#7 – Chaos to Creation: a raw take on Pregnancy and Entrepreneurship

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Transcription of the episode

EPISODE TEASER

What you can see that pregnancy brought me is a step that was needed in my business, beyond just the pregnancy itself. And now, you see I’m starting the conversation around the gifts that pregnancy brought me. I’ve spent time in doubt, in a victim mindset, and in resistance.

Episode mentionned: My 2024 review, listen to it by clicking HERE.

Useful links and recommendations if you are pregnant (or planning!) :
– On the professional side, I prepared my business through the pregnancy thanks to the help of a French Entrepreneur called Solène Pignet – “Grossesses d’entrepreneuses”. If you wish to support my business and discover her services, use the affiliate link by cliking HERE (French content).

– On the personal side, to prepare the birth, I worked with Freya Rose Birch with her “Embodied birth experience” programm. You can discover her work HERE (English content – no affiliate link).

I recommend both programmes, getting support being pregnant is essential!! You can contact me if you have questions 😉

EPISODE SUMMARY

This episode will be really interesting to you if you’re planning to become pregnant, whether it’s for you or your partner.

And if you’re not planning to become pregnant—because I know many in my community either already have children or never want children—you’ll still find it interesting if you want to see how I navigated a destabilizing experience while being in business. I’m really going to focus on my pregnancy through the lens of business, not just pregnancy in general, though I’ll talk about a few things, of course, around that.

This is my experience. I want to emphasize that throughout the episode—this is only my experience. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be your experience if you’ve never had children. And if you already have children, of course, you’ll see that your experience was different. So please don’t feel limited by what I share.

I’m recording this episode while still being pregnant, though it will be published afterward, once I’m no longer pregnant. I decided to do it this way because I wanted you to really share the rawness of the experience. I didn’t want to wait and record it months or years later, after gaining distance from it, because I wanted to be as close as possible to what I’m currently experiencing and feeling.
Because that’s what we’re here for, right? For the pure experience. I’m not going to hide anything—you can expect complete authenticity from me in this episode.

I would also add: if you’re facing challenges in having children, please make sure to check in with yourself before deciding to listen to this episode. I know it can be very hard to hear someone else’s story, especially if you’ve been trying for many years. So just be mindful of how it makes you feel. And if at any point you think, “Oh, wow, this actually isn’t doing me any good,” please stop listening. No guilt around that—just tune in to yourself and see if it feels right to hear my words.

TRANSCRIPT: MY WINS & HARD TIMES THROUGH PREGNANCY

I bring you into my story. This is my first baby, my first pregnancy, and it initially started in October 2023. That was my first pregnancy, and I only made it two-thirds of the way through the first trimester. I experienced a miscarriage after eight weeks.

MY FIRST PREGNANCY: a misscariage

I want to share this because I once heard a woman say, “Oh, I feel like I’ve been pregnant for 15 months,” and I thought she captured it so well. When you experience a first pregnancy that doesn’t end with a baby and then start another one, you’ve already had that initial experience in your body, which can feel like a lot. That’s exactly how it felt for me, and hearing someone else put it into words was so helpful.

The first pregnancy felt very different from the second one. It’s interesting because my intuition, even though it wasn’t conscious, made me a bit more cautious about sharing that first pregnancy. It’s like your soul knows in advance. Some part of me knew that it wouldn’t end with a baby.

That was the first impactful moment for my business. I didn’t imagine it would be so huge, but in the first trimester, especially, you experience symptoms that can really slow you down. Again, this is my experience—some women don’t have any symptoms during pregnancy and feel fine—but I would say most experience tiredness.
For this first pregnancy, I was so tired. I really didn’t expect it. I was lucky in the sense that my schedule is built so that I usually have my clients in the morning, which was when I had the most energy. But in the afternoon, instead of doing what I would usually do for my business, I would sleep. I wasn’t able to do much else.
From a business perspective, you can imagine that having half your day out almost every day was huge. My entire focus, for both pregnancies, has always been my clients—that’s the most important thing in my business: making sure they’re happy, making progress, and seeing results. When I had energy, it was for them; everything else came second. That was my decision, and I’d make the same one again.

