#mothersintech

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Meet Neha

Neha Jain is a Software Engineering Manager at LinkedIn. She is a mother of a five-month old boy Josh. At work she leads a team to help companies find their dream hire. She is passionate about using technology to empower individuals and society realize their true potential. Outside of work she mentors rising talent at Holberton School and founded PiMothers - a blog to share the inspiring stories of mothers in technology. In 2017, she was named a Top 10 Women in Cloud.

Q. What was your role and responsibility in the company when you found out you were expecting?

First time I found out I was expecting I was a senior engineer. It's interesting when I look back to that time of Jan 2017. I declined an opportunity to work on an exciting new project because I found out that I was four weeks pregnant. Two weeks later I found out that I might have been better off taking on that project since project baby was not on the table anymore :( Now in that emotionally challenging moment I had another 'what if’ which left me even more miserable.

Second time I found out that I was expecting I didn't turn down any professional opportunity which I would have otherwise accepted. I became an Engineering Manager and hosted/planned several events like speed mentoring with next play and girl geek dinner and I was named a Top 10 Women in Cloud 2017 all while I was pregnant!

Q. What advice do you have for other women, how to create a healthy environment at home for both your kid and spouse, your relationship and yourself?

Building on the answer above, my first advice to any woman would be to say yes to any opportunity that you would otherwise be excited to jump onto. As Sheryl Sandberg has famously said - “Don’t leave before you leave”. [full piece here]

Second, allow others to help you be it a fellow human or intelligent machine. I have so many machines at my house to take care of the household chores like cleaning (roomba), mopping (brava), making rotis (rotimatic), google home connected devices (nest, philips hue), automatic sprinkler. And I solicit help from my family and friends so that I can get a full night's sleep and time to relax and enjoy life.

One last advice that someone gave me which I would like to pass on - Plan a vacation. When you join back work after maternity leave, this vacation will be a very good thing to hold in your head and look forward to in the next six months. This will be the time you get to unwind and be with your family and build that healthy bonding.

On Preparing for the Change

Q. How has being a mother affected your career? Do you think you are consciously taking less challenging projects because you know you are a mom?

Becoming a mother has made me better at prioritization. I understand that the time I spend browsing Facebook or Whatsapp is time I can be with my son or do something meaningful at work. Because I want to get more active and learn new skills, I tend to be very mindful of where I invest my time and spend my efforts.

Q. How did you prepare yourself for the change? What books, blogs, advice, quotes do you remember, that motivated you during the time?

The books I read to prepare myself include:

Mindful Birthing: This book was recommended to me by my Ob and it’s a great book. Mindfulness practices presented in this book helped me get back to normal even in pregnancy when I learned that I had gestational diabetes. I used to practice walking meditation many times on post meal walks. Using BRANN technique explained in the book I was able to prevent an almost inevitable emergency c-section. I had been in labor for almost 24 hours after my water broke and we were running out of time. I started running temperature, that’s when hospital staff and my doctor asked us to prepare for c-section and pack out of the current room. At this point, I asked them about Risks of using pitocin and Alternatives to c-section. With that mindful discussion, nurse gave me pitocin and in just an hour Josh was born without any surgery!  

Happiest Baby on the Block: I found this book via google search. The concept of fourth trimester and five S’s - Swaddle, Side/Stomach, Shush, Sway and Soothe explained in the book were very useful in those first eight to twelve weeks when it’s the very difficult to handle the baby’s feeding, crying and sleeping. I can’t say with certainty if it’s because of these S’s or Josh is naturally a delightful baby ;)

Breastfeeding Made Simple: This is one book I would recommend reading before delivery which unfortunately I read after delivery. The book has a very non-judgemental tone (which in itself is very soothing, when you are already struggling with breastfeeding, you don’t want a book breathing down your neck telling you that you are bad mother if you are not breastfeeding). It presents the seven natural laws of breastfeeding - presents the concept of nose to nipple in a very helpful way and has useful links to videos of mothers trying to breastfeed newborns.

Reversing Diabetes in 21 days: This is another book my ob recommended when I found out that I had gestational diabetes. Though the whole food, vegan diet that is presented in this book is very unconventional and I was split whether to try something as disruptive as leaving dairy while pregnant (I am already a vegetarian and main source of protein for me were dairy products). I think it was worth trying it out. My blood glucose became stable and insulin dose reduced as a result of it. Yes, eliminating dairy from the diet meant that I had to get creative with my food. I incorporated alternative milks like soy, almond, more nuts, tofu and hemp seeds in my diet. With my husband and my mom’s support it all worked out.

Other good books on the topic that I read were Expecting Better and Taking Charge of your Fertility.

After my son was born I read a lot on KellyMom for managing breastfeeding challenges.

Three years ago after moving to United States I wanted to find out how to balance work-life as a mother in technology. I started talking to mothers in technology to learn from them. I interviewed and talked to a lot of mothers in technology to get an understanding of what to expect, what to plan. I have shared these stories through my blog - PiMothers. I listened to Mothersboard podcast by Katherine Rottendo during pregnancy, I found out about this podcast during my interview with Jenni Snyder from Yelp. 

Thinking out loud

Q. If you are comfortable talking about breastfeeding and how you manage it while working?

Breastfeeding for me was very challenging, I mean exceptionally challenging. I am so grateful to my husband and friends, specifically Sigal and lactation consultant Elaine for counseling me and supporting me through the difficult time of mastitis, clogged ducts and blocked pores. After a few months of managing via breast pumps, paced bottle feeding, nipple shield etc I was finally able to get myself and my son comfortable with direct latching.

Looking back, I think persevering through these difficulties when every day I thought of quitting and settling for bottle feeding, was more than worth it. These days, I have to worry about the bottles only on working days, holidays and weekends are complete bliss.

LinkedIn has really good Mother's room and our workplace team is very open to taking feedback and making improvements to support working moms every step of the way.

Q. What is that one thing that bothers you the most about parenting and you would want to fix in the system to make this process easier?

I think we need to build family friendly workplaces. Pregnancy is not a disability - the commitment in this one doesn’t end with the end of pregnancy, it only increases when a living dependent tiny human comes into this world. Improving support at workplace could start by providing clean pump parts for every session so that mothers’ don’t have to worry about cleaning etc every day. An option to bring your kids to work, if necessary or work from home on days no help is present would be very supportive for working parents.

Q. Given an option to stay-at-home and enjoy being a mom for your kids, would you leave your job?

I like the independence that I get as a result of working. The intellectual as well as social stimulation I get in the professional context lifts my spirits and makes me more meaningfully present around my son and family. I love my son but this is my way of teaching him independence.

Rapid Fire

Favorite book: He loves solar system book.

Biggest stress buster: Talking out loud with my husband over a warm cup of soy chai.

Favorite game you play with your family: Peek-a-boo

Favorite hobby: Reading, writing, cooking, exploring the world

Favorite lullaby: Lalla lalla lori

Typical go-to meal: Daal, roti, sabzi

Your best friend when it comes to handling tantrums: Smiling at him or holding him close to my chest.

On Benefits & Support

Q. What was your support structure during and after your pregnancy?

During the pregnancy my husband used to help out with household chores and I had a cook come over one day on weekends to chop veggies and prepare parathas etc.

