Maternity Leave Is Over! How It’s Going & What’s to Come [Ep. 162]

 
 

Maternity leave is over! Click play to hear how it's going and what's to come:

 
 

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Overcast | Other Players

Here’s what to expect from this episode:

Maternity leave is over! This is my very first recording since I had my second daughter, Lily. If you're new here, I have been on maternity leave for the past few months and am slowly (emphasis on slow!) easing my way back into things.

For this episode, I wanted to check in to let you know that I'm officially back from maternity leave and share a little about what's been happening, specifically what this season of life has been like as a mom and business owner. I'm also sharing 3 things that have helped me during this season of life and what's to come with this podcast (don't worry, it's not going anywhere!).

If you are not interested in hearing about this at all, my apologies! Feel free to turn this episode off and tune back in next week. But if you're like me and like to hear personal details like this from fellow business owners, then stick around. And I'm so glad that you're here!

And if you want to hear more about my planning process for stepping away from my business during this leave, check out episode 145. Even if you're not planning a maternity leave, this is a good episode to listen to if you're planning a vacation or any extended time away from your business. Because all of us deserve some time away from our businesses unplugged.

Topics covered:

  • A brief recap of my second daughter's birth

  • What maternity leave was like as a business owner

  • What maternity leave was like as a mom

  • 3 things that have helped me during this season of life

  • What's to come with this podcast (don't worry, it's not going anywhere!)

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

favorite podcasting resources:

