This post is personal.
This has been a doozy of a week. I found out I was pregnant on Monday. Sunday night really. It was juuuust a bit of a surprise. The first thing that came to mind was “oh shit. I’m going to be raising capital for Edio when I’m nine months pregnant.”
In retrospect it was kind of hilarious actually for that thought to be the first thing you think of, but also terrifying, because I’ve never seen or heard of or known a female entrepreneur that has successfully gone out to raise capital, an early round at that, when she’s about to pop out a baby. The only known instance of a seriously pregnant woman in the business spotlight that I can even recall is when Marisa Mayer got the Yahoo job and was 7 mos pregnant. Maybe that was a good thing because it has happened before and never made the news. Or maybe it is horrifyingly bad because it has happened and they just have never gotten funded and no one likes to talk about it.
So anyway, by Wednesday I’m coming to terms with the fact that life is life and there is never a good time to do anything – there’s only what you are put on this earth to do. So great… I’m going to start a company with my brilliant friend and go out pitching like a pregnant boss.
And by Friday, today, this morning actually, it looks like little zygote was not interested in sticking around for that journey.
Yes, I’m sad. Devastated. But really, I’m also kind of pissed off.
(This is about the time when you, reader, stop feeling any sympathy for me because I get a little selfish.)
Tactically, the week has been a bear. I quit coffee and wine in an instant and negotiated my way around third and fifth graders in observations the first half of the week. Of course now that I was pregnant I HAD to eat like an angel and decidedly cut out most simple carbs, which anyone who has done this can tell you is fucking horrible. Then I pitched to some VCs and had several other feedback & exploration meetings, one of which was an hour after the doctors appointment which confirmed my miscarriage. Why didn’t I move my meetings, you ask? Well, you just don’t do that.
Sure I’m pretty good at compartmentalizing, but life did feel a little unfair at that point. But, like I said before. Life is life, and if this was how it was meant to be, then this is the challenge that I meant to have.
Why, you ask, am I sharing this very personal part of my life on a very public content platform? This is it. Life is life, and it is messy. That’s okay. We shouldn’t have to pretend that we are perfect beings in any context of our lives. Because all of these facets of ourselves will intermingle with each other whether we like it or not. What we experience at home affects how we show up at work and vice versa, no matter how hard we try to hide it. And if you fight that, then you aren’t being true to yourself and aren’t giving yourself the opportunity to be your best and truest self.
I am very excited and thankful to have had the opportunity to feel the feeling of creation from within. My son B is now almost 4 so I had forgotten that amazing feeling. And I’m so excited about the idea of adding to our family. So when that time comes, it’s going to be a doozy of a year. No questions about that. And while I guess now I don’t need to drink coffee anymore, I am definitely ready for that glass of wine. Cheers to love and life and creating.
Annie Tsai 