Show Notes

Today’s episode is going to be a little different than our usual kind of episodes on a Designer Practice podcast because today we’re going to be discussing something that I don’t think we talk enough about as therapists, which is private practice and pregnancy, and how to manage business ownership, professionalism and the dreaded pregnancy symptoms as they arise.

Unlike most other episodes, I think this episode is going to be more raw and real as this was a huge struggle for me during my pregnancy. So I’m going to give a warning that you might hear just about anything in this episode.

However, this topic is near and dear to my heart because I know how challenging pregnancy was for me. Maybe even for others. In fact, it was so tough that it took me almost two years to record this episode. At the time this episode is going live, my child will be almost 20 months old.

This episode will be kind of a two-part series with this week being all about private practice and pregnancy, and next week we’re going to be diving into private practice and maternity leave with a good friend of mine, Rachel Sansone.

So, in today’s episode, I will be discussing private practice and pregnancy: how to balance life, practice, and pregnancy symptoms, particularly from my experience while I was pregnant.

Common Private Practice Questions

As a private practice owner who may be pregnant, you may be struggling with several thoughts.

(1) How do I manage running a practice while experiencing pregnancy symptoms?

(2) What do I tell clients when I’m pregnant?

(3) What do I say to them, and when do I decide to tell them?

(4) Also, what happens if I go into labor before my scheduled leave of absence?

While I might not have all the answers for you in today’s episode, I’ve definitely navigated through this all myself and I’ll share with you my experience and what has helped me navigate these very questions.

But before we dive in, I want to give a disclaimer that the content in this episode is based on my own experience and of course, my own opinions regarding my particular situation. I want to acknowledge that many expecting parents have experiences and circumstances that are very different from my own. So please know that this episode isn’t meant to be an exhaustive or complete guide, but instead suggestions based on my own experience and what worked and didn’t work for me.

Pregnancy and Private Practice

So, for me, navigating private practice through pregnancy was no small feat. The aches and the pains, mental and physical exhaustion, and the worst symptom of all was morning sickness that actually worsened in late afternoon into the evening. It goes without saying that all of these symptoms made it extremely difficult to provide one-to-one sessions.

Fortunately, I will say that I never threw up once during a client session, which was my biggest fear. Also, like many people in their first trimester, I didn’t want to tell anyone, including family and friends before the 12 week mark. But all of the symptoms made it very challenging to balance.

While the second trimester, many of my symptoms went away, a noticeable baby bump, magically appeared, and by the third trimester there’s no way to hide it.

From providing client sessions to getting my case notes done, everything seemed like a much bigger task than it did before. Now for me, I work virtually from home, so it was much easier for me to prolong the client disclosures and discussions regarding maternity leave. However, the physical symptoms and emotional exhaustion are definitely culprits of my mind and my body. Which made it difficult to truly engage in some client sessions. But I managed to get through it with these notable strategies.

Pregnancy Symptoms and Practice Changes

Now it goes without saying that through pregnancy I had to make significant changes in how I ran my practice to accommodate for pregnancy symptoms. It’s interesting because while I knew that I would have to make some serious shifts during maternity leave, I did not prepare for the changes that I would need to make in pregnancy. I may have been a little naive. But I truly thought that I had nine months until I had to think about any of those changes.

But lo and behold, once pregnancy symptoms showed up, morning sickness specifically, I was forced to change when I started and ended my day.

Change with Appointment Slots

Prior to pregnancy, I usually started my day at 8:00 AM or 9:00 AM given the day and ended between 4:00 PM and 5:00 PM. However, for the first 15 weeks of pregnancy, I had to change the start and end time of my day to accommodate morning sickness, or again, in my case, evening sickness.

Instead of starting my day at 8:00 AM or 9:00 AM I started scheduling sessions at 10:00 AM so I could get a little bit of extra sleep to help with the emotional exhaustion, and I usually ended sessions by 3:00 PM because sickness usually peaked in late afternoon and evening. By four o’clock I was hovering the toilet.

Fortunately, I’m the kind of person who never promises clients the same time slot each week, as I’ve always preferred to book clients week by week, as it just provides additional flexibility and autonomy over my schedule. So, this shift in time didn’t signal any suspicion by clients as I didn’t offer earlier or later time slots, knowing that I couldn’t accommodate them.

