7 things I learnt running a startup pregnant

And why you should never tell anyone to 'sleep now before the baby comes' 😑

‘Enjoy’ is not a verb I used often to describe my pregnancy. It is a very strange feeling to want something so badly, but when you get to experience it, it’s a hugely challenging thing that leaves you questioning every part of yourself. 

After many months of trying to conceive, and an ectopic pregnancy, and miscarriage in autumn 2022, I felt incredibly privileged to finally fall and stay pregnant last January. However, for most of last year, I felt horrendously nauseous, tired and unable to make a single life decision, combined with bouts of panic about how exactly I was going to take maternity leave or run a company with a child.

At times I felt anger that being a female CEO comes with these situations, and pointless frustration with myself that I couldn’t be happy getting a ‘normal job’ where I’d be lucky enough (in places like the UK) to take 12 months maternity leave without some of this additional pressure. 

It was a rollercoaster. The one piece of unsolicited advice I would give to any woman who is planning or trying to conceive is, don’t expect your life to change when the baby arrives, for me it completely changed the day I found out I was pregnant. 

Here’s a few things I learned along the way…

1. Miscarriage anxiety can be huge

I knew I was pregnant when I couldn’t eat truffle chips for dinner. As the positive pregnancy test line grew stronger and stronger over the next few days, I didn’t want to let myself believe that I might actually be pregnant. I started to convince myself that implantation pain was another ectopic pregnancy, and rang my mum when the anxiety got too much, to cry for no reason other than the waiting for whatever would be, had got too much. 

Working was a welcome distraction throughout some of these early weeks - before the nausea kicked in - I enjoyed getting my head down and thinking about something else for a few hours at a time. 

Running a Lowdown focus group, three days after I found out I was pregnant

2. Telling people you’re pregnant early on has its benefits

When I first told a few of my closest friends I was pregnant, I said ‘there’s some news, but we’re not celebrating, I’m just telling you in case something goes wrong’. Whilst they were incredibly understanding, I could tell they were perplexed as to why we weren’t hugging and saying what amazing news it was. A few months later one of these friends got pregnant, and told me she now understood why I told her the way I did. 

Whether you’ve experienced a miscarriage before or not, those first weeks and months of pregnancy can feel incredibly uncertain. You’re walking around with a small bundle of cells inside you, not wanting to get too attached or plan ahead, feeling on edge and hormonal. The days and weeks go past insanely slowly. You spend your evenings Googling miscarriage odds and feeling terrified you’ll spot blood every time you go to the toilet. You’re harbouring this secret and it can become all-consuming. 

My daily visit to https://datayze.com/miscarriage-reassurer

This was one of the reasons why I started to tell people, including The Lowdown team, that I was pregnant almost immediately. There’s no law that you have to keep it a secret before your 12-week scan, and I soon realised that the energy of hiding it from people was extra, unnecessary effort.

If you’re pregnant and wondering who you should tell, I’d challenge you to really think through what’s best for you. I’d learnt from having a miscarriage that if people don’t know you’re pregnant in the first place, they have to come to terms with two pieces of news at once; that you were pregnant and that you now aren’t pregnant. This can take people a bit of time to process the shock, and may not mean they can support you as quickly and as best as they can.

3. You miss your release valves

All of the things I’d learned to do to balance the pressure of running a startup, which just about kept me level and not insanely stressed, went out the window. 

I felt too nauseous to exercise, I couldn’t enjoy simple things like drinking a cup of tea (one of my life's greatest pleasures) or eating a meal. I couldn’t get a massage to relieve my tense body. I stopped socialising as much as I couldn’t leave the house in the evening. 

My life was reduced to feeling guilty about the fact I was not as productive as usual and watching episodes of Love Island in the bath. It was like being in lockdown again.  

