一个怀孕CEO的自白：三种方法解决职业女性的孕期困扰

2011年，当我发现我怀上我的儿子阿尔琼时，我正忙着运营一家雄心勃勃，工作节奏非常快的初创公司。当时，我和丈夫都为即将为人父母而兴奋异常。阿尔琼的预产期是2012年夏天，不过那并不是一个迎接人生大事最方便的时候。八月是Piazza公司每年最忙碌的月份——Piazza是我于2009年创办的一个大学咨询和就业平台。随着学生和教授们陆续返校，我们要忙着签约和吸引新用户，调试网站，回答成千上万的问题。2012年，我们的产品还在试运营。我的团队还是一支由实习生和兼职人员凑成的临时队伍，既年轻又没有经历过考验。不用说，我必须事无巨细地参与每个决策。

为生孩子休三个月的产假是不可能的，我只休了四天的产假。在我把儿子从医院抱回家以后，团队成员立即就聚到我家开会。我现在已经记不太清最初那几个疯狂的星期了——这可能是件好事，但我仍记得我当时感受到的那种内疚感：我没有好好陪儿子，没有在那些珍贵的小时光里和他在一起。

六个月后，我的工作时间又恢复到怀孕之前，不过我不再喝咖啡了（很不幸有些人跟着倒霉了），依然很难掌控自己的情绪。直到阿尔琼的第一个生日，我还在努力减掉妊娠期的体重（这对于我来说比运营一家公司还费力）——每次见到一碗麦片，我都想把它狼吞虎咽地吃掉。

整个经历比我预想的要困难得多。这似乎是世界上最明显的事情，但对于有工作的母亲来说，这的确是一场艰巨的战斗。现在我又怀上了一个女儿，这次，我要向生理的现实让步。怀孕是很辛苦的，产后恢复则更困难。我已经接受了现在的工作效率只能达到平常80%的事实。不过现在我还在做一些事，以确保这次我能恢复得更快一些——而且还要确保，就在我全心全意准备把一个健康的孩子带到世上时，我的公司能够像以往一样运行良好。

照顾自己的健康。我从不重视健身，在印度长大的我从小就没有养成这种习惯，这使我的第一次怀孕几乎成了一场噩梦。由于我每天有好几个小时都坐着，很少运动，所以到了第六个月的时候，我几乎不能动弹。我们只好重装了洗手间的卫生纸托，因为我够不着它原来的位置。但这一次，通过一系列体重锻炼（虽然仍然不喜欢），加上经常看脊椎保健医师，我还算保持了比较好的活动能力。为了始终把保持健康放在第一位，我还专门在日历上设定了锻炼时间，经常是在每天的中午。而且只要可能的话，我会有意把事情委托给别人做。作为公司的创始人，我每天都很容易被大大小小的急事淹没，所以放手把事情交给别人往往是比较难的。但有利的一面在于，怀孕第八个月时，我还可以走路！

制订自己的日程安排。怀阿尔琼的时候，我经常早上三四点钟就醒了，而且很难再次入睡，因此经常在最后一分钟取消早会。这次我不再接受10点以前的会议，有时甚至在中午之前也不安排任何事。如果我在四点起床，再也睡不着，我就不会再强迫自己入睡，而是打开电脑，享受一些不被打扰的工作时间，然后在上午补一觉，再去办公室。为了节省体力，我选择在家工作，尽量通过电话远程遥控。为了保持冷静，我基本上全天都在嚼冰块，我的团队只好努力对我嚼冰块的声音充耳不闻。灵活的工作安排提高了我的工作效率，也让我更加理解其他为了照顾孩子而要求灵活工作的女性。