Give Extra Time In-Between Sessions

In addition to changing the start and end times of my day, due to the physical and emotional exhaustion, I had to change how much time I gave myself in between sessions as well.

Prior to pregnancy, I would often do three sessions in a row, take a two-hour break, and do another three sessions. But once the exhaustion set in, I couldn’t keep up with the same momentum, especially in those early days. So, I changed my appointment frequency to accommodate breaks. I opted for two sessions from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM and I would take a one-hour break, which I usually napped because I do have the luxury from working from home. And then I would do two more sessions between 1:00 PM and 3:00 PM.

Now I want to acknowledge that not everyone has the ability to work from home, so I suggest breaking up your schedule so that it best supports you, your symptoms, and your client caseload.

Change Up Work Days

Another shift in my schedule I made was the days of the week that I had worked.

Prior to pregnancy, I usually booked paid clients between Monday and Wednesday, leaving Thursdays and Fridays as wild card days for consultations, marketing, bookkeeping, working on my passive income and so on.

But because I couldn’t keep up with six sessions a day, I chose to be more flexible on Thursday and Fridays, where I would take on some paid clients during those days to make up for the potential loss in income, seeing only four clients per day.

Pregnancy and Passive Income

However, one of the biggest things I was grateful for during this time and during my maternity leave for that matter was the passive income streams I had built into my practice so that I still had some income coming in, even if I didn’t make the usual client caseload any particular week. From my online course to my blogs to this very podcast, they all contributed for me being able to have a little bit less of a stressful pregnancy and of course maternity leave.

While I often preach the benefits of passive income prior to pregnancy and also my maternity leave, I can certainly say that passive income streams are not only lifesavers in this situation, they are life changers.

That’s why I’ve actually finished writing my book, the Passive Practice, this summer, because I want all practice owners to have the same schedule flexibility and time freedom that I had through my passive income streams.

And if it weren’t for those passive income streams, I’m not sure what I would have done during pregnancy and maternity leave. If you’re curious about my passive income book, it isn’t out on shelves just yet as it’s still going through the editing and publishing process. However, my goal is to have it available for sale by November 2025. Once it’s available, you’ll be able to find it on Amazon. So keep an eye out for that.

But back to passive income and pregnancy, passive income can change the foundation of your practice where you could work with clients (when you can), without the pressure of having to feel that strain on yourself, like pregnancy symptoms in my case.

Passive income can give you the freedom to take it slow during pregnancy, help cushion the financial blow during maternity leave, and support your budget during sick leave or family emergencies such as when your child is home sick from daycare. While that’s a story for next week’s episode, I can certainly say once my daughter was born, sickness become a regular in our home.

Self-Compassion

The next thing I did for myself was give myself self-compassion. My usual go-getter attitude and ambition wasn’t at its all-time high. If anything, it was at its all-time low during pregnancy. In fact, I felt so drained that I regularly told my family and friends, it felt like I was the least productive I have ever been in my entire life, and I’m not joking about that.

However, fortunately I have some really great friends and one told me something that really helped bring everything into perspective. She said to me, and I quote, “It might feel like you’re less productive in your work, but you’re making a human being and you’re really working on overtime.” Wow, that was so impactful when she said that to me.

So, for any mamas to be out there feeling like you are the least productive you’ve ever been, you’re seen. I hear you. I see you. I hope this quote helps you like it did me, because yeah. While it may not be the same type of productive that we’re traditionally used to, your body is on overtime, when you sleep, when you eat, and when you’re awake, and also when you’re with clients. So, no wonder we’re so tired all of the time.

So, after that, I gave myself self-compassion and permission to not meet all of my usual expectations.

Pregnancy and Client Notifications

When to Tell Clients

One thing I know that some therapists struggle with is when to notify clients about pregnancy and of course their maternity leave. Although I don’t have the exact answer for you, I do want to say that I believe only you know when it is best to inform your clients.

While you may have some colleagues that share their pregnancy in the first trimester. There are likely others, like me, who shared their pregnancy in the third. I think just like when you decide to tell your family and friends, it’s a deeply personal decision that only you can make for yourself and your clients.