After the delivery my mom came over from India and stayed with us for five months. She took care of the house and food as well as my son when I joined work. After she left my parents-in-law came over for some months. I have already enrolled him in a daycare which he will join after they leave.

Q. How did you find out about the various benefits that you were entitled to as an expecting mother? How was that experience?

I checked with my manager. There are a lot of mothers at LinkedIn and a friend of mine plugged me in to the mothers-at-LinkedIn slack channel. I had a pleasant experience finding out all the information and I would say that the process at LinkedIn is very smooth.

Q. When you have to stay for longer duration in office or have off-sites, how do you manage with your family waiting at home for you?

I use the grid of urgency, importance. I choose to be in the place which is urgent, important and I am required. This means sometimes I have to miss offsites to be with my son and family, yet other times I stay late at work for finishing up some last minute planning while my husband takes care of my son. Secondly, we try to organize family friendly activities between 9 - 5 so that parents don’t have to set up alternative care options for their family and kids.

Q. Do you have advice on how to choose a daycare/babysitter/nanny?

Choose what works best for your case. Each has its pros and cons. But I would say one thing - start your search early specially if you are in the bay area.

On Managing Daily Tasks

Q. What is your typical workday and weekend like? I bet it would have changed drastically since you have become a parent. Do you find time for yourself?

My workdays have expanded slightly as in I have to get up early to get ready myself and get my son ready (shared responsibility between me and my husband). Since these days I pump at work, I do find time for myself during those sessions. Once my son weans off, I hope I will find ‘me time’ by delegating some chores.

On weekends I spend more time with my son, massaging him, reading books, playing with him, taking him to a park or meeting friends.

Q. How did you prevent yourself from falling behind your peers during this time?

I actively practice not to compare myself with others. I find that doing your best work, spending time to perfect your skills and acquire new ones is productive and satisfying undertaking. I compare myself with my past self - if I am meeting the personal goals that I set for myself every year and I am becoming a better person, then I count that as success.

Q. Are there times when you are solving a difficult problem and it goes home with you? Do you get time to ponder on the challenge at home?

That happens sometimes. I try to use the time when he is breastfeeding to think about the problem. Sometimes I talk to my mentors and my manager to get a better understanding of the problem and varied perspective.

Q. How do you handle situations when you have a demanding day at work and suddenly your child gets sick? What would you want to have in this situation?

I try to be mindful in such situations and handle one thing at a time. A skill I have picked up as a manager which comes very handy is delegation. Based on the severity of the issue whether at home or at work I check which task can be handled by someone other than me, I hand that one over and take care of the other one myself.

[pimothers]

Meet Ritika

Ritika Pareek is a mother of 15 month old amazing, funny, happy baby - Ria. Currently lives in Mountain View and works as Software Engineer in Palo Alto. . She finds that she has become more focused, organized and positive and her personality changed for good after Ria was born. The sense of responsibility after she became a mother is actually helping her in all the aspects of life.

Q. What was your role and responsibility in the company when you found out you were expecting?

I was a Software Engineer @ Ditto in San Francisco. I owned development of Kiosk application for virtual try on of glasses. I found out that I was expecting in September of 2015.

Q. What advice do you have for other women, how to create a healthy environment at home for both your kid and spouse, your relationship and yourself?

I strongly believe in sharing household duties between partners. In order to be happy and healthy you need to have time for the things that you love.

On Preparing for the Change

Q. How has being a mother affected your career? Do you think you are consciously taking less challenging projects because you know you are a mom?

Yes, I am. I have switched jobs from startup to a big company. I loved my job at the startup but the work pressure and responsibilities were more. So I chose to join a bigger company, I think it’s better than completely leaving the workforce. I know this is just temporary.

Q. How did you prepare yourself for the change? What books, blogs, advice, quotes do you remember, that motivated you during the time?

I made sure I am not stressed out. I take guidance from my parents. I remember my mom says "Everyone is born with their own fate. It's Ria's fate which will decide who will be with her when you are in office." I can see now how true this is. She has the best grandparents and the best nanny when we needed one. I worked hard to plan everything and eventually things do fall in place! Just try to stay positive at all times.

Thinking out loud

Q. If you are comfortable talking about breastfeeding and how you manage it while working?

I pumped two times when at work. My company had a mother’s room with a refrigerator and that was very helpful for me.

Q. What is that one thing that bothers you the most about parenting and you would want to fix in the system to make this process easier?

I think working mothers should have flexible working hours and longer maternity breaks.

Q. Given an option to stay-at-home and enjoy being a mom for your kids, would you leave your job?

I tried all of the above. After my daughter was born and maternity leave ended, I continued to work at Ditto (a startup in SF), after a few months as a new mom there I quit that job to stay-at-home until my daughter turned 8 months, but I realized social/professional life is equally important for healthy parenting. Mothers need some time away from kids which is good for both kids and mom. Finally I joined a big company with more flexibility and less responsibility. I believe in trying out things and choosing the one which makes you happy. If you are happy and content, whole family - kids, spouse will be happy.

Rapid Fire

Favorite book: The Secret

Biggest stress buster: Talking my heart out to someone I love.

Favorite game you play with your family: It’s not a game, but singing loudly our favorite songs. We do that very often!

Favorite hobby: Cooking with my husband.

Favorite lullaby: It's just one of the hindi songs.

Typical go-to meal: Muffins.

Your best friend when it comes to handling tantrums: My friend Deepika. Our daughters were born 1 day apart.

On Benefits & Support

Q. What was your support structure during and after your pregnancy?

My family from India visited us. They are still taking turns and visiting us which helped a lot! Needless to say my husband is very understanding :)

Q. How did you find out about the various benefits that you were entitled to as an expecting mother? How was that experience?

I talked with one of my colleague, luckily she was expecting too and had all the information I needed :)

Q. When you have to stay for longer duration in office or have off-sites, how do you manage with your family waiting at home for you?

I try to do a video call at least once. I also keep on asking about my daughter's activities all through the day on whatsapp. If they know mommy is just a message away things are easier for them.

Q. Do you have advice on how to choose a daycare/babysitter/nanny?

We never liked the idea of starting day care before 18 months. We had nanny at home, but just for 3 weeks and my husband worked from home during that period. We made sure the nanny was lively and playing enough with my daughter. We tried 3-4 nannies and you can easily figure out which nanny your baby likes, just choose her!

On Managing Daily Tasks

Q. What is your typical workday and weekend like? I bet it would have changed drastically since you have become a parent. Do you find time for yourself?

As I shared above. My husband and I share our household responsibilities. I leave early for work and come back early,  play with Ria, feed her and do dinner preparation . He takes care of Ria's breakfast. We do dishes together. The best part is we have 3 robots at home: Roomba, Brava and Rotimatic for cleaning and cooking authentic Indian Rotis. Yes I get time for myself, but big thanks to our parents who are still taking turns and visiting us. On weekends I usually sleep a lot and we eat outside! No cooking no dishes :)

Q. How did you prevent yourself from falling behind your peers during this time?

I try to complete my tasks before the deadlines in order to handle situations when I have to go home early for some reason. This helps me to be on track and not to fall behind.

Q. Are there times when you are solving a difficult problem and it goes home with you? Do you get time to ponder on the challenge at home?