  • Sara Whittaker 0:01

    Your Podcast is a powerful tool that serves your audience and your business. But how do you manage it all bring in new listeners, and convert those listeners into customers. That's what this show is all about. Welcome to podcasting for educators. I'm Sara Whitaker, classroom teacher turn podcast manager. And I'm here to help you get the most out of your show, all while making an impact on other educators. Hey there, welcome to podcasting for educators where I help you create a podcast that educates your audience and serves your business. I'm your host, Sarah. And this is my very first recording. Since having my second daughter, Lily, I have been on maternity leave for the past few months. And I am slowly very slowly easing my way back into things. Right now I've got her monitor right next to me, I just put her down for a nap and I'm crossing my fingers that she stays asleep long enough for me to record this. I wanted this episode just to be kind of a quick check in let you know that I'm back from maternity leave, and share a little bit about what's been happening and what's to come. So if you are not interested in hearing about this at all, my apologies, feel free to turn this episode off and tune back in next week. But if you're like me and like to hear about personal details like this, then stick around. And I'm so glad that you're here. At the time that this episode airs, it is the beginning of August, and I had my second daughter Lily back in April, she ended up coming a little bit earlier than expected I had to be induced due to some health concerns on her end. And my end, it was a crazy, crazy childbirth experience way different than with my first daughter, it was pretty traumatic. And I'm not going to go into all of the details here inside this episode. But it involves me being transferred to a different hospital in the middle of labor. And it ended up with Lily needing to be sent straight to the NICU after she was born. And we were in the NICU for 21 days. If you are a fellow NICU parent, you know how long each of those days feels, it literally felt like we were in there for months and months. And it seemed like we were never going to get out and be able to come home. But we did. And Lily overall is doing really well. It was a very, very trying time very difficult, easily the most difficult time that we have been through. If you've been a listener of this podcast for a while now, you may know that we had experienced some losses before this latest pregnancy. And it felt like it took a lot to get here. And then when she was here, it was a really hard experience. But I learned so much. And we really learn to lean on our friends and our family and each other my husband and I in what was a very, very difficult time. Like I said, I'm not going to make this whole episode about that experience. But if you want to know any more details, or if you are a fellow NICU parent and want to talk about those experiences, you can message me on Instagram at any time. And we can always have a side conversation. But I'm happy to report that that is now a memory a story that we can tell Lily when she gets older. We are all at home as a family now. And overall she is very healthy and doing really well. And now we're just adjusting to having two kids, two young kids and navigating what that's going to look like as a work from home mom. So like I said, I just wanted to kind of run through how things are going as a business owner as a parent since having our daughter and just kind of do a check in. So as far as what my maternity was like as a business owner, I want to first just let you know that I did an episode is back in episode 145. That went all into how I planned for my maternity leave how I got ahead with podcast content and things like that. And even if you're not somebody who's planning on maternity leave, this might be a good episode to listen to if you are planning a vacation or an extended time away from your business. I think that all of us deserve time away from our business unplugged. And there's lots of reasons for that it doesn't have to be a maternity leave. So definitely check out episode 145 If you want to hear a little bit more about my planning process there. But podcasting for educators, we have retainer clients monthly clients who we produce weekly podcast episodes for so I had to put things in place with my team to make sure that everything was taken care of while I was out out so that I could actually be out and take a maternity leave. And overall, things went really, really well. The ladies who are on the podcasting educators team just really blew it out of the water. Like, we're amazing and held things together while I was out, and I am so grateful. So, again, if you had listened to the episode where I talked about my planning, there are a lot of things that needed to be put in place before I went into labor and went onto maternity leave. And yeah, everything just went really smoothly. My team handled production of episodes and client communication while I was away. And I did check in on my email fairly frequently, only because I didn't want to come back to this overwhelming inbox of 1000s and 1000s of emails that I had to sift through, in my opinion, it was easier for me to just check in frequently get rid of what didn't need to be in there. See if there was anything that really needed my immediate attention. If not, you know, I had my way message on so it explained that I was out and pointed people in the direction of resources and who they could contact if they needed anything. And so I didn't feel like I needed to respond to emails. But I did kind of just keep things manageable, which I'm glad I'm glad that I did. That didn't feel overwhelming for me. I also use the Voxer app. And that's kind of how I communicate with clients. And so I turned off my Voxer notifications so that if I did get a message, it wouldn't notify me. And I could just kind of check in manually when I could or when I wanted to. Clients knew that I was out on maternity leave. So it wasn't like I was expecting to order that I wasn't expected to be responding to messages. But I did have some like chit chat side conversations with some people here and there. There were also some small tasks that I had kind of missed when planning out who was going to take over what. And I didn't, I don't want to say that I missed them because I knew that they had to be done. But in my mind, I thought, Oh, this is just like a little thing that I can do. And it won't be a problem, I didn't feel like I needed to pass it off to anybody. And, man, there's nothing like being out and like handing things off to people to make you realize how much you really do. And this was definitely one of those times. So like one of those tasks was that for a lot of clients, depending on what package they have, I pull monthly stats for them. And then I send them a little report and you know, update, we have spreadsheets and I update their spreadsheet and everything like that. And that was a task that I had decided, I'm just going to continue doing it. It's just once a month, I you know, it's okay. I didn't realize how much time, this actually does take me every single month, it really adds up to like an entire business day to do this for all of the clients that I need to do it for. And obviously I don't have, I can't just sit down for eight hours straight and work with a newborn. So I had to kind of spread it out over a few days. And it definitely took longer than I thought it was going to. So that felt really tough. So I say that just to say like, Hey, if you're planning Aleve, really make sure that you list out all of the tiny things that you do, because it might be a lot more than, than you think it is.

