. My daughter is already so big. She’s growing out of her zero to three month clothes already.

And we’re going to have to buy a whole new set of clothes for her already. It’s just, they change so quickly. And so right now, my main focus is just being present in the season where I’m at doing the best that I can possibly do with what’s on my plate right now. Also focusing on any single area that I can do less or automate or delegate I’m doing and gradually getting things off my plate so that I can feel really, really good about the way that I’m showing up in my daily life.

And that’s why I’m at. So if you’re in a similar place where you’re like, hey, I want to change things, but I don’t know what needs to change or what that’s going to look like. It’s okay to just sit in that season for a while. Again, I think that our society puts so much pressure on us to keep going, keep going and having those breaks, especially long breaks from maternity leave or anything else to just figure out what you want and what life looks like.

We don’t often afford that to ourselves. And other people don’t give us, you know, the opportunity without us having to work for it, even if you’re a business owner and don’t have a boss, like, you really have to work to take that space for yourself, either fighting other people’s ass of you or expectations of you or fighting your own expectations of yourself.

So in closing, that’s where I’m at. I hope that you were able to relate to something in the story and something either challenged you or encouraged you. Do feel free to reach out on Instagram if you want to talk about mom stuff, you can always find me at jadeboyd.co. I answer all of my DMs, so would love to connect with you if anything in this episode resonated with you, would love to hear takeaways. And if you feel like there’s another woman in business who needs to hear this episode, please take a screenshot and share it to your Instagram stories and tag me at jadeboyd.co because like I said, I think more of us need the permission to take the space that we need, especially after having kids, but really in any big life change.

And just as women in business in general, we have so much going on and we all need to give ourselves a little bit more grace. So if you want to spread that message, please do take a screenshot of this episode and share it and tag me. I would love to see you in the Instagram world. So until next week, thank you so much for tuning in today and take what you learned today and get 1 percent better.