In such situation I just tell my husband. I concentrate on the problem I am solving and he takes care of the rest.

Q. How do you handle situations when you have a demanding day at work and suddenly your child gets sick? What would you want to have in this situation?

I just take a leave and go home. Nothing is more important than your child. Other things can always wait.

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Meet Sysamone

Sysamone Phaphon is the Founder/CEO of the tech startup FilmHero as well as the organizer of the professional women empowerment group Women Supporting Women. She is a passion driven entrepreneur who believes in empowering others to their fullest potential. A natural born leader that carves out time to help others with no expectation other than for us to all succeed together.

Q. What was your role and responsibility in the company when you found out you were expecting?

My kids are now 9/8. I was already a mother when I entered the tech industry.  I entered tech as a full time entrepreneur about 15 months ago.

Q. What advice do you have for other women, how to create a healthy environment at home for both your kid and spouse, your relationship and yourself?

“You can have it all, you just have to define what your "all" is”

- Cathy engelbert CEO of Deloitte.

There’s so much to share with this question but I’ll choose one advice and that is to  schedule all personal & work related events around your children.  Lots of social gatherings will come and go, people, relationships will come and go, but your children will always remember when you were there and when you weren’t.  So I schedule everything around their activities; school, sports, extracurricular activities, birthdays, playdates etc. Having everything pre-planned and preset in calendar at least 1-3 months in advance helps a lot in maintaining a healthy, non-spontaneous environment! It's also a team effort, remember that! Even the kids play a role in maintaining that healthy environment. There's always a way, you just have to find it even if it takes a lot of sacrifices and failures, don't ever quit. Eventually you will have your ‘all’ as defined by you.

Thinking out loud

I’m so tired of seeing pregnancy be categorized as a disability.

Q. What is that one thing that bothers you the most about parenting and you would want to fix in the system to make this process easier?

I’m so tired of seeing pregnancy be categorized as a disability.  The system is so unfair to new parents to be and parents in general. This system needs to realize that people aren’t going to stop having kids and having kids doesn’t mean their talent and skills disappear.  Mother’s shouldn't have to apply for disability when leaving a career to take maternity leave and all companies should allow fathers’ paternity leave to bond with their newborns.  Companies/government needs to do better with family leave guidelines.

Photo credit: Darryl Paul Hofer

Q. Given an option to stay-at-home and enjoy being a mom for your kids, would you leave your job?

No. I was very grateful for the time I got to take to be a stay at mom when my children were young but I also enjoy working. My children are older now and at this age, they enjoy having a working mom and learning about all the fun stuff I do at work.  My children love seeing me accomplish goals. I love that they love that because it pushes them to set goals, have ideas, create plans and even attempt to execute those plans.

On Preparing for the Change

I want my children to know they are never the reason I can't do anything. They are the reason I can! 

Q. How has being a mother affected your career? Do you think you are consciously taking less challenging projects because you know you are a mom?

Being a mother fuels my fire to strive for success. I have no choice but to succeed for my kids. I may encounter mini failures, challenges and roadblocks but I never allow that to affect my decisions on what career path I take.  I always take on challenging projects because I want my children to know they are never the reason I can't do anything. They are the reason I can! If I can't take on a challenging project it's because I don’t want to or it’s due to my own inability to come up with a working solution and not because I am a mom.

Q. How did you prepare yourself for the change? What books, blogs, advice, quotes do you remember, that motivated you during the time?

I read so much that I can't select any one thing in particular. I read and absorb everything I can. I listen to everyone influential or has a bit more experience than I do. I live life through quotes daily.  Honestly, if Trump can be president, I sure as hell can make this happen. 😂

Rapid Fire

Favorite book: Too many to choose from but favorite writers; Maya Angelou & Paulo Coelho

Biggest stress buster: Red wine

Favorite game you play with your family: Silent game- the one that stays silent longest wins 😂

Favorite hobby: Baseball mom

Typical go-to meal: Cheeseburgers

Your best friend when it comes to handling tantrums: the death stare

On Benefits & Support

I got laid off during my first pregnancy,  I didn't receive any benefits.

Q. What was your support structure during and after your pregnancy?

I got laid off during my first pregnancy and decided to be a stay at home mom for almost 3 years. I didn’t really need a support structure.

Q. How did you find out about the various benefits that you were entitled to as an expecting mother? How was that experience?

I didn't receive any benefits. I was denied unemployment insurance and told to apply for disability, because apparently being pregnant makes you ineligible for it in our country but you are eligible for disability because that’s what pregnancy is considered in our country- a disability.

Q. When you have to stay for longer duration in office or have off-sites, how do you manage with your family waiting at home for you?

I don't schedule meetings during designated children time so that my children aren’t waiting up for their mom. I bring work home all the time and handle it after evening time routine is finished and kids are in bed. It’s not always perfectly executed this way but thankfully I also have a healthy co-parenting relationship that allows me to make time for evening work events while my children are spending time with their father.

Q. Do you have advice on how to choose a daycare/babysitter/nanny?

Every daycare has a license, always ask for the license number so you can check for any infractions with county offices in your area.  Invest in nanny cams.

On Managing Daily Tasks

I self educate on a daily basis-workshops, online learnings, etc.

Q. What is your typical workday and weekend like? I bet it would have changed drastically since you have become a parent. Do you find time for yourself?

I run a tech startup so I make my schedule - typical work week for me is; morning school routine 6a-8:30a/ Work 9a-3p / kids 4pm-8:30pm in no particular order; sports, extracurricular activities, tutoring sessions, homework, bedtime routine/ Resume work 9pm -midnight or 1am. Weekends- kids sports games, any activity kid related, household duties (cleaning, laundry etc.). Some time with friends + their kids and I manage to fit a few hours of work in between all of it. I rarely have time for myself, when I do, I sleep.  

Q. How did you prevent yourself from falling behind your peers during this time?

I self educate on a daily basis-workshops, online learnings, etc. to stay up to date with everything and others in the industry.

Q. How do you handle situations when you have a demanding day at work and suddenly your child gets sick? What would you want to have in this situation?

When my child is sick, work gets put aside no matter what, it’s just what you have to do. Demanding days do not always mean tight deadlines that need immediate attention or that work does not get finished in a timely manner. It still can, this example happens a lot and that’s why every parent should have counterparts at work that can back them up.  Cross train people to handle your work and vice versa.  Be each other’s plan B for sick days so that you aren’t behind.  Peer to peer collaboration and support is key to handling these situations.  

[pimothers]

Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Day 2 kicked off with a fireside chat between Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube, and Moira Forbes, executive vice president of Forbes Media. Susan left the audience with some great personal stories as well as the realities she sees in a male-dominated technology industry.

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Josh Kaufman shares how he hacked his way to learn new skills in less than 10, 000 hours after he became a parent. Just when he thought he may never be able to learn anything new ever again. So for all Working Parents there is hope!!!

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Thursday night was a great talk with Tina Lee founder of Mother Coders focused on her personal story, inspiration and experience as a mother of two while founding a non-profit to empower mothers by providing an inclusive environment for them to pick up technical skills by having free child care on-site! Huge shout out to Women Catalysts for organizing this.