    So overall, that side of my business ran really smoothly. And I'm really happy with how things worked out the other side of my business as far as like the courses that I have, and being on social media and sending emails that just did not get done. I had plan to send eat to continue sending emails, you've probably might have heard me say this before, but I'm somebody who likes to write the email the week that it goes out. It just feels fresh it feels in the moment and it just feels good to me. And so I did not batch those before I went out. I knew that I most likely would not be showing up on Instagram. I had already planned that out. I was just that was just something I was just going to kind of like let go during maternity leave. And that definitely proved to be true. I did not post on Instagram. When we were finally back from the NICU. I did do one post explaining what was going on. And I popped on my stories here and there but not nearly as much as I thought I was going to and emails are non existent. I have not sent an email in months. I can't believe I'm that person. But here I am. And really it was because our life was like turned upside down with this Nick use day. And by the time we did get home I just it just wasn't. It wasn't a priority. And that's just the season that I was in and so I kind of just accepted that and I am getting back into it now and it's going to be okay. And in fact I'm going to do an episode next on on what kind of effect that had on my podcast downloads. So I did continue, as you might know, releasing weekly podcast episodes, because I had those bashed out well in advance. It wasn't something that I had to do during maternity leave, I already had all of that set. But I was not showing up on emails or social media. So I'm gonna kind of break down in another episode, what impact that had on my podcast. So stay tuned for that. Okay, so that's kind of how my leave went as a business owner overall, did I show up as much as I usually do when I am not away from my business? No, but I'm okay with that. And kind of went into this expecting that that would be the case. As far as what maternity leave was like, as a mom, it's been tough. It's been you know, we have another daughter, our daughter, Adeline is seven. And so it's been seven years since we've had a newborn, and it is 100% more challenging when you have another child in the mix, going from one to two. You know, there's there's definitely pros and cons. I mean, I think a great thing about having a second child is that I kind of already knew what to expect in the newborn phase. But it's hard, especially because it's been summer. And so my oldest is out of school, she's home, she's old enough where she wants to be doing things all the time, she wants to be out of the house, she wants to be playing with her friends. And so that forces me to be out of the house with a newborn, much more than I normally would want to be. So that has definitely been a challenge. But we're getting through it one day at a time, I have definitely been reminded how much I thrive on routines. And a newborn doesn't exactly share my joy of routines, especially, you know, at this young age, those first few months, they're not necessarily on a set schedule, they're eating all the time. And so I've definitely been challenged to go with the flow. Because each day is a little bit different. And as much as I would love to be that person that goes with the flow and loves to go with the flow, I'm not that person. I really do love my routine. So it's been challenging, but like I said, we're getting through it. And, and honestly, it's been good for me, it's been good for my type a self to be forced to be okay with having a little bit of a different schedule every day. And, and knowing that, that can happen, we can do that we can have these different schedules every day and things are still going to be okay, it's gonna be okay. So some things that have really helped me during this postpartum season with a newborn is to prep whenever I can. So in those small pockets of time, I am thinking, especially like, you know, at nighttime or in the afternoon, like what can I do to make tomorrow easier for myself, I can scoop out my coffee into my coffee machine and fill up the water. So that in the morning, I just have to push the button and my coffee's ready and even have my mug right there. So my coffee's my coffee is ready. I can fill Adalind water bottle the night before and put it in the fridge so that when we have to wake up for summer camp the next day, I can just grab it and go, she has been doing some half day camps, which is a whole nother conversation. By the way. That is something I will not be doing next summer half day camps. She's had these camps that are like 9am to 12. And by the time you get them there, and then you pick them up. It's just really made your day that much more hectic and really just made it that much more choppy. And so we will not be doing half day camps next year, I think I would rather have less camps, maybe less days of camps, but full day instead of half day. Just a little side note, I don't know if anybody can relate to that. But half day camps have really, really thrown me for a loop this summer. So I can get my coffee ready, I can fill the water bottle and get her snack I can lay out her clothes and my clothes. So anything that I can do that's going to make my future self say Oh, I'm so grateful for yesterday, Sarah, for doing this so that it just makes things a little bit easier in the morning. Something else that's really helping me is to have a little daily to do list with a rank of urgency. And this isn't anything like formal that I spend time on. I just I always have like my notes app out. And for me, I'm a list maker. It makes me happy. It calms me to just get things out take 30 seconds and say okay, this is like what I need to do. You know, there's things in the back of your mind like I need to pay this bill or I need to return this thing at Target or I need to grab a chicken for dinner or Whatever, getting it out of my brain and into my notes app, it just helps me so much. So taking 30 seconds at the beginning of the day, and jotting down what I really want to get done with a rank of urgency. So maybe yeah, I've really wanting been wanting to return this shirt to target. But if I don't have time for it today, or if it doesn't make sense for us to go to Target today, I don't necessarily have to do it today. If you are listener of the lazy genius podcast, it's one of my favorite podcasts, she talks a lot about this idea of like Ranking Things, she calls it half to dues. And I think this is what she calls it, things you have to do and things you hope to do. So kind of breaking that up. Like I said, just in my notes app, really helps me to feel some sort of control over the day. I don't know if that sounds crazy or not, but it helps me a lot. So if you are in this crazy season, maybe consider kind of ranking, your things that you have to do and things that you hope to do each day. And that that's a mix of things with business and personal as well. And then the other thing that has really, really helped me during this season is gratitude, I have really been majorly leaning into practicing gratitude. And this might sound a little like woowoo. And I'm not a woowoo person. But truly, if you've never leaned into this practice, I really encourage it like even on the toughest of days when I haven't had any sleep. And I'm wondering how in the world, I am going to jump back into work with a newborn at home, taking a minute to be grateful that we are no longer in the NICU, that we have a roof over our heads that we are healthy, that I have a cold coke zero and the fridge that I can take out and have in the middle of the day. And it tastes so good because it's 100 degrees outside, like these little tiny things, taking a moment to just think about these things that you're grateful for or even I know a lot of people will have a gratitude journal has really made a big impact on my life this summer. And I know like this idea may be for you or may not be for you. But give it a try. Just give it a try. And see I really think I've even read that there's like science behind this of how much of an impact practicing gratitude can have on your, on your attitude and on your mental health.

