As of today, my due date is just 25 days away. With this in mind, I figured it was about time to fill you all in {current clients + students, potential clients, blog readers, audio class takers, etc.} on what's going to be happening in Starr Struck-land while I'm out on maternity leave. If it isn't obvious, I should mention that when you work for yourself, you don't get paid leave of any kind. When I stop working for any period of time, I stop making money. That's just the way it is. But luckily, I have a husband who gets amazing paid paternity leave (he's taking 12 weeks off!) and we've known that this time of no income was ahead of us (clearly), so we were able to save so that I can take this time off without us being super stressed about finances the whole time. But of course it's weird to step away when you run your own business (or when you are the business). It's hard for me to hand off client projects, to get subs for my classes, to stop consulting, blogging, and teaching workshops on the regular. It's necessary and it's what I want to do to be totally present with my family, but it's really hard. Also, I learned some valuable lessons last time around, so I'm applying them to my plan for leave with this babe: last time I went back too early {because Charlie Mae was such a good sleeper from 6-10 weeks...HAHAHAHHAHAHA}, I tried to take on too much too quickly when I did go back, and I didn't have the right child care situation figured out (but of course I didn't know that until it was too late and I was completely overwhelmed). So, this time I'm giving myself 12 full weeks off of almost everything. I'll be handling emails twice per week (on Mondays and Thursdays) and dealing with any urgent needs as applicable. But otherwise, were's what my maternity leave will look like in the various branches of my business:
And that's about it for now! I obviously have no idea when I'll go into labor so I'll keep blogging until I do, but if you see me go quiet here and on Instagram (my main social media community these days), just stay tuned and hopefully I'll be sharing a happy, healthy baby update ASAP ;) Thanks for your understanding as I take some time away from my business to be with my family! And fellow solopreneurs: I hope this shows you that while it is a bit more complicated and takes more planning, it is doable to go on maternity leave when you work for yourself. Comments are closed.
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HELLO!I'm Mary Catherine, a Cape Cod-based yoga teacher, painter, designer, writer, mom, and list-maker extraordinaire. My goal is to inspire you to start living a more creative, simple, joyful, + purposeful life.
{Learn more + read my story}
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