[pimothers]

One of the things I love most about Thumbtack is our focus on First Principles Thinking, an approach where “you boil things down to the most fundamental truths … and then reason up from there.” 

So, when I was pregnant with my second son, I was excited about the chance to think about parental leave from First Principles. While lots of Thumbtackers have kids, I was going to be the first person to physically have a baby and take maternity leave while working at Thumbtack. I wanted to do it right.

[pimothers]

Meet Swasti - Mother & Senior Engineering Manager

Swasti Sharma is a Senior Engineering Manager at Ten-X and mother to a two year old girl. Her strongest attribute is her infectious, cheerful personality which boosts the spirit and morale of everyone else around her. In her free time she has started babylovebitten.com. Below is her journey as a mother in tech in her own words.

Q: What was your role and responsibility in the company when you found out you were expecting?

I was Test Engineering Manager in Mobile team at LinkedIn. My team was responsible for the quality of LinkedIn’s Native app and Connected App.

Q: Looking back do you think you planned well for the time away? If you had the option to do it all over again - what would you do differently?

Yeah I think so. I took all days I possibly could to spend time with my daughter Anya. I was fortunate enough to be able to take unpaid time off for a month. It’s tough for people who are not able to do so due to financial constraints. My suggestion and advice to anyone who is planning to take maternity leave is to take all days possible. I have seen many women not taking off the last week of pregnancy. I think they really should because it gives them time to prepare their mind and home for the new member and if they don’t they lose it and its company paid, so why not?

Q: Given an option to stay-at-home and enjoy being a mom for your kids, would you leave your job?

Its funny that you bring this up. It was extremely difficult for me to return to the workforce soon after maternity leave. I thought of quitting my job every single day. One reason may very well be that I got Anya (my daughter’s name) after a lot of struggle. She was my 3rd IVF try. I would question my priorities in life every single day. My husband and my parents knew it was an emotional decision. They didn’t want me to leave everything I worked so hard for over the years and regret later. All my husband asked of me was to give myself 3 months and if after that I still feel I should stay at home, then he would fully support me in my decision. That was the best advice ever! I stuck for 3 months and it helped me overcome my guilt and changed my perspective. Now I wanted to be a role model and inspirational mother to Anya and not be someone who quits. Not saying that staying at home decision would have been a bad idea. Just saying it worked out well for me at the end. But I would not think twice leaving my job if my Anya ever needs me. For me family is my number one priority.

Q: What was your support structure like during and after your pregnancy?

I have been extremely lucky to have an amazing family support both during and after pregnancy. Both our parents were willing to stay with us alternating for few months which helped me tremendously with the ultimate ‘Mom’s guilt’ which is constant for any mom :) We also hired a nanny. With nanny and our parents I was not worried about Anya. All I was worried about was not getting enough time with her. Also in my professional arena at my previous company LinkedIn , everyone in my team was super supportive which made it easier for me.

Q: Do you have some advice on how to choose a daycare/pre-school/baby sitter? When to choose a nanny or daycare?

I think if there is a way you can have your family over and get help in form of a nanny, that would be perfect. This is the time when the child bonds with grandparents. We hired a nanny so we don’t over burden our parents with baby duties. They have raised their kids and now it was our turn. My suggestion for anyone going through this phase is if you can financially support hiring a nanny then do so even when your family is around to help out. It helps keep theirs and your sanity during this transition time.

As far as daycare is concerned, I would say at around 1.5 years age the child wants company of other kids. That is the correct time to put him/her in daycare.

Daycare selection was a process on its own. My suggestion would be to start the research at least 8-12 months in advance and visit multiple places and make sure your child is enrolled for at least 2-3 daycares just so you have backups. I have seen my friends getting rejected in one daycare which they had high hopes on and then they had to compromise. So be proactive.

On how to choose a nanny - we went through referrals and care.com but I always preferred referrals over the online site. Also enroll yourself to mailing lists and facebook parent groups for your areas where people generally post ads for their nanny when they no longer need the service. Another suggestion from my personal experience is to make sure you write down your expectations of the duties while you are hiring a nanny. You both need to be on the same page about what is and what is not a part of her duty. It was a struggle for me for some time.

Q: What was your maternity leave plan? Were you working full time when your kids were born?

I had 3 months of paid maternity leave and 1 month of bonding leave from state government. Yes, I was working full time.

Q: What is that one thing that bothers you the most and you would want to fix in the system?

I love the idea of 6 months maternity leave or the option of work from home for new moms. I hated filling all the insurance paper work while I had 20 other things on my plate (Not sure if that can be improved).

Q: How has being a mother affected your career?

A lot and It’s a constant learning and if you look closely your baby teaches you so many things which you can apply in your career. Being a parent helped me:

Realize of my inner strength and ability to do seemingly impossible.

Realize how important having fun is in life to de-stress yourself.

How to lead by compassion and being self-aware.

With the ability to do decision making in difficult situations.

Learn something new every day

Realize that appreciation is motivating

If you have interest in how I connect parenting with professional world and the lessons learnt, you can check my blogpost on LinkedIn.

Q: How did you prepare yourself for the change? What books/blogs/advice/quotes do you remember that motivated you during the time?

I think in my case I was fully prepared mentally. I was so looking forward to being a mom that I never felt overwhelmed with the changes that came in. I think having a baby brings change in your life but only for good. As far as books and advices are concerned, I was a constant visitor to Babycenter. They have some pretty good articles. I don’t think anything specific motivated me but for sure looking at all my friends’ beautiful little kids and seeing my husband play with them is what truly motivated me. He is a fun dad!

Q: What advice do you have other women, how to create a healthy environment at home for both your kid and spouse, your relationship and yourself?

After having Anya I have become very health conscious. I am very careful in what we are eating or using as products for our day to day routine. I have tried to completely get rid of anything which has chemicals and is harmful in any way. Most of the stuff I try to make at home or look for healthier and chemical free options in store or online. Regarding relationships, that’s one thing I was not mentally prepared for. Having a kid changes your relationship with your spouse in many ways. There are days you would just not have time for talking to each other even for 5 minutes and there may be fights. It’s as tough for the dad as it’s for you. Give your relationship some time. Ours took almost one year to get back to normal.

Having a baby is emotionally as draining as it’s physically specially with all the hormones flowing around. My suggestion - just give yourself a break! Things might go up and down but both of you need adjustment time for the new life. Just hang in there and I am positive everything will be back to normal.

Rapid Fire

Your best friend when it comes to handling tantrums: Ask your kid to do the opposite of what you want them to do. During tantrums phase they are in rebellious mode so make use of it ;) Works for me (fingers crossed).

Biggest stress buster: Anya’s kiss

Typical goto meal: Simple Indian cuisine

Favourite game you play: Just running around with Anya and my dog. He will jump in every time I play with Anya which cracks me up. He will make sure he is not neglected in any way.

Favourite lullaby: It’s in hindi from a movie called ‘Mission Kashmir’. Wordings are ‘So ja chanda raja so ja chal sapno mein chal’. Now my daughter sings it for her doll in her broken language which brings a smile to my face.

Favourite book: I love reading any inspirational, motivational and leadership books. Recently I am reading a book called ‘Multipliers’.