    So as far as like what's to come, I'm really unsure of what work is gonna look like for the next several months. And that pains me to say, but that's just the honest truth right now. That's where we are. I am not putting lily in childcare at this time. That was something that was really important to me is that I wanted to have both I wanted to be able to continue running my business, but also be home with my baby, because that's not something that I had with our oldest daughter. And that may change down the road and I'm open to it changing but for now we're just gonna write it out. We're gonna see how the rest of this calendar year goes, I will check back in with you and let you know how that's going. I know it's not gonna be easy, but I do think it's possible. And I also know that this is not forever this this season that feels difficult is not forever and there's so much beauty in this season. At the same time. I am going to be you know, working during naps might be working at night, my husband gets home fairly early from work. So we might be doing some some swapping when he gets home he's on kid duty I'm going to work we'll see how it plays out. It feels difficult, but it's also forcing me to be very intentional with limited work time, which is hopefully going to help with productivity. Plus adilyn start school in about a week and so we'll be able to be in more of a routine and I'll find my groove we'll get there. As far as what's to come with this podcast podcast is still going to continue my routines and my schedule for recording is going to look much different than than it did before I will probably be doing more solo episodes than guest episodes I will probably not be doing much batching but I am going to always continue to stay ahead of when episodes needed to air like I always like to be a few weeks ahead so that is the plan to to keep up with that. I am feeling the desire to make some changes to the podcast in terms of structure and maybe even a little bit of a rebrand I haven't entirely thought all of the details through yet but stay tuned for that because there might be some some subtle shifts happening with the podcast that that feels really exciting. So we'll see one edition that I know I am going to start is at the end of every episode I'm going to share something that I am loving and something that I'm listening to. I love when podcasters do little segments like this I always find really good recommendations. And I just like to hear, you know, personal details like this. It's fun to talk podcasts. It's fun to talk business. But I also think it's it's fun to hear a little bit about personal life and, and all of that. So let's get into what I'm loving right now, other than being a podcaster, and a producer. I'm also a mom and a business owner. So in each episode, I'll be sharing something that I am currently loving that supports one of these roles. So today's thing that I am loving is probably not going to excite you if you're not a parent with a small child. But what I am absolutely loving right now and grateful for like we talked about earlier with gratitude is I have this fold up changing table that we keep in our living room. We did not do this with our first daughter, this is a gift that I got at my baby shower, a friend got this for me. And it is the best thing ever. Literally everybody who walks into our house is like, wow, that is amazing. That is genius to have this in your living room. It's gray. It's not ugly, it fits in with the other decor, like it's not this big eyesore, but we just have it in the corner. And it has pockets that we can put diapers and wipes and burp cloths and extra changes of clothes. And it has space on the bottom for storage. And you can fold it up if you want to, but we just keep it out in the corner. And it has just been a lifesaver, honestly, because it's just a nice place that you have to change the baby without having to go upstairs to her nursery. It's just there. It's easy to clean. It's amazing. So if you are somebody who has a baby or you are on the lookout for a good gift for somebody who might be pregnant right now, I'm going to put the link in the show notes because it's glorious. It would be like the best present for somebody who's expecting. Alright, moving on to what I'm listening to. So at the end of each episode, I'm going to share something that I'm listening to could be a podcast could be an audio book could be a new album, that's