让员工做好准备。在我第一次休产假时，由于我没有歇下来的打算，因此我也没有花时间让我的员工做好我不在的准备。而这一次，幸运的是我已经有了一批值得信任的员工，他们已经陪伴我走过了好几年的创业历程。我一直和他们一起做几个不同的项目，而且在这些项目启动的头几个周，我有意放慢进展速度。这些都不是特别重要的项目，不需要我全程监管，不过至少我知道，在我不在的一个月里，公司可以继续前行。但是他们显然没有完全脱离我——这也不是我的性格。不过我希望可以把休产假变成一项资源，而不是当一个每天事无巨细亲历亲为的领导者。我希望女儿的降生不仅能够让我有机会多陪陪家人，同时也给我的团队提供一个成长、决策、自行解决问题的机会。

我意识到，能够灵活地度过第二次孕期，实在是一件极为幸运的事。不幸的是，对大多数女性来说，这是无法获得的奢侈品。也就是说，许多职业女性应该鼓起勇气要求一些必要的条件。首先，我们大多数人可以留出至少一点保健和锻炼的时间。在我的公司，员工们经常进行一对一的“散步”会议。也就是不坐在办公室里开会，而是在帕洛阿尔托市中心的街道上边走边说。天气不好的时候我们就围着办公室走（我已经学会忽略人们投来的奇怪眼光）。这种小小的改变就能让你变得更快乐和健康。

其次是灵活性问题。我们不可能把所有的会议都拖到下午，但在如今这样一个时代，为什么我们还要整天待在办公室呢？有了笔记本电脑、Skype和谷歌Hangouts功能，我们偶尔也可以在家里开会，尤其是怀孕晚期上下班非常不便的时候。我知道，作为女人，我们有时候不好意思提要求，但是在人生的某个阶段，你就是得自私一点，而这个阶段就是现在（如果它能帮助你的孩子健康成长，这样做就算不上自私）。

最后是棘手的产假问题。美国的产假政策离人们的期望相差甚远，我见过很多女性和她们的经理一道，试图找出创造性的解决方案来增补休假时间。以我们公司的市场副总裁为例，她在休完产假之后，第一个月是“半工作半产假”的状态，所以她能渐渐地完成回归正常工作的过渡。你可以问公司能否允许你不全勤工作，而是在家工作几个月，或是用年假、病假来兑换额外的产假。或者如果你能接受不带薪休假的话，那就坚决休假，不要有任何负罪感！

我已经等不及和家人一起度过30天的时间了，而我也同样迫不及待地想重返公司——它是我的另一个孩子。

本文作者普贾•桑卡尔是Piazza公司的创始人兼CEO。Piazza是一家社交型学习与就业平台，它可以帮助大学生与同学和导师实时互联。（财富中文网）

译者：朴成奎

In 2011, when I discovered I was pregnant with my son, Arjun, I was busy running an ambitious, fast-paced start-up. While my husband and I were beyond excited to become parents, Arjun’s due date in summer of 2012 wasn’t the most convenient time for this major life event. August is the most critical month of year at Piazza, the college Q&A and recruiting platform I founded in 2009. As students and professors return to campus, we scramble to sign up and onboard new users, tweak our website, and address thousands of questions. In 2012, we were still experimenting with our product; my team, a makeshift assemblage of interns and part-timers, was young and untested. Needless to say, I was involved in every decision.

Taking three months off to care for a newborn just didn’t seem possible. Instead, I took four days. Team members came to my house for meetings almost immediately after I brought Arjun home from the hospital. I don’t remember much about those crazy first few weeks — and that’s probably a good thing — but I do recall a nagging feeling of guilt that I wasn’t properly bonding with my son, or managing to be present during those rare, precious little moments.

Six months later, I was working the same hours as before my pregnancy, but without coffee (which was really unfortunate for everyone involved), and I still had very little control over my emotions. As Arjun’s first birthday rolled around, I was still struggling to lose my baby weight (for me, this proved much more strenuous than running a company – I’ve rarely seen a bowl of cereal I haven’t wanted to devour).

The whole experience was much harder than I ever expected. It now seems like the most obvious thing in the world, but working mothers really do face an uphill battle. I am now pregnant again, with a daughter, and this time I’m giving in to the biological reality of my situation. Pregnancy is hard; post-partum recovery is harder. I have accepted that I can only operate at 80% of my typical productivity level right now. But I’m also doing a few things to ensure that I bounce back faster — and that my company gets along just fine while I focus on bringing a healthy infant into the world.