Favourite hobby: Home decor, DIYing, cooking , writing poems , reading inspirational articles or books. You can find my personal blog where I list all my hobbies and what I do here.

[pimothers]

Meet Barbara, Technologist & Entrepreneur cum Mom

Barbara Hanna, Ph.D., is a Technologist and Entrepreneur passionate about fostering technology that educates, empowers and/or connects individuals. She is the Founder and CEO of Cyant, a startup focused on connecting art and technology to foster learning, creativity and engagement. A woman owned and led company working towards B-Corp status, Cyant is particularly committed to help empowering women and girls. She holds a BEng. and MEng. from the University of Cambridge UK, and a Ph.D. from the University of Surrey, UK.

Disclaimer: These are just things that worked for Barbara. These are not intended to make any statement on this topic. She strongly feels this is a very personal matter and works out differently for everyone.

Rapid Fire

Typical go to meal - I love to cook and buy things that are seasonal and market fresh. We go to Farmers Markets a lot.

Your best friend when it comes to handling tantrums – My child is too grown up to throw tantrums now, but there are a few approaches from being firm to handling it through compassion depending on the situation. Trying to distract them, “Hey! what’s that in your hand?” is another solution.

Biggest stress buster - Depends on the kind of stress. I like to run. Exercise is a good stress release. I mentioned it before but I love to cook too.

Excerpt of our chat

Q. How did being a mother affect your career? Do you think you are consciously taking less challenging projects because you know you are a mom?

No, I never held myself back because of being a mother. All of us have different capacities, unique work environments, positions, roles and responsibilities. However, you’ll be surprised, by the stamina you discover after you have a child. You can stay organized, efficient at time management and productive.

Q. What was your support structure like during and after your pregnancy?

It’s an individual choice and depends on your situation and finances. Try to get help when you can. Having a support network of friends and family helps a lot.

Q. What is that one thing that bothers you the most and you would want to fix in the system?

There are still biases in society, the workplace and in people's minds. I think understanding the needs of not just mothers but parents in general would definitely help us.

Q. Do you face decision fatigue? Calling the shots at work and making decisions about the day-to-day trivial things like food, dress to non-trivial ones like kids school…

I don’t think I faced decision fatigue. But it’s important to take your time, get the right inputs and information. Also, it is good to surround yourself with the right people whom you can reach out to and whose advice can help make the right decision. You have to remember that decisions are not made in vacuum. Sometimes they are easy and sometimes they are not, but you make decisions all the day

Q. What drives to you be a working mom?

I never felt that my being a mother and my working were incompatible. I find it fulfilling. Usually the things I work on are things that I enjoy and am passionate about. And I love my child and being a mother. The key is to feel fulfilled. If you feel fulfilled, you will feel happy, and you will transfer that happiness to your relationships. And I think my working has provided positive experiences for my child too.

Q. What advice do you have other women, how to create a healthy environment at home for both your kid and spouse, your relationship and yourself?

If you can develop a good support network, it really helps. Especially as first time mothers, if possible, try and delegate. Make sure to create time and space for yourself too. And follow your intuition.

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Data Scientist and Mother - Simla

Simla Ceyhan, is a Senior Manager of Data Science for Content at LinkedIn. She has nine years of experience in Data Science as a researcher, graduate student and then in the industry as an individual contributor and as a manager. She is a mother to a one and half year old son and is expecting another baby in three months.

Q: You have an extensive experience as an academic. What made you come to the industry?

When I did an Internship at LinkedIn in 2010, I realized that I actually enjoyed being in the industry.

Working in teams of people from diverse background. I enjoyed working with people from different teams and owning a piece of a bigger project.

I felt academia gets a little slow paced and lonely. As a doctoral student, I was working on a project with one other student and a project advisor. We had one weekly meeting.

I felt I would be happier with more interaction in a fast paced, dynamic environment.

Q: How do you compare industry with academics in terms of parent-friendliness?

I can’t comment on that conclusively, as I don’t have the experience as a mother in academia. From what I have understood after talking to some of my friends:

Academia offers more flexibility in terms of working hours.

You are not required to work from nine to six and can manage your time around more productive hours. However lucrative it is, it can get just as distractive.

You think you can push back work, which in turn means you don’t get the right amount of time for research.

Sometimes, fixed work hours are an advantage as I focus on work during the limited work hours and after that I only focus on my family and my son.

Q: What is your typical day like? Do you find time for yourself?

My day starts around 6:30 in the morning, when my son wakes up. We read books and play a little bit and then eat breakfast all together. I deeply care about family having meals together. I get that from my mom, I was not that particular about it before my son was born.

We usually leave home by 8. After dropping my son at the daycare, I reach office by 9.

One thing that has changed in my day is that I generally grab lunch and eat in a meeting or while checking emails to take advantage of the full day.

I leave the office by 5 as I have to pick up my son from the daycare. We come home, play with my son and prepare dinner by seven.

He sleeps early around 8:30 after the dinner. So, I have the time after he goes to bed for my husband and myself. We sometimes watch a movie or read our books.

The time I have just for myself is definitely limited compared to before I was pregnant. My husband helps me out a lot with the daily chores and getting work done. We are a great team.

Q: Are there times when you are solving a difficult problem and it goes home with you? Do you get time to ponder on the challenge at home?

It sure happens. When it does, I get support from my husband. Since he is a Software Engineer too, he understands. There have been cases when there is some emergency related to work. Then, my husband takes care of our son so that I can focus on work.

In these situations, I always think how single moms handle it. My main support and help is from my husband and I feel very lucky about it.

Q: Data Science is a fast moving field, how do you keep up with new technologies and changes in the field?

I mostly use the time in the nights or the nap times on weekends to learn something new. If I feel learning something new is crucial for my career, I block time on my calendar during work to focus on it.

We have the concept of Indays at LinkedIn, where we get a day every month to work on something apart from work. I try to take advantage of Indays as well.

We get better at time management, when we know that the time we have is limited. Being a mom has made me so much better with time management and multitasking.

I personally like it, especially when I sit down with my young one, after a long tiring day, I am excited to see how he develops and changes everyday. I look forward to that part of my day. Also, you realize that problems at work get solved eventually.

Q: How do you think being a mother has affected your career? Do you think you are consciously taking less challenging projects because you know you are a mom?

Umm.. that’s an interesting question. I’ll need to think about that one…

You know, when I think about it, I don’t think I am consciously taking lesser challenging projects. Actually, I was asked to lead the data science team for content in San Francisco, while I was out on maternity leave.

The new office was coming up in San Francisco, and there was an opportunity to lead the data science team. I was not sure if I was ready to take this role, given that I would be joining office after three months, I would have a lot to catch up with already, then the responsibility of the new role, I was a bit scared.

My husband and I talked about it and with encouragement and support I decided to take this opportunity on an exploratory basis. I thought that this could be a good learning opportunity and if it doesn’t work, I can go back to being an IC. So I took the offer and I am glad I did.

First couple months were definitely challenging. But once you put everything together it has been a great journey thus far.

Q: You are expecting another child soon. How have you prepared yourself for the change? What are the changes you are making in your work and home schedule to keep up with the responsibility? How do you feel about it?

I am very excited, at the same time I feel a bit nervous.

