A Personal Update

It’s been a while since I’ve done a personal update and there’s been a big thing that’s been going on in my life – something that’s completely turned our lives upside down. And is likely to do plenty more up-turning of our lives in the future. So I’m pausing the usual programming to share…

Andy and I are growing a little person!

We’re both very stoked and enjoying the whole process. Well… most of it. Some parts are a little less enjoyable – like the nausea I’ve had the past 2 weeks (just started in the second trimester, ugh!) and the crazy-tiredness. I’m having to nap most afternoons just to feel vaguely normal.

But mostly, we’re just in awe of the crazy miracle of being involved in creating a little person. We picked up a book that details the baby’s development each week and it’s been amazing to read and picture our little person starting to beat it’s heart at just 5 weeks, facial features developing by week 7, all of its body parts and organs in place by week 12, and doubling in size each week. Seeing the little 5cm bean on the ultrasound at 7 weeks, and hearing its heartbeat with the Doppler for the first time at 10 weeks were incredible moments.

As we’ve been sharing our news with people over the past few weeks, there have been some questions that people ask over and over again, so I thought I’d answer them here in case you’re curious too…

“I thought you guys would never have kids…”

Okay, so that’s not a question, but it’s been one of the most common responses. Andy and I are coming up for 12 years of marriage. We’ve always warded off the nosy questions about children with cheeky comments. Andy’s favorite when people have asked him, “Don’t you want to have children?” is, “I love children… I just couldn’t eat a whole one…” (Cracks me up every time!)

Well, I guess life is surprising sometimes

Where will you have the baby?

We’re going to stick around in Calgary until June next year, so we’ll have the baby here. I have a genetic kidney disorder, so I need extra monitoring throughout the pregnancy and I need to stick around with doctors who know my story. Besides, something biological has kicked in and I’ve got all sorts of urges to create “stability,” so the idea of moving to another city just doesn’t sound fun for the next while.

Are you going to find out the baby’s gender?

Probably not. We don’t mind if it’s a boy or girl, we can’t imagine that we’d do anything differently as we prepare for the birth if we knew the gender and we’re enjoying savoring the mystery of it all.

When is the baby due?

The end of February 2011. Although I have a hunch about this baby arriving a little early… we’ll see.

Don’t you miss your family in South Africa now?

Yes. Very much. I want my mom to make me her thick home-made vegetable soup, and my mother-in-law to make me her awesome oat crunchies. I wish I could pop over and complain about the weird stuff that happens to your mind and body when you’re pregnant with my calm and sensible big-sister-in-law, and freak my younger sisters out with the same stories. I’m craving Bovril and Boerewors. And I miss my SA girlfriends loads.

I’m sure there’s some biological tribal stuff that kicks in when you’re pregnant – it’s a time when you’re meant to rally your tribe around you, right? And the really big transitions in life are meant to be shared and celebrated with the people that matter most to you. So yeah, being apart from family and long-time friends right now sucks.

But we’re very lucky to have already made some good friends here in Calgary – way quicker than when we went to London. Andy’s thriving in his work here and life really is good for us here.

Have you decided on any names yet?

Nope. So far Andy’s pushing for “Juggernaut.”

Are you done with traveling and location independent life for now?

Who knows? I’m not up for moving around until this little guy is out in the big, wide world. I’ve also been surprised at how much this pregnancy is already shifting our priorities, and I expect there will be plenty more priority-shifting to come, so it seems premature to make any decisions at this stage. We don’t have the feeling that we want to stay in Calgary long-term though, and there’s the potential for us to move to the USA mid-next year, so we’ll see…

I don’t think that having a baby/ child prevents you from traveling if that’s what you still want to do – there are enough examples of people enjoying traveling with a child (My friends, Adam and Courtney Baker, Lea and Jonathan Woodward, Soultravelers3, GotPassport, and Christine Gilbert for starters). We’ll continue to live light so that it’s easy to move on when we desire.

My work will stay location independent – this is certainly a benefit when it comes to becoming a parent and having the flexi-time to manage work and parenting in the way that suits you best. I have a new respect for women who manage full-time jobs and families while they’re pregnant – especially those who suffer from bad morning sickness. I’ve been fortunate that on the days when I feel really yuck or tired, because I work from home, I can stay in my PJs or crawl back to bed and I can nap between my scheduled appointments.

What’s happening with Agile Living and The Bottom-line Bookclub?

I can’t keep working the way I’ve been working. I’m already too tired to keep up the pace and once our little person arrives, I want to be able to fully enjoy being a mum. So my business is going to be doing some growing up over the next year. Here’s some of what you can expect coming up and I’ll share the rest as I finalize my decisions:

• You may have already noticed that my “coaching” and “about” pages have been reviewed and tightened up. From a coaching perspective, I’m going to be focusing on work-related coaching, helping people to create more motivation, mastery, meaning and money in their work. This is mostly what people have been coming to me for over the past 6 months. My coaching page says more about that. From next month I’m going to be limiting my coaching clients to 5 people a month so that it’s manageable for me. So if you’d like to be one of the 5, drop me an email.
• The Dreaming To Delivering Mastermind group I’ve been running has been even more fun for me than I had imagined and I’ve had great feedback from the current members. I’ve loving doing it and I’ve had some exciting doors opening for me to develop this side of my business, so I’m going to be focusing more on helping coaches and consultants to create high quality digital programs that enable them to share their expertise more widely and build a strong brand. I’m particularly interested in helping coaches and consultants to create digital programs that people actually open and use, so that they’ll get the intended results – the open and use rate on digital programs is notoriously low and there are a lot of coaching skills required to help people to be motivated to open and use your digital program. I’ll share more in the next few weeks about some exciting stuff I’m going to be doing with another coach – someone who’s work I’ve followed and admired for a long while. The next D2D mastermind group starts 6 October , and there’s an early-bird cut-off date for a discounted price, so if you’d like to join us, sign up soon.
• The Bottom-line Bookclub will continue as is for this year, but I’m hatching some changes for next year – I’ll keep you updated.
• The Agile Living Manifesto is still sitting, beckoning for me to complete it. The problem is that it’s really a book, so I’ve decided to put this project on hold until next year, when I hope to be ready to get back to birthing it as both a manifesto and a book.
• Look out for a newly revamped website at www.agileliving.net in the next week or so!

Are you taking maternity leave?

Yes, I will be taking some form of maternity leave. I’ll firm up the plans closer to the time, but I’ll probably take a full 4 months off when the baby is born and then, as I feel ready, start easing back into coaching and my other offerings part-time.