But wow—during those weeks, I didn’t expect that level of tiredness and how much it would impact my ability to work. It’s also hard because most of the time, we don’t share these experiences while they’re happening. You’re moving through it with this little secret. Of course, you can choose to share it with your clients, but for me, because I had this sense—this feeling I couldn’t even consciously express—that it might not end with a baby, I shared very little.
Even with people around me, I was cautious, thinking, “Let’s wait a bit more.” And in the end, that felt like the right decision, because it would have been so hard for me to go back and share again with everyone, “I’m sorry, but it ended in a miscarriage.”
How I handled it felt right for me, but the experience was still incredibly hard. From the business side, though, that first trimester taught me a lot. I concluded: “Now you know how it affects you. You can prepare your business differently next time.”
At least, that’s what I gained from it, even though it was painful. Beyond just those few weeks, the miscarriage had a lasting impact. Physically, my body needed time to recover from all the hormones, and emotionally and mentally, I needed to recover too. It took a while to regain my energy and feel like myself again.

MY SECOND PREGNANCY: Up & downs

Then came the new year—2024—and of course, we wanted to keep trying for another pregnancy. But your body needs its own rhythm.

This is a particularly hard time because it’s not happening yet, and you’re still wondering why. Your mood is affected, and it impacts the way you move through life. During those months, I kept thinking, “Why is it not happening?” It’s even harder when you see people around you getting pregnant, and it works out for them. It’s such a challenge—really, I hear you.

I won’t expand too much on that here, because again, I want to focus on the business perspective. But that period was a journey in itself. Looking back now, I’m happy it didn’t happen too fast, because another issue popped up in my business—on the tax side—that consumed so much of my time. I spent my afternoons solving that issue for a month and a half to two months, at least.

If I had gotten pregnant again with no energy, I wouldn’t have been able to resolve it. And honestly, it wouldn’t have been a nice experience for the baby in my belly, given the stress levels I went through at that time.

So, my good intention after the first pregnancy—saying, “Now I’m ready. I’ve learned from the experience, and I’m going to do it differently”—didn’t happen. Those months were spent resolving this big issue instead of preparing my business the way I had planned.

FIRST TRIMESTER: grieving the first pregnancy and diving into the financial aspect

A few months later, I became pregnant again. I hadn’t had the time to implement the lessons I’d learned from the first pregnancy.

If you’re planning to have a child or become pregnant, I highly recommend preparing yourself as much as possible. Hopefully, this episode will give you a glimpse of what could happen, even though it might not happen the same way for you.

At that point, during my second pregnancy, I started reflecting on how much women go through. I had friends and family members who had already had children, but for me, it felt like I hadn’t been aware of what it really entails. They didn’t share enough with me about the other side of pregnancy—the hard side.

From the outside, it seems like this beautiful journey. Your belly grows, and people congratulate you: “It’s wonderful! You’re going to become a parent!” But I hadn’t heard enough about the challenges.

That’s one of the reasons I’m recording this episode. The first trimester is particularly challenging because it doesn’t end with the joy of a baby yet, and for me, that was compounded by the grief from my previous pregnancy.

Thankfully, I became pregnant again. But again, the first trimester was very tiring. I used the word “destabilizing” earlier, and I think that’s the best way to describe how it impacted me and my business.

I’m focusing specifically on the business side of things here. During those weeks and months, I often thought, “It would be so much easier to be employed.” Of course, I don’t have the experience of being employed during a pregnancy, so I can’t compare the two. But as an entrepreneur, you’re the one creating your own opportunities. When my energy was low, I couldn’t create those opportunities.

And when I didn’t work, no one else worked. At least, not with how my business was structured at that time. This, of course, had a financial impact, and I started projecting a lot of “what ifs” into the future. “If this is already impacting my business now, how will it be after the baby comes?” Those doubts and questions were not easy to navigate.

If you’re employed, at least you have your monthly income, and if you’re unable to work, you might have colleagues who can step in for you. But as an entrepreneur, you’re on your own, and that difference really stood out to me during this time.

This also affected me on a personal level, particularly in terms of finances within my relationship. One of my goals for 2024 was to become smarter financially. Running a business, communicating, selling, having clients, and delivering services are one thing. But being financially smart is a whole other skill, and I wanted to improve in that area.