I am trying to figure out what is the best way that my work continues to be done when I am gone, I am ironing out the details for that. At home there is additional work. We need to prepare the room for the baby.

I have been reading some books to prepare my son for his sibling. Making him understand that the attention of parents is going to be divided.

At LinkedIn we can take a total of four and half months. First six weeks are company paid leaves another six weeks from California disability leave. We can take another six weeks of unpaid leave.

Also, you can divide the leave in the first year. For example, I will be taking leave from two weeks before the due date and then another three months. Later when the baby is old enough to travel, I plan to take the leave for traveling to our home countries – Turkey and Greece - to introduce our baby to the extended family.

Q: If you are comfortable talking about breastfeeding and how you manage it while working?

Yes, I can talk about it. I was breastfeeding my son for the first year, for six months he was completely dependent on me.

The nurse told us that the first month is difficult for both mother and the son. Once you get used to it, I found it quite convenient. Since I started working after three months, it was another challenge. The lactation consultant advised us to start feeding breast milk to our baby through bottle, two weeks before I actually start work, so that he and I get used to it.

Pumping is not easy. It is time-consuming and I found it difficult when I had back-to-back meetings. I worked around it by blocking time on my calendar, so that I am not late for any meetings. These days there are a lot of tools that make your life easier, for example, you can respond to urgent emails from the mother’s room.

Q: What are the resources that you find helpful as a mother and mother-to-be?

My initial resource if I have a question is Babycenter. I highly recommend it! I started using it during pregnancy since it has weekly updates on the baby’s development and how your body changes during pregnancy. It also has a lot of great information about infants and toddlers and possible challenges you can face and solutions from teething to sleep training.

Another resource I really like is Penelope Leach’s book ‘Your baby and child, from birth to age five’. I definitely find myself going back to that book every now and then when I have questions in mind.

Q: How do you handle situations when you have a demanding day at work and suddenly your child gets sick? What would you want to have in this situation?

It definitely happens in the first year, especially when kids start the day care. There is a change in environment, they have company of other kids and so much to get adjusted to.

It is definitely difficult. When your kid is sick and you come to work, you can’t really focus on work. Therefore, I think of it as myself being sick.

At LinkedIn, we have ten days sick leave and I make use of it. I have to reschedule the meetings and send out a note to my team.

Thinking about it, there are other professions like teaching, where it would be much more challenging. You need to find substitutes. For us, as we work in a team, the work mostly gets taken care of. If you have a nanny at home, this is less of an issue.

I have friends who have nannies, when their child gets sick, they take good care of the kids. But you know, nannies get sick too, that is when it gets difficult for them.

Q: How did you find out a daycare and how is your experience?

I registered for the daycare when I was pregnant. Yes, there is a waitlist for daycares in San Francisco. You know high housing costs make it difficult for the daycare teachers to live in the city and for daycares to cover their costs as well. We decided on a daycare right across the street from my husband’s office, as we wanted him to be close to at least one of us.

I came to work when he was 3 months old. But he started daycare only in another three months. We were lucky as our parents could help us out for those three months.

Q: What is your advice to the fellow women in industry and academia?

Every mom, every person, every family is different. I think you should listen to your instincts.

Once you become a mom, the first couple of months are busy adjusting to all the changes. When you get back to work, again you need a little time to find the right balance.

When I was deciding to come back to work after the maternity leave, I had the dilemma. But I decided to give it a try for a couple of months as I wanted to explore and see for myself if it would work for me.

So, I think you should wait it out, at least for the first couple months before making any decision.

I think that the moms who are the happiest are the ones who have flexible working hours.

As a company, LinkedIn is very supportive of family. As long as you get your work done, how much time you sit in the office is immaterial. The company doesn’t care about the number of hours you stay in the office. Some days, you get to leave at early hours. I changed my working hours after I became a mom. I actually like this balance between being a mom and being in the workforce.

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Perspective of a Working Mom: Crystal

Crystal Braswell is the Manager of Corporate Communications at LinkedIn. She will soon be mother of two, with a three year old son and daughter on her way! She splits her week between Mountain View and San Francisco offices of LinkedIn and has a very active life powered up with an emphasis on physical fitness and networking. Here is a snippet of our candid chat:

Q: What is your take on the stay-at-home vs working-mom debate?

I have several friends who are stay-at-home moms and I have a lot of respect for them. These women have chosen to stay back home, prioritize their family and children and really pour their all into it. In some cases they grew up dreaming of being a mom, they are living their dreams- and they are doing an amazing job.

For me, being a mom is one of the most important pieces of my personal identity, but so is my role as a PR professional. I cherish family time, but in a way, work also provides me with a break from the daily home life and an opportunity to stimulate another side of my personality.

Obviously, it doesn't always come down to what one has aspired to though. Sometimes, the cost of childcare exceeds one spouse's income. In that case, many couples may decide it makes financial sense for one parent to stay-at-home. Which parent chooses to stay, in my opinion is something spouses need to talk about and should not be tied to gender. It depends on the personality type too. It is a personal choice. My career is very fulfilling and satisfying for me. I love being a mother, but I also love being a PR professional. I'm fortunate that financial circumstances enable me to be both.

Q: When you have had a really bad day at work, how do you deal with the stress?

I try to remind myself to pause and, instead of focusing on the elements that are causing me stress, choose to look for the little things that inspire me or bring a smile to my face. My son is an incredible source of joy for me. He's at an age where his personality is in full-bloom, and his world, while sometimes frustrating, isn't as complicated as we adults see it. Wherever I can, I try to involve him in the things I "have" to do at home. We turn trips to the grocery store into a learning experience - picking out new fruits and veggies together that we can then come home and cook. When I'm cooking, I give him a stool, a mini cutting board and some toddler friendly kitchen utensils so he can "help." It turns mundane household chores into quality, fun time with him and makes him feel like he's an important, contributing member of the household.

That said, we all have those days where you come home completely depleted, frustrated, in a bad mood -- and it takes focus to not let that seep out and impact the family. On those days my husband is great about pouring a glass of wine and letting me talk it out, or taking over at home so I can go run it out.

When all else fails, we'll eat dinner, then pile into bed to watch a cartoon before my son goes to bed. It's hard to still feel grumpy after an episode of Curious George with my family.

These activities are big stress busters for me!

Q: So how old is your son? Does it get easier when children get older?

He's three years old now, and what I've learned is each stage is both more difficult and more rewarding than the last. He's starting to explore and test his independance. Some days I'm blown away by how much he now understands and retains, other days I'm reminded his emotional development is just beginning, and trying to explore that independence when his verbal and fine-motor skills are still developing and adults are frequently redirecting him, can be frustrating. But seriously, whoever decided to nickname age two "The Terrible Two's" clearly hadn't had a three-year-old yet.

In terms of being a working mom. I always thought my hardest day would be the first day I dropped him off at daycare, but my hardest moment to-date came years later once he started to understand where I was during the day. The morning he looked at me and said "Mommy please don't go to work, I want you to stay with me." was tough. But I'm also simultaneously reminded that this is the right decision for me and my family when my son looks at me and says "Mommy, you’re my superhero." He'll grow up understanding that it's important in a family and relationship, to know who you are and stay true to that. My hope is that understanding will help prepare him to be a supportive spouse and successful professional and father (should he choose that path). When my daughter gets here, I hope to provide an example for both of them that they can be whoever, and whatever they aspire to.