out. But today I wanted to share a recent podcast episode that I listened to a very specific episode. And I already mentioned the lazy genius a few minutes ago, but this is an episode from the lazy genius podcast it is episode 369. It's called the snack episode. And if you are a parent, honestly, even if you're not a parent, you'll appreciate this episode for yourself too. I actually took some things away from my own snacking. But it is summertime and my oldest is seven. It's the first summer where snacking has become a problem I didn't I didn't know that this was a thing until this summer. And I've been very validated because I've heard a lot of other parents talking about this this summer, too. But you would think that these kids have never eaten before or that they're not fed. This snacking is out of control. My daughter's at that age, she has a lot of close friends. We've had a lot of friends over with her after her half day summer camps. And the snacking is out of control. I feel like every two minutes, it's kind of it's not kind of it's not gonna have a snack. And so this episode, Episode 369 of the lazy genius podcast has truly saved my life. In terms of managing the snacking, it gives so many good ideas that I actually took and implemented. And it's working beautifully to manage the snacks and not make you absolutely crazy during the summer. So if you're somebody who needs some snack solutions, go check that out. I will link that episode in the show notes. All right before we go, and this turned into a much longer episode than I expected, I thought it was gonna be like 10 minutes. Here we are not 10 minutes. But before we go something else new that I would love to try relates to podcast reviews. If you have not left a review on this podcast and you are enjoying this podcast, I would love for you to head to Apple podcast, it's going to take you 30 seconds, it's not going to take long at all. leave a review for this show. If you've already left a review, you might not know this, but you can actually edit your review. And you can add something to it. Okay, so here's what's new that I'm going to try. If you're a podcaster if you have your own podcast, and you leave me a review, put the name of your podcast in your review. And I will go and listen to your podcast. I promise I will do this I will actually listen to your podcast and then leave you a review. So it's kind of like a review swap. Well not kind of it is it is a review swap. You leave me a review. I will go and take a listen to your show and leave you an honest review. So you can do that on Apple podcast. Leave me your feedback, leave me a review and sign it with your name and your podcast name and I'll do the same for you. If you've already left a review before like I said, you can edit it and you can add the name of your podcast And if you're somebody who doesn't have a podcast yet, but you're listening and you're maybe thinking about starting a podcast, or maybe you're, you're just listening to listen, you can still leave a review. And you can also ask me a question in your review, and I will answer it in an episode. So let's try that out. All right, I got through this episode. Lily is still sleeping. Hallelujah. We did it. We did it. Friends. I'll see you next week. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. To keep this conversation going connect with me on Instagram at podcasting for educators. I'm always looking for an excuse to talk about podcasting. If you're looking for support and launching, managing or growing your podcast, check out my online course the podcasting for educators prep school at podcasting for educators.com/prep school. I'll see you here next time.

More about Podcasting for Educators:

Podcasting for Educators is the podcast for TpT authors and other online educators. It's a show that will help you get your podcast in front of those who need it most - teachers, counselors, literacy specialists, SLPs, parents, and more! Each week, Sara Whittaker and her guests will share top tips and actionable strategies that you will need in order to launch, manage, and grow your podcast. You’ll learn how to leverage your show to build long-lasting relationships with your audience and promote your TpT resources, courses, and memberships, all while providing valuable and accessible content!

Some links on this page are affiliate links. This helps to support this podcast at no additional cost to you.

 
Sara Whittaker