Hey everyone. I wanted to write and publish a blogpost letting you know that I’m starting my maternity leave. Baby hasn’t arrived, but I wanted to schedule my start date before my guess date so I could really get ready for baby.
Over the last few months I went back and forth a lot about maternity leave. It’s not that simple when you own your own business and you are pretty much the only one running the business. I knew it was important and realized the time I take to plan it out will never be wasted.
I ran a lot of scenarios through my mind about maternity leave:
- One was take no leave and just post and update as I could and wanted. But that left me feeling a little pulled because I would have nothing planned but always feel like I should be working and not taking the time I needed to spend with our new baby.
- The other was to take 4 weeks or even 8 weeks and then head back into work. That was the plan until something better came along.
- I landed on my maternity leave plan based on a few key people in my life. They are business women theirselves. Some have teams and some are solo. I’m so thankful for them and their advice and I really believe God let me learn from them so I could have the best maternity leave and best time with baby. Thank you Lara Casey, Nancy Ray and Shay Cochrane! Their encouragement was to enjoy and savor the newborn days and set your business up to totally step away. And trust God that your business will be there when you come back.
Here is my Maternity leave plans:
- Time Off: I will be taking about 12 weeks off for maternity leave. I am taking a pre-maternity leave February 1st and only working 2 days per week. My full-time maternity leave starts February 14th-May 27th. I will be back the beginning of June. I will definitely miss you guys while I’m gone!
- Emails: I will not be responding to email during my maternity leave. This one will be hard for me because I love connecting with all of you and getting your emails and comments. I will have an autoresponder posted, but my emails will be deleted until I come back from maternity leave. If there’s something you need, please re-email me after maternity leave and I will respond at that time. (This is different for current clients, you will still have a way to get in touch with me if needed).
- Social Media: The social media plan is going to be similar to email, but with a twist. I plan on being on Instagram here and there posting snuggly pictures of our new baby and making a birth announcement. But I also want to take some time to step away from social media. I want nothing to hinder baby bonding and snuggle time. For my Facebook page and Facebook group I will have posts scheduled so you won’t be missing content and updates.
- Website Content: Guess what? I’ve schedule new content to be released weekly for you while I’m gone. I can’t step away for 12 weeks and have nothing new for you. I’ve been busy and I hope you like all of the posts. I won’t be writing newsletters and emails while I’m out. But I have an RSS feed set up. That means you will get an email each time there’s a new post out. It won’t be a personalized email from me, but you will get the brand new content. And that’s important!
- Coaching Clients: If you are interested in becoming a client of mine, I have a waiting list started for when I am back from maternity leave. Appointments are scheduled to start the beginning of June. If you want to be put on the waiting list, please fill out the Request a Consultation Form and that will be waiting for me when I get back. Current clients, like I said before, you will have a unique way to contact me and I will be letting each of you know that individually. So don’t worry!
- Coming back to work: This is where I don’t have a specific plan and I’m realizing that’s ok. One thing I know for sure is when I come back to work it is going to be on a part time basis. Phil and I have always talked and planned for me to only work part time when we had kids, so that plan will be going into full effect when I come back from maternity leave. My schedule, the number of hours I work and the content I focus on is to be decided during maternity leave and afterwards. But don’t worry, I will let you know when I know. I wanted to give you a heads up on the future plans now.
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