I became fully self-employed in the summer of 2011. And I found out I was pregnant with Little Cotton Candy in March 2012. At the time of my pregnancy, I was working as a part time editor for one website and working toward getting more work to ramp up to full time. In other words, my freelancing career was in its infancy.

I need to preface this post with the fact that I have a steady contract with the companies that I freelance for. I do a set amount of work and receive payment on a biweekly basis. So unlike freelancers who have several clients and projects with beginning and end dates, my work is pretty steady. This is great from a budgeting and planning perspective, but it also means I can’t just ramp down or ramp up work when I want to.

Taking Time Off Work as a Freelancer

What does taking time off when you’re a freelancer look like? For starters, I don’t get vacation time in the traditional sense. I’m lucky in that I work with flexible people who allow me to take vacations when appropriate (usually once or twice a year), and I do tend to take off working on the major federal holidays. But I don’t take sick days or personal days, and when I’m on vacation, I’m often checking in several times a day, and even working through them at times. I don’t say this to complain; I am well aware of the perks of being self-employed, and for me the trade-off is more than worth it. I say this to illustrate that freelancers don’t typically get a traditional maternity leave, paid or unpaid.

Taking Maternity Leave as a Freelancer

So, what the heck does a freelancer’s maternity leave look like? The great thing about working in the web publishing industry, particularly the wedding and lifestyle sector of it, is that I work with a lot of women (as well as understanding and supportive men), and everyone was very supportive of me getting time off from work to have a baby. So I had the OK from the company I freelance for to take the amount of time I thought I needed; I just needed to figure out how to keep things running while I was out of the office. For me, that meant paying someone else (who was already trained to do a large segment of my job) for a couple of weeks while I was in labor and resting up at home and getting to know my newborn. She was able to do the daily tasks that needed to get done (editing and scheduling blog posts, writing posts for social media channels), while other, more complicated things were left for me to take care of when I was back in the office. It worked out great, and in hindsight, I would have paid her for longer—one month at the very minimum. I actually ended up taking a couple more weeks off later when breastfeeding wasn’t going well, and she was able to step in for me again. Lifesaver!

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The Plan Going Forward

Almost four years later, my job has become a bit more demanding and complicated. Not only do I manage a team of bloggers, create original editorial content, and keep up with several social media platforms, I also manage a forum, which is extremely time consuming, and at times very stressful. Emails come in at all times of the night and on the weekends, and most of the time they can be ignored until later—except when they can’t. I just can’t imagine being “on call” during the initial postpartum phase and having my brain constantly distracted about what is going on with the forum. I am working on a couple of solutions to this issue, and my ultimate goal would be to have someone take over my role as community manager for an extended time.

There is so much still up in the air. When will I get pregnant? Will my body allow me to keep up my current work schedule throughout the entire pregnancy? How will my job duties change over the course of the next year (they almost always do)? I hope that because I am starting to come up with a plan now, by the time Cotton Candy #2 gets here, I will be able to take a significant break from work and focus on baby bonding time.

Here’s my advice to self-employed mamas to be.

  1. Take the time to speak with your clients/coworkers as early as possible to determine how much time you are all comfortable with you taking off. If possible, make sure there is some flexibility built into your plan in case you go on bed rest, go into labor early, or have a longer recovery time than you anticipated.
  2. If you have multiple clients and projects with beginning/end dates, tell them well in advance that you plan on taking maternity leave around XX date, and do everything you can to tie up loose ends before you take your leave.
  3. If you decide to farm out some of your work during your leave, make sure to do your homework ahead of time. You will most likely need to fill out 1099 tax forms for anyone you subcontract out to during your leave.
  4. Begin as early as possible writing down any job descriptions, guides, or client information that others will need while you are out of office.
  5. Make sure to set up an out of office auto-reply email for your time off.
  6. Work with your spouse/partner (if applicable) to budget for the financial loss that will occur during your leave, and possibly after you return to work with a lighter workload.
  7. Figure out how you are going to work once you are ready to return. Will a family member come over to watch your baby? Will they go to day care? Will you hire a nanny? Try to work while they nap? Make sure you have a plan B in case plan A doesn’t pan out.

Who else is self-employed and took time off work to have a baby? How much time did you take off? Did I miss any tips?