The pregnancy brought out this classic difference between men and women: today, it’s women who carry the child and give birth. Men don’t. Before becoming pregnant, I had a very gender-neutral approach. I thought, “We’re both on our own paths, moving closer to our goals.”

But from the moment I became pregnant, it was clear that something impacted me much more than my partner. He could continue working as usual; I couldn’t. That led to questions about how we would reflect that difference in how we manage our finances, both now and in the long term.

How would we handle things after the baby arrives, as a family? Those questions started arising during the first trimester. And honestly, I was in a victim mindset. I kept thinking, “Why me? Why do I have to be the one to carry the baby? Why do I have to go through this?”

At the same time, I gained a deep awareness of what women who can have children—and who decide to have children—go through. I know it’s not the case for everyone, and it can be painful to hear for those who can’t. I’m very aware of the physical, emotional, and mental challenges women face by choosing to have children.

That’s just a glimpse of the beginning of the journey. I already had a lot of respect for women, but after these experiences, my respect grew immensely. My conclusion was this: society doesn’t celebrate women enough for their contributions.

It starts at the family level. If you’re a man, how much do you celebrate what your partner is going through? And you don’t need to have children to see this—women go through so much every month with menstruation alone. For some, depending on their health, that’s already a huge challenge.

My big conclusion from these experiences is this: Oh my God, how much we don’t celebrate women. How much we don’t support them.

Even if you’re employed, with a more supportive system in place, the symptoms and changes you experience can still make things incredibly hard.

Another conclusion I came to—maybe a crazy idea—is that ideally, women should have the choice to work or not during pregnancy. I know some women will hear this and say, “Hey, Gloria, I felt great during my pregnancy. I loved working and didn’t experience what you’re describing.” That’s perfectly valid. Every pregnancy is different for every woman.

But for me, there were moments where I thought, “Wow, it would be so nice to have a supportive system that allowed me to work less and still be supported financially and socially.” I had to work less out of necessity, but I wished for a system where that choice felt supported, not forced.

During the first trimester, as I was processing all these hormonal changes, I was also grieving the loss of my first pregnancy. You can imagine the impact that had on my emotional state. It was hard to fully enjoy the early stages of this new pregnancy because everything reminded me of a journey that had started but didn’t end as we had hoped. That was a process of grief I had to move through.

Another thing I struggled with was not feeling like myself. I already noticed this in my first pregnancy. From the moment we lost the baby, I remember thinking, “Oh, I feel like myself again.” That’s really how I would describe it. So this time, during the second pregnancy’s first trimester, I reminded myself, “If you don’t feel like yourself, it’s normal. It’s the hormones.”

Still, before becoming pregnant, I had built a life and a business that felt really good. I was hitting my goals and watching my business grow. Everything felt aligned. Then, suddenly, this pregnancy came along and shook everything. It was like, “Whoa—how do I move through this?”

My mood was much less joyful during that first trimester. I kept asking myself, “Where is my joy? What happened to it?” It felt so unfamiliar, so unlike me and the life I had built. Accepting that reality and moving with it was a big part of the journey.

The hardest part is the uncertainty. You don’t know how things will evolve. Thankfully, I’d heard many times that the second trimester is usually better than the first. But even knowing that, you still have to live through each day, step by step. I couldn’t eat much, so I couldn’t even enjoy food—a small joy that might have made things easier.

THE SECOND TRIMESTER: alive again and in doubt for my business

Then I transitioned into the second trimester. At that point, I decided to spend a lot of time in Europe with my family and friends, traveling to the different homes we have. My family is spread out—some in France, some in Austria, some in Germany—and my partner is from Italy. So, we usually visit multiple places, which is beautiful.

In the second trimester, I was finally able to eat again, and I started feeling better. I was determined to enjoy life because I had missed that feeling so much in the first trimester. I focused on traveling, seeing friends, and spending quality time with family.

In terms of my business, I did what was required—I was there for my clients and enjoyed working with them—but I didn’t give my business as much attention as I usually do. Meanwhile, a deeper questioning had started in the first trimester, and it continued into the second:

“Do I really want to continue my business the way it is? What do I want my life to look like once the baby comes? Can I imagine a different path? Should I even plan something different?”

