Maria: "I only had one week of leave after giving birth, then I had to get back to work"

The contractions started in a way I did not expect

I woke up at 03:12 AM due to a kind of stabbing pain that made me sit up straight. It felt different than the Braxton Hicks contractions I had been having for weeks. Mike was snoring next to me and I gently pushed against his shoulder. “I think it's starting,” I said. He woke up immediately. I had to laugh at how quickly he sat up, but the next sharp pain immediately wiped the smile off my face.

We timed the contractions. They came every three minutes. I breathed deeply, but it was difficult. Mike paced back and forth, grabbed my bag, gave me water. The ride to the hospital only took twelve minutes, but every bump felt like a knife. I held onto the handle above the window, while Mike kept saying we were almost there. I said little. I focused on not screaming.

Things moved quickly at the hospital

A nurse took me to a room. She immediately felt how far along I was. “Four centimeters.” I had expected it to be more, because it felt so intense. Mike stood next to me and kept holding my hand. I felt his thumb circling over the back of my hand. The contractions continued to build. I was lying half on my side, half on my back, but nothing felt comfortable.

Between contractions, Mike massaged my lower back. Hard. I kept directing him where to push. Lower down, left, then right. He was sweating too. Each contraction lifted me up. At one point, I asked for pain relief. They said it was possible, but it might not do much more, as I was now heading towards the transition phase. I decided to go without it. Foolish or brave, I didn't know, but I wanted to keep going. My legs were shaking. I squeezed Mikes hand so hard I was afraid I might break something.

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At 8 centimeters I felt pressure. I said I needed to push, but I wasn't allowed yet. I tried to resist the urge by panting. It was hardly successful. Mike kept pressing wet washcloths against my forehead. He kept saying, “You're doing really well.” I only half heard it.

When I was finally allowed to push, it went quickly, but it hurt in a place where it wasn't supposed to. The gynecologist said the baby's head was stuck behind my pubic bone. I had to try different positions, but I couldn't go on. I couldn't exert any more force.

“You're going to get a haircut,” she said

I felt the team getting ready. I grabbed Mikes arm and kept my eyes fixed on him. I barely felt the cut due to the pressure, but I found the idea intense. With the next contraction, I had to push. Hard. I heard everyone cheering me on. I pushed everything down.

Then the head appeared. After that, the rest almost immediately followed. I heard a brief cry, a very high pitch. My body sank into the bed. They placed him on my chest. Warm. Small. Wet. Mike was sobbing next to me, but silently, just as only he can. He was there, our Jaimy.

The first days at home were mainly painful

The cut was very painful. Sitting felt as if there was a knife between my legs. Walking was slow. I had trouble going to the toilet. The maternity nurse said that everything looked neat, but that it would really take time. I had no patience. I wanted to move on. I had my business to run.

The man did almost everything. Changing diapers. The laundry. Groceries. Cooking. He brought me water, tea, and paracetamol. He tried to make me lie down. I tried that too, but I couldn't do it well.

After a week, I picked up my laptop

Day seven. Jaimy was sleeping on my chest. Mike had just gone to work. I felt a kind of urge that I couldn't suppress. It had to be done. I grabbed the laptop that had been lying next to me for days. I pushed it against my upper legs. It hurt the wound because my posture was skewed, but I stayed seated.

I opened my mailbox. 162 new messages. I immediately felt adrenaline. This was my business. My clients. My appointments. I started typing. Very simple things first. Then longer emails. Then invoices. I thought I would only last fifteen minutes, but it turned into two hours.

When Mike came home and saw me sitting like that, he shook his head

He didn't say anything angry, just: “You don't have to do this now.” I said: “I want to.” He let me. But he did put a pillow under my arms so I had less pressure on my lower body.

The man helped, but he couldn't do everything

He knows my company, but not all the technical stuff. He did handle a lot of practical matters: sending out orders, lifting boxes, briefly telling customers that I was on leave. He did it with the best intentions, but sometimes I had to correct things afterwards. I often thought: if only I had one employee. But I didn't.

He worked full-time himself, so during the day I was often alone with the baby. I tried to work during naps. Sometimes that went well. Sometimes I had to cry because my wound was pulling and I really should have been lying down.

I continued to work, although it was slow and sometimes awkward

I often sat at an angle on the couch with a nursing pillow for support. Jaimy on my stomach, laptop just to the side. I did calls with my camera half tilted down so no one would see the bags under my eyes. I moved carefully because every awkward movement hurt.

The husband would come home, take over with our son, and say, “Go lie down.” Sometimes I did. Sometimes I sent one more email. Or two. It was as if the birth had stopped me, but my mind kept busy with everything.

In the second week, I started to get annoyed that I was an entrepreneur

I always thought it would be an advantage to be able to manage my own time and decide when I worked. But now it felt as if I didn't really have a choice. When I closed my laptop, everything remained untouched. No one to take over. No one to say that it would be taken care of. I felt pressure, every single day, and it came solely from myself, but that didn't make it any less intense. I just wanted to have a maternity leave like other women I knew. Simply feed peacefully, take naps, receive visitors when I felt like it, and above all, no emails constantly coming in. I saw how friends sent photos of themselves in bed with their baby, surrounded by a maternity nurse and bags of 'beschuit met muisjes', and they could actually do that without thinking about anything else. I had a maternity nurse for 7 days, but barely felt like I truly enjoyed it. I was in a lot of pain and was already back to work.

I was dealing with a wound that kept pulling and a to-do list that only got longer. I felt stupid for thinking I could juggle everything. I barely gave myself the chance to recover. Everything felt like proof that maybe I was less suited for entrepreneurship than I had always thought.

I just wanted leave like everyone else

I noticed I was getting jealous of people who just had time off. Just free, without anyone expecting anything from them. Without deadlines, without clients, without notifications that kept coming in. In my head, I was constantly busy with everything that needed to be done. Even when I tried to lie down, I could almost hear my phone going off, even though it was in another room. I didn't want that feeling. I wanted peace. I wanted to take time with my baby without the stress that my business might come to a halt. I wanted there to be some kind of safety net. That someone would say: we'll take care of this for you. But I didn't have that. And it broke me a little.

As I sat there with ice packs because otherwise I couldn't sit, I thought: what am I doing? I just wanted to enjoy my child carefree. I wanted the world to pause for a moment. I didn't want to get behind that laptop again, but I did it anyway because I was afraid everything else would collapse. It felt as if I had done something to myself by becoming an entrepreneur, especially during a period when I needed nothing but rest.

MARIA