Q: So, daycare/preschool/babysitter is the most important decision. How do you choose one or the other?

I would start by saying that this is a very personal decision and depends on your preferences. Some people love nannies, others prefer in home daycares, while others feel more comfortable with larger, more regulated centers. The most important consideration first and foremost is the staff. If you aren't comfortable with the person or team, leaving your little one will be nearly impossible.

For us, we wanted something that offered some structure, where there is a schedule and routine for our son, but where children are still encouraged to learn and explore through play. Because we're both full-time professionals, we also needed a facility with dependable schedules and hours. We found one that provides that, with a team of teachers that my son, my husband and I truly love and appreciate.

Q: What is your advice for your fellow women - who are parents or soon-to-be parents?

Don't be too hard on yourself. It is difficult at the start, but you will adjust to the new normal and rise to the occasion. You would be surprised by how you adapt, and how much you can actually accomplish in any given day.

Be strategic with your time. Be selective with how you spend your free time. Find people who you can relate to or who relate to you - other parents in your company (mentor-rings or lean-in circles) or local parents groups can be great resources. Remember through all of this, it's not just about working mothers -- we need to support working fathers as well. Balancing work and family-life is challenging, and in my experience, those challenges are not always gender specific.

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Jenni on Work-Life Balance

Jenni Snyder is a Lead Database Administrator at Yelp and a mother of a 15 month old daughter. She is really passionate about her job. As you would gather from her LinkedIn profile, she has over a decade of experience as a DBA, but she just recently became a mother.

I had an opportunity to talk to her about experiences as a professional mother.

In the previous post, we talked how she prepared herself for this responsibility without letting her career fall behind. In this post we talk about how she manages her work responsibility with a child at home.

Q: What was your role in the company when you discovered you were expecting? Did it affect your current work or future assignments?

Yelp is a pretty flat engineering organization,and my title has been MySQL DBA the whole time I've been here, and I love my work.

I was the first DBA, but the team has grown; we even hired a new team member while I was out on leave!

When I found out that I was expecting and I told my manager, he was incredibly supportive. We kept the lines of communication open. We planned for me to write up documentation and pass off projects before I went on leave..

Since we had great team, I was quite confident, and knew that critical work would be taken care of. I knew that everything would be taken care of, and took my maternity leave in peace.

Q:How did you prevent yourself from lagging behind your peers during this time?

I did know that some things would certainly change while I was on leave. There was a large puppet refactor while I was away that I had to familiarize myself with, but it was a good learning experience, and I'm glad it was done.

In the grand scheme of things, three months is a very small period of time. We don't work at a breakneck pace. There isn't competition between colleagues, and we have reasonable expectations that re-boarding from maternity leave takes a little time.

As long as communication is clear, everything works out. All of my team knew that I am definitely coming back, they know that I love my job and I wouldn't be gone for long.

Q: What is your typical workday and weekend like? I bet it would have changed drastically since you have become a parent.

Engineers typically tend to stay for later hours in the day and come in late in the morning. My standard hours are 8 - 4. This enables my husband to do morning handoff to our nanny and in the evening I can take over from her.

I try to manage my inbox and list out the important things for the day. This allows me really focus on 2-3 things and leaves time for interruptions.

As my daughter is only 15 months old, feeding her is really important. So, I cook something for her around 6 in the evening. In morning we breakfast together, she loves green smoothies.

Sometimes, I do come in online later. As she gets to bed around 7 PM and gets up around 6:30. I have around 12 hours to myself and my partner.

Q: On a related note, given that you're a DBA, there would be on call duties associated with it.. Do you find time to get back to work from home?

Actually I am on call today!

But yeah, we are first responders to alerts during the day, and the European operations team takes over at night. So, the shifts are broken up, and that makes it easier. Also, our team follows good devops practices. For the DBA monitors, we have lots of automated responses, and Runbooks for operators to follow when someone does get paged. And, when I do get paged, my my husband is happy to take my daughter out for a walk. He's in software engineering too, and knows that's how it goes.

Q: When you have to stay for longer duration in office or have offsites, how do you manage with your family waiting at home for you?

I try to limit my after hours work activities to one night every two weeks or so. My daughter is a ton of fun, and I want to balance being home with her, special alone nights with my husband, and work activities as much as possible.

We have one regular baby-sitter, but we maintain relationship with others as well. In reality, sometimes even the regular childcare falls through, and we're lucky to have my parents and mother-in-law nearby if we need extra help.

We had a Yelp Moms group lunch at the office once, and my colleague had great advice. She said: "Don't have one baby sitter, have five". I'm working on building up that network now.

Q: Do you approve of this divide that we have as a society for working/stay-at-home moms? We don’t see this being a question for dads. What according to you can help us rise over this deep-rooted ideology?

Society does unfairly judge women, even by asking this question. Traditionally, the perception was that child suffers when mom works, but recent studies have shown that children raised in the household with working moms grow up to respectful for women and are more independent.

The intellectual stimulation I get from my work is very fulfilling. I didn’t particularly feel successful when I was home alone with my newborn all day; I was still adapting. The kind of satisfaction I get from having solved a difficult problem is hard to come by from changing diapers, but this is my experience, and it's different for everyone.

We need to let women decide for themselves whether to work or stay at home, but today there is a lot of imbalance that doesn't always make it a fair choice.

Q: Given an option to stay-at-home and enjoy being a mom for your kids, would you leave your job?

As I said, I really enjoy my job here - the problem solving, feeling successful, working with others, and growing. Perhaps, when my daughter is older and my time with her is more valuable, I will look for greater flexibility, but it's fine now.

Read Jenni's advice on how to prepare yourself to be a good mother.

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Jenni on Preparing to be a Mother

Jenni Snyder is a Lead Database Administrator at Yelp and a mother of a 15 month old daughter.

She is really passionate about her job. As you would gather from her LinkedIn profile, she has over a decade of experience as a DBA, but she just recently became a mother. I had an opportunity to talk to her about experiences as a professional mother.

I have broken this post into two pieces. In this one we talk how she prepared herself for this responsibility without letting her career fall behind. In the follow up post we talk about how she manages her work responsibility with a child at home.

Q: How did you prepare yourself for the change? What books/blogs/advice/quotes do you remember that motivated you during the time?

Networking can be really helpful. Most of my friends are in the education and healthcare industry. I didn't have (at that time) a lot of women in technology in my circle.

I found the Motherboard podcast, and it was really helpful. Kathryn Rotondo interviews moms at startups about their experiences while pregnant, on leave, returning, and once settled in, and it helped give me a lot of perspective.

Also I had a valuable experience at Yelp years before I became pregnant. Our CEO, Jeremy, had presented for our company a fireside chat with Mariam Naficy, founder of Minted.com and one of our board members. He asked her questions about the maternity leaves she took, and how she returned to work. It was the first time I had gotten to hear a woman's experience around taking leave from and returning to a startup, and it was incredibly valuable.

I have learned a ton from the Yelp Moms group, and encourage any woman to reach out to those around her and build a network for learning from each other and support.

Q: Do you have some advice on how to choose a daycare/pre-school/baby sitter? When to choose a nanny or daycare?