Typically, it’s not recommended to make major changes to your business during pregnancy because your energy is limited. But the experience itself was so destabilizing. It was unfamiliar territory, and I didn’t know how to navigate the confusion it created.

In my 2024 review, I shared how sharing my body with another soul created questions I had never asked myself before. It wasn’t just the idea of becoming a mother that shifted my perspective—it felt like someone had hijacked my way of thinking. It didn’t feel like “me” thinking anymore.

There were moments where I thought, “I don’t want to coach anymore,” even though coaching is something I’ve always loved so much. That was deeply destabilizing. I thought, “If I don’t want to coach anymore, what’s next? How do I move forward?”

At some point, though, I made the decision to surrender. Instead of resisting these thoughts and feelings, I decided to embrace them. I told myself, “Okay, if this pregnancy is going to change my business, let’s move with it. Maybe I won’t coach anymore. Maybe I won’t even have a coaching business. Maybe I’ll go back to being employed.”

I didn’t commit to any of these ideas—I just stopped resisting them. I allowed myself to explore all the possibilities without making any impulsive decisions.

The moment I surrendered, something shifted. The feelings of depression and resistance lifted, and I felt lighter. Resistance takes so much energy. By letting go, I started moving with the flow instead of against it.

Interestingly, I began enjoying coaching again. There was still a part of me that imagined not coaching anymore, and it made me sad to think about all the people I wouldn’t be able to help. I know I’m the right coach for certain people who really need my approach, and imagining stepping away from that was hard.

So, I started playing around with different ideas. “What would it look like if I stayed in business? What would it look like if I became employed again?” I let myself explore without the pressure of needing to decide right away.

As I said, it was the second trimester, and my focus was on enjoying life and taking care of myself. That felt amazing, and it gave me the clarity I needed to keep moving forward.

THE THIRD TRIMESTER: from exhaustion to support & creativity

Then came the third trimester, and I moved back to the U.S. If you’ve been following me, you know I moved to a new city. That came with the hustle of finding a new home and managing the logistics of the move itself. It was quite tiring. There were moments where I thought, “Was this a good idea?” But if you’ve listened to my 2024 review, you’ll know why it was the right decision and how I navigated everything. You can listen to it HERE.

In the third trimester, I found myself balancing the move, preparing for the baby, and still running my business. By then, I had settled into a new rhythm, but the challenges weren’t entirely gone. The questions from earlier in the pregnancy resurfaced, though this time with less intensity: “How will my life change once the baby is here? How will my business evolve? What do I really want moving forward?”

One of the most powerful lessons I’ve taken from this journey is the importance of allowing yourself to move with the flow. Pregnancy, especially as an entrepreneur, is a transformative experience. It brings uncertainty, doubt, and challenges that can destabilize your life and your business. But it also opens up the possibility for growth, reflection, and realignment.

For me, surrendering to the process—embracing the doubts and resisting the urge to make impulsive decisions—was the turning point. It allowed me to find clarity amidst the chaos and to reconnect with what I truly value in my life and business.

As I prepare for this next chapter, I feel a deeper sense of respect for myself and for all the women who go through this journey. Pregnancy isn’t just about the physical changes; it’s about navigating a profound transformation on every level—mental, emotional, and spiritual. It’s about redefining who you are and how you move through the world.

And here we are in the third trimester, arriving in a new home and restructuring my life. I realized that during the second trimester, I had lacked the structure of having a home and a set schedule—something that could allow me to have, I was going to say, productive thoughts. I simply didn’t have the structure to move my business forward.

Now, in the third trimester, with a home again, I could create more structure, and I found myself able to think more clearly. That was an interesting conclusion I drew because, in the second trimester, I was moving constantly—not every week, but quite regularly—and my schedule kept changing. This was something I had wanted, and I fully embraced and loved it.

But now, in the third trimester, I took notes because I wanted to share what’s happening inside of me and how I’ve been moving through it. I decided to really address what’s going on instead of just complaining about it. I thought, “Okay, now let’s move into action.”