I’m taking care of myself. I was never big on working out. It just wasn’t part of my upbringing in India, which made my first pregnancy something of a nightmare. Because I spent hours each day sitting and doing very little exercise, I was barely mobile by month six. No, really: We had to reinstall the toilet paper holder in our bathroom because I couldn’t twist around to reach it. This time, I’m staying (relatively) mobile with a combination of weight-training (still hate it) and regular visits to my chiropractor. To prioritize my health, I’ve blocked out time on my calendar for workouts, often in the middle of the day, and I’ve made a conscious effort to delegate where possible. It’s easy, as a founder, to get swept up in every minor office emergency, so this has often been difficult. But the upside is that at eight month’s pregnant, I can actually walk!

I’m making my own schedule. When I was pregnant with Arjun, I’d wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning and, unable to fall back asleep, end up canceling my early morning meeting at the last-minute. This time, I’m not accepting meetings before 10 a.m., or sometimes even before noon. If I wake up at 4 a.m. and can’t sleep, I no longer beat myself up. I just turn on my computer and enjoy some uninterrupted work time, then take a mid-morning nap before heading into the office. I’m also working from home and doing remote calls as much as possible to conserve energy; my team has had to learn to block out the crunching sound of the ice I chew 24/7 to keep cool. Having a flexible schedule improves my productivity — and has given me a lot of empathy for other women who desire flexible arrangements as they care for young children.

I’m preparing my team. Because I had no intention of slowing down during my first “maternity leave,” I spent very little time preparing my staff for my absence. This time, I’m lucky to have trusted employees who have been with me for several years, and I’ve been working with them to figure out discrete projects they can accomplish while I take it slow during those first few weeks. They’re not mission-critical projects that would require my oversight, but at least I know the company will be making progress during my month away. They’re obviously not getting rid of me completely—that’s not my personality—but I’m hoping to spend my maternity leave more as a resource than as a day-to-day hands-on leader. I want my daughter’s birth to be, in addition to a chance for me to spend some meaningful time with my family, an opportunity for my team to grow, make decisions, and figure things out on their own.

I realize that I’m extremely fortunate to be in a position to have this flexibility for my second pregnancy. Unfortunately, most women don’t have this same level of luxury. That said, there are some accommodations that should be within reach for many professional women who summon up the courage to ask. For starters, most of us can carve out at least some minimal time for health and fitness. At my company, it’s common for employees to have “walking” one-on-one meetings. Instead of booking a conference room, we have our conversations strolling the streets of downtown Palo Alto. And in bad weather, we just walk around the office (I’ve learned to ignore the strange looks)! You’ll be surprised how just this small change can make you happier and healthier.

Then there’s the issue of flexibility. We can’t all postpone meetings until noon, but in this day and age, why do we really need to be in the office all day? Between laptops, Skype, and Google Hangouts, we should on occasion be able to take meetings from home, especially late in the pregnancy when long commutes can be particularly uncomfortable. I know as women we can sometimes hesitate to ask, but if there’s one time in your life you should be selfish, it’s now (and after all, it’s not selfish if it’s helping your baby thrive).

And then there’s the thorny question of maternity leave. While the maternity leave policy in the U.S. leaves a tremendous amount to be desired, I’ve seen lots of women work with their managers to figure out creative solutions to supplement their leave. My own vice president of marketing worked part-time for a month after her full-time leave ended, so she was able to gently transition back to her job. Ask if you can work part time, work from home for a few months, or creatively use your vacation and sick days to get that extra time. If you’re fortunate enough to work at a firm that provides adequate paid maternity leave, or if you can afford to take unpaid leave, then by all means take it, and don’t feel guilty!

I can’t wait for my 30 days of family bonding – nor can I wait to return to my other baby, my company.

PoojaSankar is founder and CEO of Piazza, a social learning and recruiting platform that connects college students with classmates and instructors in real-time.