I’m officially that negligent blogger! I have a good excuse however. I’ve spent the past few weeks anxiously awaiting the arrival of our third child, and this Mother’s Day, I was blessed to finally meet her! Since leaving the hospital early last week I’ve been able to catch up on my email, get updates on projects, connect with my clients and coordinate a few milestones at work. (So glad she came on a weekend!) Unfortunately six weeks maternity leave is just not in the cards for this C.E.O. :/
That said… my head is still quite firmly in the new-blissful-mommy clouds. Our little girl is officially a true beauty and an amazing blessing. The experience of having children is well beyond words, as any adoring parent can tell you. It’s a combination of relief, bliss, excitement, anxiety and of course, the inevitable exhaustion. I have been overwhelmed by all of this, in addition to the great amount of love and support from our friends, family and extended network of Pearse Street team members and even clients!
A few weeks ago I told one of our long-time clients that it felt strange feeling or sounding apologetic for having to go through this experience. When I know their project is the highest priority for them, motherhood still happens! But I also still felt a little guilty about it. Not very feminist of me, is it? He immediately told me that I should not feel at all apologetic. In fact when I have needed to explain my situation, clients have been extremely understanding and encouraging for me to take the personal time that I need. Being so work-driven however, despite the support and encouragement of others, it’s been hardest for me to justify this inevitable change in how I can participate in day-to-day work. For months I have been anticipating the big arrival, writing up contingency plans, preparing clients and projects and staff on “what would Fuchsia do” when I am out.
Not without some anxiety of course, I have been able to maintain a physical distance from our office for the past several weeks without compromising our work flow. It’s amazing what you can accomplish with a laptop and an internet connection! The physical limitations of pregnancy and now life with a newborn has forced this break, and consequently forced me to come with systems for contributing to and managing projects from home, with great success.
Typically I feel like the office can’t possibly function without me, until I need to take a break like this and realize that I have a very capable team who are more than equipped to keep projects moving forward and clients happy. My neurotic micromanaging is replaced with assigning more general goals and milestones and deadlines that everyone understands need to be met. Communicating with clients is opened up to both managers and production staff. And while I miss my work peeps, I know that my not being there every moment of the work day does not compromise our ability to perform at a high level.
While I am still heavily involved in each project, this has been a good lesson in how to step back, delegate as needed, and make my work time extremely efficient. When I can only be in the office a few hours a week, it’s amazing how much I can jam into that window of time when challenged to! Pulling myself out of the minutia has also allowed my brain to assess the business, our systems and our future on new levels, which is always a good thing.
On the whole, after months of unnecessary stress anticipating this momentous event, everything has really gone very smoothly and without incident. Our little girl is here, healthy and happy, and I have been able to keep my hand in work, from a healthy distance!
