I’m back for a pregnancy update this week! If you missed previous updates you can check them out here, here and here.

As of yesterday, I am officially 32 weeks pregnant. I have 8 weeks to go….and y’all its starting to feel very REAL.

I’ll be honest, before pregnancy I was never one to be “baby obsessed” and wondered if I’d ever be maternal. As I had hoped, this has changed SO much since becoming pregnant and I find myself staring at every baby I meet. I cannot wait to meet our little one in the beginning of summer!

How I’m Feeling

Honestly, totally normal and fine. I’m a little extra tired, I don’t sleep great and I’ve recently had some back pain- but all pretty minimal in comparison to many stories I hear. I feel extremely grateful that this pregnancy has been relatively easy and extra extra thankful as it has allowed me to stay focused on work and building my business as I enter into a new phase with both my life and business. I’m so excited about both and have more updates on this in the coming months!

It may be genetics and it may be how I take care of myself or a million other factors, but overall I’m feeling good and just listening to my body. I can still exercise, walk daily and work and as my body tells me otherwise, I’ll happily modify.

If you have questions about how I’m eating, supplements, ways I am taking care of my body in pregnancy I discuss most of this in this post.

Prepping for Maternity Leave

Ahh, the elusive maternity leave. Its something I knew would be challenging with a business and I was prepared mentally for that when I got pregnant. When I’m asked if I am taking a maternity leave my answer is always: yes and no. I am taking a full 8 weeks off from seeing clients, podcast recording, working on future projects, etc and plan from 8-12 weeks slowly easing back into work and working minimally. Yet, as this stage in my business, I am not sure how things will go with small day to day tasks like emails, payroll, etc. To me, its just one of the downsides to being an entrepreneur that I feel is 100% worth it. Its part of what I signed up for.

I am feeling VERY grateful that my work is what it is. I’m human so of course I am a little nervous for how to raise a baby while going back to work. I will likely be working part time for the foreseeable future but honestly I don’t plan on that being a long term approach. I feel so fortunate though that I can work odd hours, I can create my own schedule and I can work from home. And just as important, I have a partner who will be co-parenting and raising our child together 50/50. I understand this is not a privilege every mother has and the more I’ve talked to other mothers about working, the more I realize how much privilege I have.

Maternity leave is a topic that gives me lots of thoughts and one I’m sure in future podcast episodes and blog posts we will discuss in more detail. While I am lucky to get to define how I want my maternity leave to go (even though it still means some work), I get to make that decision. It saddens me how much our society, particularly in the United States, doesn’t respect maternity leave and 6-12 weeks is the norm, with some women not getting even this much and most other countries providing 6-24 months in maternity leave. And to add to that, the complexity that is figuring out how to feed/pump once you’ve returned. We have a lot of work to do in the form of equality when it comes to the workforce and respecting women’s needs in a workforce that is set up for success for men, not women.

What to Expect While I’m on Maternity Leave

I’ve been at work for months now and will continue to spend the last 8 weeks of pregnancy prepping for my maternity leave so that YOU don’t really notice any changes at all.

Blog posts will continue to roll out Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

Podcasts will continue every Friday.

I have scheduled social media out too, so things really won’t feel that different! I may not be responding to comments, DM and tribe comments quite as frequently but that will likely be the only difference noticed.

And most importantly, nothing will change with the practice! We have a team of dietitians taking new clients so if you’ve been planning on reaching out for support, we are 100% here for you.

(Note: I am still actively seeing clients until my actual maternity leave begins in June as well!)

Preparing for Labor

I’ve only recently started to dive into this topic because I wanted to take each step of pregnancy one step at a time. I just finished reading Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth and it was 100% what I needed to read and I couldn’t recommend it enough. This and meeting with our doula, creating a birth plan with Nick and my team and reading birth stories has been so helpful. I also plan on listening to podcasts as the weeks continue, I have Birth Hour and Birth Fit podcasts picked out to listen to more as continue to prep for labor.

My main focus with labor is going into it with a positive mindset. I am capable. My body is able and strong. I am made to give birth. I’m being open minded with how we approach labor and delivery, but my desire is to have an unmedicated birth experience.