Earlier, I shared how I surrendered to what was happening and began opening doors—or windows—to new possibilities. Now, in the third trimester, I made space for reflection. I went next to the pool with my notebook and pen and started writing everything down: what’s happening inside of me, what I’m feeling, and how I could respond to it. Instead of avoiding my thoughts and feelings, I addressed them concretely: What does this mean? How would it look? What are the options?

So here you are in my head.

– Option A: I find someone to help me with tasks I don’t have the energy or desire to do. I either move all my communication into French, English, or both. This isn’t just about the pregnancy—these are things that were already present before, but pregnancy brought them to the surface.

– Option B: I stop my business and look for a job, maybe after the baby is born. There was no set timeline.

Let’s dive deeper into Option A: keeping my business. What needs to change?

The question I asked myself was, “What is actually hard right now in your business?” So, I made a list of tasks that felt hard for me. Communication was at the top—I felt I wasn’t able to keep up. Then came the English-French dilemma: how would it look for my business to communicate in one or both languages? I listed out the feelings I was experiencing.

And the primary feeling was exhaustion. You’ve heard me talk about the first trimester and tiredness, but this lack of energy has been the defining theme of my entire pregnancy. It influenced my thoughts and feelings deeply.

I wrote in my notes: I feel exhausted. I feel like I don’t want to do this anymore. Then I asked myself, “Okay, how would it look if I didn’t do it anymore? What would a system look like that feels good and works for both my business and me?”

That’s a question we should ask ourselves whenever we feel our business is no longer working for us. And of course, you don’t have to be pregnant to reach that stage.

As I wrote down my thoughts, I realized I wanted to give my business one last chance. Before deciding to stop, I wanted to make the shifts I felt were necessary. Then, if it still didn’t feel aligned, I could step away and explore a new professional path.

As you can hear in the way I’m talking about this, I had made peace with whatever outcome might come. I didn’t think, “If I stop my business, it’s a failure.” Quite the opposite.

Some people come to me saying, “I want to find a professional path I can follow for the rest of my life.” But I see myself as an embodiment of change. What has been right for me over the last five years—more than five years—might not be right anymore. Even though I have this burning love for coaching, for my clients, and for self-development work, I accepted the idea that it might not remain my path.

Making peace with the possibility of change was liberating.

Still, I told myself, “First, give it another chance. Make the shifts that feel necessary and see if your perspective changes.”

So, I asked myself: “What shifts do you want to introduce? What new experiences do you want to create so that your business feels good again?”

My conclusion was that I needed to invest in support—someone who could help me with the tasks that already exist in my business and improve how it operates. I also asked myself, “Do I need a business coach? Should I invest in another program?”

I love coaching and mentoring, so part of me was drawn to the idea. But then I realized that what I truly needed wasn’t coaching—it was having people by my side to support me.

I listed my fears. My main fear was: “What if I don’t know exactly what I need? What if I can’t find the right person and lose money?”

Instead of letting those fears control me, I responded to them. I wrote down, in detail, what kind of person I would love to have by my side. What language would they speak? What would their mindset be? I opened myself to the possibility that I could find someone who matched my vision.

I also revisited the question of tasks. What feels exhausting to me? What do I not want to do anymore? What would that person’s role look like? Instead of ruminating, I focused on answering these questions concretely.

I have to share something here. About two years ago—or maybe a year and a half ago, I can’t remember exactly—I had already felt the need for support and decided to hire someone. The person I hired was incredibly professional and did a great job. However, I ended that collaboration for two reasons.

First, the cost was higher than what I could sustainably afford at the time, given my business’s financial situation. And second, I realized that the tasks I was delegating might not have been the best ones for my business.

When you’re working alone, you might not always question how you spend your time—you just do the tasks. But when I handed them over to someone else, I started asking myself, “Does this task really matter? Is it actually needed for my business?”

What I discovered was that some of these tasks didn’t need to be done at all. They no longer aligned with my business. That experience taught me a lot. But after that, I didn’t immediately look for someone else. It took me time to process those lessons and to truly understand what kind of support I needed.

This time, I approached things differently. I asked myself, “What budget do I have available to hire someone? How can I give myself the chance to experience running my business differently?”

