I used to have a recurring nightmare that, in active labor and on a hospital gurney, I said to my medical team, “Hold on, I just need to post this on Instagram real quick.” 

I’d wake up breathless, my heart racing, terrified that my boss was mad at me. 

I was not pregnant, but I was aspiring to be pregnant. And I worked on the Nordstrom Rack marketing team supporting social media, influencer marketing and business public relations. It was my favorite job in terms of actual job responsibilities. Fashion! Social media! Travel! Nordstrom. 

But, I worried a lot. How could I possibly do this job and have a family? Between my one coworker and one manager, we posted on Instagram alone at least 14 times a week (twice every day). We managed a creative agency, dozens of influencers, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat, and Vine. Remember Vine? Some of you remember Vine. 

We oversaw a customer service team, hundreds of store teams, and weekly reporting. We also traveled around the country opening new stores, speaking to media, and creating content. 

It was so fun. And so stressful. 

By the time I arrived at the hospital in labor with my first child a few years later, I had worked a full day at my last corporate job ever, as the digital marketing manager for Gene Juarez Salons & Spas. My terribly demoralizing conversations with HR told me nothing about taking time before pushing out a baby. My friends at companies like Amazon and the like enjoyed pre-baby leave. I figured I’d work until I couldn’t. Women have been doing this for millennia. And, besides, I didn’t have any time off accrued or available anyway. 

I was given six weeks unpaid leave. My husband, a new employee at his company, stayed home with us two days. 

While I sat isolated in my house with my infant — crying, eating peanut butter pretzels, breastfeeding, bleeding and watching Friday Night Lights in its entirety…twice — I registered my LLC. I didn’t want that recurring nightmare to come true, and I knew that it would if I kept going the way I had been. I didn’t see a path forward for me in the corporate world. I’m too much of a maverick, too sensitive to feedback, and mostly unwilling to fit into someone else’s box. 

I decided this child would see me work hard. He would come with me as much as he could (and I wanted him to), and he’d see me make something of myself on my terms. 

By the time my daughter arrived two years later, I worked from the NICU for three days while machines dried out her lungs from fluid inhalation. The nightmare had not come true. I wasn’t worried about posting for a boss. I had to keep my brain busy, especially while I had child care. What I learned about myself was that the energy behind my work was different when I worked for myself. It was completely driven by desire instead of demand. 

Now, seven years into my business, I wouldn’t necessarily feel the need to work from the NICU. I have a team in place and a lot more support. I’m more willing to ask for help. But I also wouldn’t be opposed to keeping my brain busy with things I find purposeful — things that support my values (community, locality, stories) —and that move my family forward. 

One of my best friends recently lost her mom to ALS. Our dads died three weeks apart in 2012 — hers unexpectedly, mine expectedly. She’s an orphan in her 30s raising a daughter who was born a month after my son was. 

I asked her how soon she planned to go back to work. “Tomorrow,” she said, barely a week after her mom had passed. “I need it.” 

“I get that,” I replied. “I’d do the same.” 

In my perfect world, work and life blend in a way that allows you to be a full person. Births and deaths are both periods of grief. They are huge transitions, transitions that take you from who you were to who you’re becoming. There is a time to stare out the window and feel your feelings, surely. There is a time to post on Instagram if that’s something you desire. And there is a time for distraction, for work, for purpose. 

I have no regrets about working from the NICU, but I would have regretted the need to post from the gurney. I don’t know if the distinction makes sense to you, but it certainly does to me. 

Big life things invite us to get closer to ourselves, especially when they’re laced with pain. But it’s the little life things — the daily decisions — that get us where we’re going. 

And the best part? Every day is an opportunity to decide what’s next.

— By Whitney Popa

Whitney Popa is a writer, editor, and consultant for little companies with big dreams. A born communicator, she connects people through stories. She believes strongly in many things, including expensive sweat suits, offroad vehicles, good books and bad TV. With her two cats, two kids, and one husband, Whitney splits her time between Edmonds and Waterville, WA.