However, in saying that, I think it’s also important to balance an appropriate notification time so that you and clients can discuss their therapeutic needs and possible referrals for a smooth transition. For me, I provided about three months’ notice of my maternity leave.

How to Tell Clients

Another thing that I’ve heard some therapists struggle with is how to tell clients that they’re pregnant. Again, I wish I could remember the exact script that I provided, but I’m pretty sure like most people, I worried about this part and may have even appeared a little bit awkward sharing it with clients.

Although I work as a business coach with therapists who are probably the most thoughtful and caring people out there. At the time of my pregnancy, I also had worked with about eight to 10 therapy clients as well. Those are clients that I had been seeing for years prior.

While I don’t remember the exact script that I used with either my business coach and clients or therapy clients, I know I chose to wait until the last 10 minutes of the client session to inform each client. As I mentioned that I decided on telling them around a three-month mark, so depending on the client’s appointment date to my due date, I told him around that three-month mark.

While I can’t remember the exact words I used. I know it was something on the line of, “I want to inform you that as of this date, I will be going on a maternity leave. In our upcoming sessions, we will discuss your ongoing care and clinical options so that we have a strong care plan during my absence.” It might have not have been as professional, but if I had my time back, this is exactly what I would want it to be.

I also asked if they had any questions or concerns after the notification. My decision for waiting for the end of session was to keep the focus of the session on the client and their needs instead of me and my pregnancy, and of course, maternity leave. Also, I wanted clients to have some time to process the information, in between sessions, before diving into the planning stage of my leave.

In saying that some therapists may choose to tell clients at the beginning of a session, which two would also be appropriate.

Also, I want to say that when I did tell my therapy and my business coaching clients about my pregnancy, they were all very receptive and supportive, and none stopped working with me because of my impeding leave. In fact, many continued working with me once I returned from maternity leave because we’ve already built that trusting relationship. In addition, any new clients that came in. They still chose to work with me, even though I would tell them in the first session that I was pregnant.

So, I guess my point here is while it’s normal to worry about clients and their responses to the news of you being pregnant. At least in my experience, most clients were really understanding, and I know for me, I definitely worked it up more in my head than it ever was for any client.

Early Labour and Private Practice

So, what if you go into labor earlier than your expected leave of absence? What do you do?

Well, this very thing did happen to me. Again, I’m probably super naive, but I plan to work up until one week before my due date. However, I went into labor two weeks before my scheduled due date. So let me paint you a picture here. It was a Tuesday, right after a long weekend. As it was after a long weekend. I had a full day of appointments because of course I was trying to jam pack everyone in before my scheduled departure the following week, 7:00 AM Tuesday, my water broke. While my husband drove me to the hospital, I sent all of my clients’ emails, canceling appointments, so literally in labor, heading to the hospital, emailing clients from my phone.

Now, let me back up a little bit here I am a planner, so it goes without saying I plan for every possible situation imaginable, including having a draft letter written in my email just in case this very thing happened.

So let me tell you what my draft email was.

Hi, [Client name],

Unfortunately, I will have to start my maternity leave early, so I will have to cancel our appointment for [insert the day]. I apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you for understanding.

Now, it’s short and sweet, but remember that all of my clients are already notified about my impending maternity leave. So all clients had been notified that I may need to cancel at any time, and they understood that.

So having this in my drafts, it was easy for me just to copy and paste the draft and send it to each of my clients for that day and the rest of the week.

So, I guess my suggestions here are:

(1) First, discuss with your clients about the process if you do go on an early maternity leave.

(2) Also have a draft email written in your email just in case you’re like me and you’re messaging clients while you’re on your way to the hospital.

Conclusion

So, I think if there’s one thing I’d like you to take away from today is that there isn’t a right or wrong way to handle private practice and pregnancy. At the end of the day, what you do, how you do it, and even when you do it, is a deeply personal decision. Going back to the quote my friend said to me, “you are making a human being and you’re working on over time.”

That means what you need in those moments are important for you and your baby. Also, you’re a human and your clients are humans. They will understand.

Anyway, thank you everyone for tuning into today’s episode, and I hope you join me again soon on The Designer Practice Podcast.

Until next time, bye for now.

Credits & Disclaimers

Music by ItsWatR from Pixabay

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