Who Will I Be At Work After Having A Baby?

Musings from a design researcher and soon-to-be mom — 36 weeks of unanswered questions about work, motherhood, and an unpredictable future

9 weeks pregnant (shh, it’s a secret): Prepping for empathy interviews alongside Josh Ruff

I am eight months pregnant for the first time. Full disclosure: I’m mortified, overwhelmed, elated and exhilarated all at once.

While this is a new experience for me, I know it’s not an entirely unique or remarkable one. It has happened somewhere on Earth every second of every day since the beginning of humankind. This all-encompassing journey has actually made me feel more connected to women around the world everywhere — past, present, and future.

Am I asking the right questions?

Ever since sharing the news of my pregnancy, I’ve been bombarded with a steady stream of questions from my peers ranging from medical to logistical, immediate to long-term. What’s his name? Have I made a birth plan? What’s my stance on sleep training? Do I want a stroller with four wheels or three? What will I do about childcare? Schools?

While these are all valid questions, they feel trivial compared to those that float ominously in the back of my head, occasionally rearing their heads to hold me in an existential headlock.

Who will this brand new human be?
Who will I be? Will I still be inherently me, or someone completely new?
How will I balance this new identity as a mom with my work identity?
Will I be good enough at my job when I return? Will it even matter?

I recognize that many of these questions reveal a fear of loss or sacrifice — a grieving and longing for my old self. After all, the working world and transition into motherhood, while changing for the better, have not historically gone together harmoniously.

Are cultural expectations tainting my experience?

Reading about new research on how pregnancy and postpartum result in a loss of gray matter in mothers’ brains doesn’t help to alleviate my fears, and it makes me acutely aware of the lack of control I have over this entire process. I feel that my life is about to be officially separated into two halves: B.B. (before baby) and A.B. (after baby). As I walk — or rather, wobble — — toward that split, I anxiously contemplate my future identity as a woman, a designer, a person with hopes and dreams, and a mother.

When I was young, I had this belief that major life events would happen in neat little chronological boxes. That I’d be finished growing into the person I was supposed to be — with all of life’s big questions answered — when I finally had a child. I would be ready to bestow all my rock-solid, grown-up wisdom and adult-ing expertise on this new, impressionable human who would readily absorb it all. But, of course, I’ve learned over time, in blunt and poetic ways, that’s not how life works.

12 weeks pregnant: Just another workday flying paper airplanes

First, I don’t know if I’ll ever truly consider myself a grown up. I’ll never be done growing or changing — figuratively, mentally, emotionally, or physically — and that’s a good thing. Second, the perception of major life events as checkable boxes implies fuss-free, cleanly drawn boundaries between them, as if one could gracefully tap dance out of one box and into the next, wholly, efficiently, and transition-free. As I sit, plump and anxious, between the states of non-parent and parent, acutely aware of how my life is about to drastically change, I recognize just how uninformed that concept was.

How can we harness pivotal moments as workplace designers?

In The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact, authors Dan and Chip Heath describe life’s memories as not an average of our minute-by-minute sensations, but rather as a collection of flagship moments that are more in our power to control than we think. The authors found that major design opportunities are presented for leaders when they encounter a person in transition. These opportunities include the creation of positive memorable experiences for those we care about, whether it be our family, our coworkers, or our customers. This is because times of transition — a new job, wedding, birth, or death — mark a Before and an After, an Old You and a New You, a shift from one stage of life to another. They encompass both a beginning and an ending and are a ripe opportunity to create profound meaning.

29 weeks pregnant: While I wasn’t able to join Stoked Team Time in person, I tuned in virtually and the team threw me the most heartwarming surprise ever - a baby shower via Zoom. Here’s Brent telling me a story from his childhood.

So, how do we recognize the transitional passage into motherhood more distinctly? How might we connect these two traditionally disparate worlds of work and motherhood by not just helping women cross that bridge as they return to work, but making that bridge a memorable and deeply meaningful one?

Big life transitions are often periods we look back on with a sigh of pride and relief, thinking, “Wow, that was tough, but I survived and now I’m here.” While we tend to prefer them to be smooth, quick, and painless, transitions are more often unsettling, agonizing, and disorienting, making you want to crawl back to the way things were or fast forward to a time when everything is easier and all the kinks are worked out. Without the discomfort of uncertainty though, that hard-won next state of being doesn’t exist. Our true powers aren’t unleashed until we come face to face with a seemingly impossible or frightening challenge — the kind of obstacles or events that make us feel wildly human — and eventually triumph over it. We are most comfortable when things in life are certain, but we feel most alive when they are not.

Feeling startling thumps on the right side of my unrecognizable stomach, my heart relentlessly pumping blood at 20 beats faster than it used to, and my mind rushing with the biggest questions about the future I’ve ever had, I can confirm that every fiber of my very human self feels painfully and invigoratingly alive.

36 weeks pregnant: Accepting that I don’t know all the answers.

Creating memorable, meaningful moments is what I love about my job at Stoked. I get to help design wonderfully transformational experiences, connecting people to those around them, themselves, and to new ways of thinking and doing. Witnessing the raw visceral impact of these moments prods me to constantly seek ways to distill these learnings, share them with others, and continuously get better at shaping experiences. So, as I make my way through this next huge and un-designed transitional moment with as much grace as possible, I challenge Stoked, and any company or individual, how will you design for this moment?