How Motherhood Collided with My Startup, and the Maternity Leave I Never Took
Notes from a woman who sacrificed maternity leave for her startup.
It was just after 3am. Dark outside, the sky a stunning indigo - both close to black and far from it. That deep blue before dawn in late spring, when the sun rises early.
I sat on the couch in our apartment living room, gazing out the window at the building across the street. Wondering who else was awake. Not yet the woman in the penthouse apartment with a young child - the warm glow of her unit occasionally a companion to my late-night breastfeeding sessions.
In my arms: a sweet little baby boy, suckling away. Two months since emerging from my body, wreaking all kinds of havoc on life as I knew it, in both the craziest and best possible way. So peaceful, you wouldn’t have known that moments earlier we were both in a sweaty panic, red-faced, one of us screaming bloody murder (one of us wanting to, but thinking it would not constitute good mothering to join in).
In my ears: a just-dropped episode of The Daily from The New York Times. Probably about Trump. Maybe about another school shooting in the US. Or the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Either way, definitely not the most peaceful choice. But somehow it reminded me that life continued to happen, that outside of my insular world, there were bigger problems. Reasons to keep fighting.
In my free hand: an iPhone 13, open to Instagram direct messages from an angry customer, furious she had to pay $2.99 a month to upgrade to the Premium version of my newly launched wellness app, Loba.
I thought to myself, “This is fun…” before attempting to craft a response that did not, in fact, involve calling her a cheap asshole.
I hadn’t planned on being a solo startup founder and getting pregnant at the same time. It just sort of happened that way.
Yes, we were trying to conceive. And yes, I was also working on the launch of an innovative, gorgeous hardware tech product and app that I invented, designed, and had manufactured.
But we had been trying to get pregnant for 18 months. And, in a previous iteration of our relationship, had an early pregnancy loss in 2019.
I never imagined pitching VC funds, or that I would end up getting pregnant after years of trying, just to give birth right as I was launching the brand.
Had I gotten pregnant when we first started trying, I’d have been one year postpartum before our launch hit the market.
Had it taken longer and I was able to raise capital without pumping at my desk in front of our developer and an intern in a 200 sqft office, everyone politely pretending not to hear the mechanical whirr-whirr of the pump pulling at my nipples - who knows.
But. Life has a way of challenging you. And what a great testament to the consistency of wellness that Loba offers on any health journey, fertility included.
See, the thing is, I’m a PCOS and uterine fibroids girly. My health challenges—and my experience navigating a system that can barely diagnose most female health issues, let alone address them properly— were actually what inspired me to create Loba in the first place.
I saw a gap - a white space - in supporting women by creating cherished daily rituals that would help them achieve better outcomes for health. I wanted to create a brand, a product, an experience that supported women who looked like me in taking their pills and supplements for better health.
Anyway, that’s not the story I’m here to tell. I’ve shared that story many times over the years with media.
I also shared this story when pitching investors, incubators, and venture capital. Of which I did a LOT.
Mostly, during my first year postpartum.
I wouldn’t recommend it.
The thing about maternity leave was that I never thought I’d enjoy a full year off. I don’t have the constitution for full-time mothering and nothing else.
The endless cycle of diapers, laundry, breastfeeding, pumping, rinse, repeat? Not for me — not unless I could also tap into strategy, creativity, production. I get satisfaction from a job done, not just a job endlessly repeating.
Knowing I wanted a child with my partner, years before, I had set up my boutique marketing agency, Armature Collective, to support a maternity leave of some kind. I’d saved enough to pay myself a full salary while also covering the gap left by Canada’s EI benefits when you earn over a certain threshold.
But because of Loba, it was my spouse who took six months off full-time, after my initial three-month healing process. It made more sense financially (he’s covered by EI, I’m not as a small business owner who pays herself on dividends), and there was so much momentum, so much opportunity with the start-up that we were both “in” on the decision. It felt like the right wave to ride.
So, in the name of opportunity, money and a vision of success - I got no time off.
