There’s no universal guide for self-employment, so it can be tricky to navigate personal, emotion-packed situations like taking bereavement time or maternity leave as a freelancer. When I found out I was pregnant last fall, I almost immediately started planning my maternity leave in my head. How would this work? How much time should I take? Would my clients be upset? Would they replace me while I was out? How much income would I lose?

There were a lot of concerns and logistics to work through, but I knew I needed to give myself time to recover from childbirth and acclimate to parenthood. I wanted to take at least eight weeks of leave. Today on the blog, I’m sharing how I planned for maternity leave, how my leave actually played out, and more. I hope it’s helpful for any self-employed, soon-to-be parents out there who are navigating this too!

Telling Clients

Figuring out when to tell people you’re pregnant is tricky, no matter what. I wasn’t a big fan of the advice to wait until the end of the first trimester. Being pregnant is hard enough without having to keep it a secret from the people closest to you! I was seven weeks pregnant when we found out and I started telling a few close friends right away. It was helpful to have their support early on, especially as I started to have lots of questions about pregnancy. My friends who have kids already were able to provide invaluable advice and validation. That being said, I wasn’t about to tell my clients when I was only seven weeks pregnant!

I wanted to tell our families first, so we told them at Christmas as I was just getting to the end of the first trimester. Once all my clients were back from the holidays, I notified them. I told one client in person as we already had a meeting scheduled and I knew they’d be very happy for me. It was fun to see their joyful reactions in person! The other clients I notified via email. I was about 16 weeks pregnant when I told my clients.

I kept my email to them relatively simple, sharing the good news and letting them know a rough outline of my maternity leave plan. Freelance writer Kat Boogard has a helpful template that I used as a jumping off point for my own email. My version went like this:

SUBJECT: Some (exciting) personal news!

Hi [Name],

Hope you’ve had a great week so far 🙂

I wanted to reach out to share some exciting personal news: I’m pregnant! My husband and I are expecting our first baby at the end of June.

Being self-employed makes maternity leave a bit tricky, but I am planning to take some time off to acclimate to parenthood and enjoy the first few months of our little one’s life. As of right now, I’m planning to take about two months of leave, then dive back into work in early September.

I’ve always been a planner and babies’ arrivals seem difficult to plan for, so all of this is a bit tentative for now! I’ll of course keep in touch as my due date gets closer so that we can coordinate. Once I’m back in the office, I’d love to continue working with you as usual.

For now, I just wanted to share the happy news and provide an advanced heads up. Let me know if you have any questions!

Thanks,

Emily

I strategically sent those emails on a Friday afternoon so I could just log off and not worry about it again til Monday. Although it was nerve wracking to hit send, all my clients were very happy for me and didn’t have any concerns about me being out for a few months!

Planning for Maternity Leave

Financial Impact

One of the biggest things I had to plan for with my maternity leave was the lost income. Being self-employed means I have the amazing upside of being able to take as much leave as I want…with the unfortunate downside of it being completely unpaid. I planned to take eight weeks and then return to teaching at Nazareth University as an adjunct in late August, then a few weeks later, return at the 10 week mark to the rest of my client work. That’s not exactly how things played out (more on that later), but 10 weeks of lost income is what I initially planned for.

Once I had decided on 10 weeks of maternity leave, I calculated how much income I would lose. For two of my clients I proposed scheduling their content in advance so that I could still be paid. I expected to be able to do this for one of my clients in full, and for another I to schedule one post per week instead of my usual three posts and be paid a third of my typical rate. This didn’t go to plan, either.

Over the winter, I challenged myself to make up my projected lost income before my maternity leave. That wound up being more challenging than I expected. I booked a few workshops and a handful of writing projects, but pregnancy was draining and unenjoyable, we had lots of home projects to do to get ready for the baby, and I was teaching a brand new-to-me crisis communication class at Nazareth, so I didn’t have much bandwidth for extra work.