Glass of squash and mind-numbing TV please

So many pregnant women I’ve spoken with talked about how low and isolated they felt, especially during their first trimester. If you’re feeling that way right now, you are not alone. For some, it can be a really difficult time, and like pretty much everything we experience in women’s health, we should talk about it more. 

This is one of the reasons why I started The Lowdown. We need to talk about things, and tell other women, at every stage. 

4. This isn’t just tiredness

If a pregnant colleague or a friend is having a tough time, please take it seriously. Growing a human is no joke. Whilst it’s a perfectly natural thing for us humans to do, it’s also one of the most stressful, nauseating and exhausting processes.

Because it’s a natural process, it means many pregnant people feel like they can’t call in sick or not show up to work or parts of their life, when they feel just as terrible as an ill person who could. We persevere through feeling absolutely terrible, often scared of work finding out or losing our jobs, or through the necessity of having to keep up with childcare and other responsibilities. Women are the most incredibly resilient beings, at so many points in my or my friends' pregnancies I’ve laughed at how for centuries we’ve been viewed as the ‘weaker’ sex. 

‘Tiredness’ doesn’t sound like an all-consuming experience you can justify stopping work for. This isn’t just feeling a bit ‘off’. This is like drugging yourself with a Xanax, then landing in Australia with severe jet lag, and woozing through the day, your body filled with relaxing hormones so you feel like a jumble of bones, needing to lie down, just anywhere.

The pressure of running a pre-product market fit startup and being the passionate, decisive leader I wanted to be, was too much for me at times. Obviously, I was five weeks pregnant when Channel 4 got in touch to ask if The Lowdown would help them create a documentary about contraception, including filming with my icon Davina McCall. 

By the time the filming came around, I was absolutely ravenous and simultaneously nauseous to the point where I was talking about buying a Pret, whilst eating a Pret. On the outside I probably looked like I was taking it in my stride, but on the inside I wasn’t. The preparation for this type of big, once-in-a-career opportunity almost defeated me. 

Davina did not disappoint ❤️

5. Chairs matter

Because of the above, whenever travelling or socialising, I became semi-obsessed with seating and would like to thank any conference facility, hotel or public space that has soft furnishing and sofas to sit or lie down in. It really makes a difference when you are exhausted and have back pain. 

Here’s me at our investor Speedinvest’s summit, 28 weeks pregnant and waking from my 20 min nap, so I could carry on an intense day of standing and talking to people.

6. Never tell anyone to ‘sleep now before the baby comes’

At some point when you are visibly pregnant, you are likely to make light-hearted chit-chat with a professional contact, window cleaner or shop assistant. At some point, they will respond with something like ‘wait until the baby arrives, mine didn’t sleep for 10 YEARS’.

This comment has to top the charts for the least helpful things people can say to you. Telling someone that things will inevitably and irrevocably get worse, at a time when they may be dealing with the worst bouts of sleep and lying awake at night worrying about everything and anything, should be made illegal.

I spent months terrified about how I would cope with the tiredness of a newborn, but nothing for me was as exhausting as working through pregnancy. Even though Alexander still hasn’t slept more than 3 hours for the last 23 weeks, I love him enormously, am less physically exhausted, and am fortunate enough to have a partner who can do shifts so we can spread the load.

7. Speaking to others does help

The one thing I enjoyed throughout my pregnancy was connecting with other founders, friends, investors and advisors who shared such honest and amazing stories with me about how pregnancy and parenthood have changed them.

Talking about their personal and professional lives gave me a different view of them as people, and made them much more rounded human beings. One of my investors Gemma listened to me burst into tears on a call, and then told me it would all be worth it. She wasn’t wrong. 

I’ll never forget my other investor Tracy telling me how she had to cancel meetings at her VC firm, to go and lie down in the toilet for a nap. This woman is a powerhouse. If Tracy needed to lie down, then maybe I wasn’t the only one? 

Tracy also sent me this text after our chat, which hit me like a bus and accurately describes everything I’ve written here, in a few words. Thank you Tracy.