Just some pretty challenging memories…
The time I traveled to Calgary for three nights, only three months postpartum. I spent over a thousand dollars on flights and a hotel and left my son behind to take the stage and pitch to a “room full of investors” at the culmination of a 12-week program for female-founded startups. (Yes, if you’re doing the math, I started the program the week after I gave birth)
It wasn’t until arrival that Program Leaders welcomed us to the two-day event by saying this wasn’t about hard pitches, but about “celebrating how far you’ve come.” I was there for money and the chance to be in front of investors - not for good vibes. Needless to say, I cried hard in the hotel shower that night.
Or how Loba was accepted to three different incubator programs at once. They all met weekly at the same times on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Not wanting to miss an opportunity, I would drop my six-month-old son at the gym daycare (read: germs!) and work for two hours in the gym café, hopping between Zoom calls.
There was also pumping in the car after driving to Squamish Summit for an Angel Forum pitch event, riding a gondola back down the mountain at lunch to relieve my very full breasts of the milk that had accumulated while I waited for my turn to pitch.
Looking back, I can honestly say mom guilt doesn’t play a role here. I don’t believe my baby lacked anything. We had part-time nannies and family support in the summer. Friends stepped in to bounce him in his chair or change a diaper while I logged into webinars. I was around, working from home. He came with me to the office often, and got as much breastmilk as my body could produce, for as long as it would produce.
What I’ve struggled with more is sadness.
Sadness for myself and what I lost during that time (aside from my sanity).
I didn’t miss the milestones like his first words, first steps.
What I grieve for are the quiet moments. Gazing out the window at 3am and simply being present, instead of thinking about “fucking Stephanie” from Loba’s Instagram DMs.
Instead of crying in the shower of some prairie hotel, I could have been curled up next to my newborn. Instead of standing on a stage for no good reason, my nervous system could have been enjoying a cup of tea while watching him snooze.
And then there were the countless hours spent prepping decks, practicing pitches with advisors, summoning the energy to perform each time I had to turn it “on” for a stage, literal or figurative.
I want that time back.
In the end, I took huge swings. Financially with the money I invested in the business (that’s another story). Relationally with my early investors, and my spouse carrying a heavy load himself.
Truly, it’s emotional and physical toll of doing all this while pregnant and postpartum that I haven’t recovered from, even 2.5 years later.
Did the big swing pay off? I’m not sure yet.
What I am sure of is that I can’t do this alone anymore. Not without access to the capital needed to scale. Not without the resources to reach a wider audience. Not without the tech support that might have afforded me the privilege of just breastfeeding in peace at 3am.
Not without the opportunities afforded to so many of my white, young, male counterparts in tech who have raised millions for far worse, half-baked ideas.
As I wind down operations at Loba and seek a strategic partner to support a wider audience, I can confidently say that the journey hasn’t looked how I hoped.
If I did it again, I’d have taken a proper leave. Maybe turned to part-time work in my boutique marketing agency when I needed intellectual stimulation and a break from spit-up and soothers.
Probably I would have spent more time gazing into the eyes of my little one. Probably I’d be less sad now at how much I missed then.
One thing’s for certain. If I did it again, I wouldn’t have found myself trying not to tell a cheap asshole what I really thought of her over Instagram DMs at three in the morning.
But yet, even in the chaos, there was growth. I know that because of this experience, I came out sharper, tougher, and more resilient than I ever imagined. I learned how to hold a baby in one arm and a business pitch in the other. I came away clearer on what really matters: the kind of work I want to do, the kind of mother I want to be, and what I am no longer willing to sacrifice in the name of ambition.
These days, I take a bit longer to reply to work emails. I sit with an idea before pouncing on it. I know what I have in me. I know what is worth the fight and what isn’t.
These lessons are mine to keep.
No matter what, that’s worth something.
Very honest and open account of your time as a founder and mother. You literally moved mountains on your own as a sole founder. And you correctly touch on some of the crap that is going on in start-up land. We need more stories like this.