If you’re in a similar position, I’d encourage you to be kind to yourself. Sometimes a challenge like this can be fun and motivating, but other times it’s one more stressor in an already-stressful time. It’s okay to just accept that it will be a lower income year. I made sure we had enough savings to cover our living expenses and let go of the idea of making up all of the lost income in advance.

Being Proactive

I love being proactive when I can, so once my crisis communication class was over and grades were in, I spent the rest of May getting ready for maternity leave. I revised my syllabus and secured guest speakers for my social media class in the fall, I scheduled content for the entire month of June for two of my clients, and I organized my Google Drive and my office. Perhaps some small part of me knew that my baby would arrive an entire month early. I was thankful that past me had planned ahead and gotten so much done in advance!

Baby’s Arrival

My baby was due at the end of June and the little guy could barely make it to June! When I was 36 weeks pregnant, my water broke spontaneously while my husband was working on the electrical in the attic. We were completely shocked! Our baby boy arrived in the world on June 2nd, eager to join the party but exhausted from his journey to the world.

As if the surprise of his early arrival wasn’t enough, we also had to deal with jaundice that led to him being readmitted to the hospital for phototherapy treatment, as well as some other complicated medical issues. Clearly, my well-planned maternity leave would need adjusting!

I typed up emails to clients from a lactation room at the newborn nursery in the hospital while our baby was under the lights, letting them know that our little guy was here early and I was out of office, effective immediately. My clients were as surprised as we were, though happy for us and understanding of the situation! Given the difficult circumstances, I opted to extend my maternity leave, adding on the four weeks that baby was early.

The Actual Maternity Leave

In the end, I took 12 weeks of maternity leave before returning to Nazareth to teach, and 14 weeks before resuming client work.

Once baby arrived, these were the tasks I completed to activate maternity leave mode:

Notify clients via email
Turn on out of office message
Add text to contact page of website letting folks know I was on maternity leave and returning in September

During maternity leave, I found myself checking my work email more than I “should” have. This wasn’t because of anxiety about work. People don’t talk about it much, but some aspects of the newborn months can be boring. We went through an unimaginable amount of stress related to his medical issues, and some challenging months where he had to take prednisone and it made him extremely hungry and cranky. In the haze of breastfeeding, pumping, washing bottles and pump parts, feedings, diaper changes, and trying to soothe him, there were times when the monotony of it all got to me. I listened to audiobooks and podcasts, and when I got really bored…I checked my work email. I kept my inbox clean while I was out so that my return was a bit easier and less overwhelming.

Returning to Work

By the time my return to work date rolled around, I felt ready. The lack of structure was getting to me, and I was excited to figure out our new routine, do something with my brain other than care for a tiny human, and be around other adults more. Starting the semester at the end of August was a nice way to ease back into work; I only had to head to campus twice a week and teach for an hour and fifteen minutes before returning home to my baby. Two weeks later, picking back up with my client work felt good too. I imagine the transition would’ve been much harder if I worked five days a week in an office, but I work from home and set my own hours and I’m so grateful for that.

To pick back up with my client work, I reached out to all of my clients two weeks before my planned return date and set up a catchup call. The week before my return, I spoke to most of my clients and got back up to speed with everything. Then I was able to jump right in on my planned return date like no time had passed.

Final Thoughts

Running your own business can be challenging. There are so many ups and downs, and it sometimes doesn’t feel like the most stable career choice. But I love it and am grateful every day for the opportunities, freedom, and flexibility it gives me. So far, parenthood seems similar in some ways. There have been plenty of ups and downs already, from lows like more hospital visits and blood draws than I ever anticipated to highs like baby smiles, dipping his toes in a lake for the first time, and watching him start to interact with our dogs.

There’s nothing easy about the early stages of parenthood, and the same can be said for the early stages of starting your own business. You get through it one day at a time, by giving yourself grace, keeping going, and remembering that you are capable of this.

If you’re an anxious, pregnant business owner who is nervous about taking parental leave: I see you. You got this!

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How I Took 3 Months of Maternity Leave as a Freelancer