After my session by the pool, where I wrote everything down, I felt like I had clear actions to take. I started reaching out to people in my network, asking, “Do you know someone who could help me with this?” I wasn’t 100% clear on exactly what I needed, but I had a starting point.

At the same time, another project I’d been dreaming about for months began to resurface—the very podcast you’re listening to, The Inner Space.

I’d had the idea for The Inner Space back in April. The name came to me right away, and I already knew how I wanted to structure it. But because of the pregnancy, it stayed in the “idea” phase for months. I simply didn’t have the energy to make it happen.

That lack of energy was one reason why doubts crept in during the pregnancy. I had so much creativity and so many ideas, but I wasn’t able to execute them. It felt frustrating, like I wasn’t moving forward. I thrive on projects—I need things to happen. I love creating and bringing ideas into reality. But during those months, nothing was moving, and that made me doubt myself.

In hindsight, the real issue wasn’t the doubts—it was the lack of energy causing them.

Finally, in my third trimester, The Inner Space began to take shape. I realized that it had been about nine months since the idea first came to me—how fitting for a pregnancy!

After my session by the pool, I decided to give myself another chance. I allocated a budget, committed to making the necessary changes, and told myself, “Let’s see what happens.”

If it worked, great—I’d have a fresh start. And if it didn’t, I was at peace with the idea of closing my business, fulfilling my promises to my clients, and moving toward something new.

In the meantime, I found someone amazing to help me. Together, we worked to bring The Inner Space to life. Without her support, this podcast wouldn’t exist today—I simply wouldn’t have been able to make it happen on my own.

So, what you can see is that pregnancy pushed me to take steps I’d needed to take in my business for a long time. It brought things to the surface—doubts, fears, and resistance—that had been there before but were amplified during this period.

Thanks to the support I invested in, not just for my business but also for preparing for childbirth, I was able to navigate these challenges. Having people to share with—people who were pregnant themselves, who had experienced pregnancy, or who were there to guide me—made the journey much smoother.

By the end of the third trimester, I felt a burst of energy—a creative alignment that extended not just to my baby, but also to my business. Suddenly, I was making progress. I planned content for four months, well beyond my maternity leave. In a month and a half, I accomplished what felt like three months of work.

This newfound energy didn’t erase my tiredness—I was still pregnant, after all—but it gave me the focus and motivation to make things happen. And because I had support, I wasn’t doing it alone.

I also decided to explore another question that had been lingering throughout my pregnancy: “Do I want to reorient my business entirely?”

One potential path I considered was shifting to focus solely on my healing art. If you’re watching the video version of this, you can see some of my artwork around me. This side of my work has grown over the past few years, and I wondered if it might become my main focus.

But as I reflected, I realized that coaching and healing art are deeply intertwined in my business. They work so well together, and I need both to feel balanced. My human design type is a manifesting generator, which means I thrive on variety. Letting go of coaching completely didn’t feel right.

Instead, I decided that my healing art needs to become a bigger priority within my business.

So, during this pregnancy, two major projects were born: this podcast, The Inner Space, and a renewed vision for my healing art. Both are guiding me as I move forward in my business.

CONCLUSION: a needed step for my business!

If I had to summarize my experience, I’d say this: pregnancy was destabilizing for both me and my business. But “destabilizing” isn’t a negative word—it’s part of the process of transformation. This chaos created something new.

I had to shift from a victim mindset—complaining, wishing things could go back to the way they were—to a mindset of surrender and acceptance. I stopped resisting, embraced the changes, and explored new options. I tested those options, adjusted where necessary, and moved forward.

Pregnancy pushed me to take steps I had been delaying for years, especially when it came to delegating. It prepared me for the life I’ll have after the baby arrives, where my time will be even more limited. I realized that I couldn’t continue running my business on my own, and I’m so grateful to have experienced the benefits of having support during this time.

This journey has been a training ground for what’s to come, and it’s shown me that change—even when it feels chaotic—can be a powerful force for growth.

I hope my story has given you some insight into navigating your own business journey, whether or not pregnancy is part of your experience. Thank you for listening to The Inner Space.

If you enjoyed this episode, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave a comment, share it with someone who might need encouragement, and make sure to subscribe.

Until next time, keep exploring your inner space—where authenticity sets you free.