My Pregnancy Journey as a Full-time Entrepreneur
Being an entrepreneur and having a baby has different challenges (and perks) as opposed to being a 9-5 employee. In this blog series, I would like to share my experience as I move through pregnancy and beyond!
I’ve been getting a TON of questions about my pregnancy journey and I am so happy to answer them!
Questions like…
- How are you feeling?
- How did you navigate 4 weeks of morning sickness while running your business?
- What have been the biggest challenges you’ve faced?
- How are you creating structure and planning for your ‘Maternity Leave’?
I’m going to break these blogs up by trimester, so this one is for the FIRST trimester. You know I am going to share the real details of this journey – not just the pretty parts!
Btw, if you are currently pregnant, I have created a quick Amazon Page with recommendations of products that have helped me along the way!
**Disclaimer: This is not medical or health advice. Please ensure you are speaking to your doctor, healthcare professional, or pharmacist before starting any new food, supplement, or medication.
By the way, if you’re wanting to listen to my podcast on Our Fertility journey, you can listen to that HERE.
So let’s dive in!
I found out I was pregnant on July 6th at around 4PM. My cycle is pretty predictable, so when I was 4 days late, I knew something was up. We had been trying to get pregnant for a year, so I was used to seeing the monthly ‘single pink line.’ But this time was different.
Within a minute of taking the pregnancy test, I clearly saw TWO pink lines and immediately called Eric upstairs! We were excited, nervous, and felt a huge amount of relief. Eric’s variocelectomy must have worked, because the pregnancy test was POSITIVE.
Fortunately, I was relatively prepared for pregnancy because I had worked with my fertility coach, Katie Wood. I say ‘relatively’ because you’re never fully prepared!
I had already weaned off of my birth control and Zoloft 25mg a year prior to this. Katie also walked both Eric and I through what supplements to take, important nutrition information, and even specific self-care rituals to help us conceive.
Eric had already made so many sacrifices including stopping going into the sauna, initiating new supplements and foods for sperm health, and even decreasing his alcohol intake. He also had a variocelectomy in April 2023 to correct a variocele, something he had at birth (but neither of us knew would impact our fertility.)
The first 5 weeks were a breeze as I had ZERO symptoms at all. Well, I was STARVING, and realized that at the time, my BMI registered at ‘underweight.’ In the beginning, I craved random things like blue cheese, marinara sauce, and then fruit.
My OB said that nausea/morning sickness may start at around week 6 and peak at week 9 and he was spot on. At around week 6, I started developing this strange feeling of nausea – for me I felt it in my throat. I was also extremely tired and would take 2 hour naps at random times of the day. Fortunately, I never vomited, but the morning sickness progressively got worse as time went on.
To combat the nausea, I ate small, frequent meals, drank water and seltzer, and sucked on ginger cough drops. I also had no desire for coffee, which is SO unlike me! Eating frequently actually diminished the feeling of nausea and I started taking B6 and doxylamine at night to quell the morning sickness. I also bought Sea Bands that press on the acupressure point that is supposed to reduce nausea/morning sickness. I’m not sure if those actually worked, but hey, I tried them!
At around week 8, the nausea was too much and I found myself bed-ridden for most of the day. After I called my doctor, they prescribed Reglan, which helped tremendously!
Here are the three things I did to keep my business running while I was sick –
- I delegated tasks to my team. Katie, my support coach, took any Discovery calls for me and she also helped teach some of my Elevate Healers Academy classes. Priscilla supported me on the back-end of my business – everything from uploading videos to YouTube to answer client emails.
- I repurposed content and sold previous workshops. During that time, I wasn’t able to go Live on camera much, so I repurposed some of my previous content. I also sold workshops with upsells that created a steady passive income stream for me.
- I worked when I could. At some points in the day, I had more energy, while others I was completely exhausted and bed-ridden. I optimized my energy and set boundaries around my time and what I said YES to for projects.
After I passed week 9, I had virtually no symptoms. Yes, I had fatigue, but it was nothing compared to those early weeks in pregnancy.
Once I had my energy back, I was able to get back to work and start creating strategic partnerships and host workshops.
Nothing changed physically for me during the first trimester and it wasn’t until I got a sonogram at week 9 that it became ‘real’ that I was pregnant. I had some scary spotting on a Friday night early on in the pregnancy and panicked that I was having a miscarriage. Fortunately, I got the sonogram and the baby was healthy and okay, but I’ll admit, all sorts of bad thoughts run through your mind when you see blood.
When I first saw my baby on the sonogram at week 9, I cried of course! The sonogram technician said, “Yep, you’re fine!” and I grabbed her arm in thankfulness for reassuring me right away. I started to think about all of the things I want to teach this baby, how I want things to be different for this child than they were for me. I thought, “I will raise this child with LOVE.”
What Eric and I did in the first trimester to prep for our baby –
- We followed the growth of our baby on the “What to Expect” app, which shows how big the baby is in each week of pregnancy,
- I started seeing an OB – my gynecologist doesn’t deliver babies, so I had to find a new one that delivered at the hospital we want (Allegheny Health Network,)
- We started reading baby books and learning about raising a child. We later enrolled in in-person classes at AHN to learn about breastfeeding, infant safety, and caring for a newborn. TBH, those classes were SO much more helpful than any book we could read!
- My mom started to help us get the nursery together,
- I started slowly putting together my Amazon Baby Registry,
- Eric looked into benefits from his work, including paternity leave – he gets 4 weeks, which is so nice!
- We talked about baby names – I picked the name Alex Joseph for a boy and he picked Lindsay Ann for a girl,
- I looked at my vitamins and supplements to make sure I wasn’t taking anything harmful – I had to stop taking Ashwaganda and also Rhofade (topical for my rosacea),
- I started thinking about sales cycles for my business and making Pristine my last group program of 2023.
I’m sure there are so many more things we did to prep, but the real changes started to show in the second trimester! I’ll be posting that blog coming up next, so keep an eye out for that!
In the meantime, if you’re an entrepreneur and are thinking about getting pregnant, please know that I am here to support you to answer any questions you may have! From fertility to pregnancy, I will happily share my experience while holding a safe space for you. <3
With love,
Christina
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Bio for Dr. Christina –
Dr. Christina Fontana, AKA The Pharmacist Coach, is a pharmacist, holistic healer, rapid transformation business coach, speaker, and 5-time author. She helps spiritually-driven women to ‘Reignite Your Light’ and shine in your brilliance, confidence, and true essence.
She started her entrepreneurial journey 11 years ago being disempowered, homelessness, broke, with eating disorders, PTSD, and anxiety and has since transformed, turning her pain into purpose, empowering women all over the world to step into more purpose, power, and prosperity.
Over the last 11 years, Dr. Christina has been providing uplifting, transformational content through her Youtube videos, books, courses, programs, and Conferences. Her mission is to empower more healers and business owners unlock their innate gifts to create a domino effect of healing on the world.