It is a very personal choice. After taking a "Choosing Infant Care" class at Bananas in Oakland, I found my baby sitter through Care.com. I feel so fortunate to have her. She takes my daughter to the Library, Parks, various activities, and texts me with updates and pictures through the day.

Fortunately, I've had the experience of interviewing and hiring before. That experience helped me a lot when I was interviewing nannies. I think I did 15 phone interviews, had 4 people over to meet me in person, and shortlisted two. My husband met with the last two candidates, and our nanny was the obvious choice at the end.

I highly recommend Children's Council in SF, or Bananas in the East Bay as resources for choosing childcare. They both have classes and offer childcare referral services.

In general, a nanny is an employee you manage. They're in your home, and it's worth it for everyone to think about how you want to handle it.

Q: How did you find out about the various benefits that you were entitled to as an expecting mother? How was that experience?

Yelp has an HR team. At the time of my pregnancy, there was a maternity leave policy and process all women taking leave went through. It was very smooth.

There are a lot of parents at Yelp, but I was the first woman in the San Francisco Engineering team who was embarking on this journey. Yelp as an organization has been very supportive. Based on the feedback I had for Mother’s room, changes were made almost immediately!

When I joined after the leave, I was feeling isolated. My manager suggested to start a Yelp Moms group. I co-founded the group, and I feel so happy about it. I have gotten to know so many mothers in our organization through this group.

This is the amazing things about our Yelp culture, it's collaborative and friendly.

Q: What advice do you have other women, how to create a healthy environment at home for both your kid and spouse, your relationship and yourself?

Professional moms coming back from leave: Don't be hard on yourself. It takes time to be an expert. Trying something new is hard. Your code doesn't compile the first time, it's ok for there to be some mistakes along the way. At a couple of my new parents classes, I was always told: When you are on an airplane, attendants tell you that oxygen masks will come down on their own if the plane loses cabin pressure. There is the clear instruction: "Please put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others." You can't be too self-sacrificing. If you don't take care yourself then you can't take care of your child. Through the Yelp moms group, I have found so many moms in different verticals within Yelp. I've gotten a lot of great insight and advice from them, and have hopefully helped others.

Read on to find out how she juggles between her work and family responsibility and maintains the work-life balance.

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To-be-Techmom: Rashmi

Rashmi Kalegowda is expecting her first child in about three months from now. She is working as a Senior Tech Consultant at Perficient and has over six years of experience writing awesome code and engineering great systems. Here is a chat about her experience so far and what are her expectations from the future...

Q: What specific preparations have you made to enable you to give the best to your kid?

Its still a work in progress. In India, all of it is very simple. You have a lot of wanted (and unwanted) advice pouring in. In US its very systematic. We still don't know what to buy for the kid. We are still figuring it out. When you have a budget, but want to make sure that you are buying the best, it gets really difficult. I get drained and exhausted searching through the online stores, then you have to check it out in the store (just to be sure). There is house work and office work. For instance, we need to buy a crib/car seat. We may need a nanny or my parents (so we need to plan their travel) to help me out. Also, I am moving into a new role in January so things will change.

Q: What motivates you to come to work and do you plan to continue to work?

I enjoy my work. What I do and not the same work but new challenges and new environment. It has its fun - getting to learn something new, meeting new people. I believe everyone needs something in their lives which makes living meaningful. Sometimes, when I see my mother, it quite disappointing. After the marriage of her daughters, her life seems to have lost the purpose. We try to motivate her to pick up a new skill or learn something new. Since she has learnt about the baby, she has picked up knitting as a hobby, it makes me feel happy about her, in a way. So, yeah, I plan to continue to work! I may change the working style a bit. Since my company has a remote work policy, I may work remotely for next 2 years.

Q: What is the maternity leave policy at your workplace?

California's Paid Family Leave (PFL) allows upto 6 weeks of paid leave. The law mandates a minimum pay of 55%. My company actually pays 65% of the total earning. If the delivery is C-section you can take upto 2 months PFL. but there is a remote employee option.

Q: Did you consider changing job? Do you regret your decision to stick around?

Actually I did and I had an offer from a new company which I was about to consider, when I found out about the pregnancy. The main reason I wanted to change was salary. Also, new projects that were coming in were not challenging. But I found out that I was expecting, I chose to not take the offer. Its difficult to stay onsite for the whole day when one is pregnant. Its like you are not at your highest productivity and in the new company there are new challenges, you need to prove yourself. In my present job, people know me and they have seen me work at the best of my potential. They would back me up in times, also with changes in the management, I started getting new projects. So, no regrets!

Q: What is a typical day for you look like for you now and how do you expect it to change?

These days because of the health I am not 100% productive all the time. Sometimes I rest in the day so I work late to compensate. Somedays I am very active and other days I am not. The feeling is different for every women. Generally, farther you are in pregnancy, the more you are tired.

Q: How do you expect to keep up with your peers after you've been on a leave?

I am on probationary Technical Lead position, it was already in process before I declared I was pregnant. I was expecting promotion in October, since I am going for vacation in October now, I hope I will be promoted in December. I am knowingly choosing a slow career. I am not trying to take any additional responsibility. I don't have the time or energy. Completing even forty hours a week is a challenge. I am aware that it affects my career but its worth it. After my daughter is 1 year, I will work towards getting back on track.

Q: What advice do you have other women in the Tech field, how can they prepare themselves?

Well, for the first five months don't worry, just hang in there, it is quite early for anything. Actually, I didn't feel a single thing after I found a positive pregnancy test. Mentally nothing had changed, physically yes changes were happening. But I didn't feel the baby bonding at that time. I feel a lot good now. Yesterday, when I had beard papa and she started moving inside, it was a great feeling. She got the sugar high! Make sure you understand the challenges that are going to come up. Plan your day around the baby. I have another colleague, she doesn't work for 8 hours straight. She works for two or three hours and takes a break, then another two hours. She works for a total of eight hours.

[pimothers]

Tête-à-tête with Valerie

Valerie Tching is a senior engineer at SlideShare, LinkedIn who develops in Ruby and Javascript on the team that monetizes an awesome platform for sharing presentations. She is also a mother to a five year old boy and a two year old daughter.

I have seen her stay late at office on several occassions trying to ensure the last deploy was successful or debug a last moment bug in a product that has to be shipped on that day. I wondered, how is she able to maintain the work-life balance.

Here is a chit-chat that I had with her once to find out what keeps her motivated.

Valerie: Its about the individual ambitions and support of the family. I like to work and I can't imagine how would I be if I am not working. Being a good mother also means being fulfilled. My husband is very caring and supportive and strongly believes that career of a women is very important. Ones' cultural background and upbringing also plays a role in making career decisions and choices. In France, its pretty common to see working women and uncommon to find stay-at-home moms.

What is your motivation to keep working?

Valerie: Personal accomplishment drives me. Work gives me satisfaction as I feel improving my skills. If I will not work, I might feel that I'm missing something, that could affect my wellness and have repercussions on my family and kids. In my opinion, women shouldn't feel blocked by having kids. Kids are a part of their life but they still need to follow what inspire them. Some mothers who devote themselves to the children completely end up forgetting themselves, to them I only want to say - Don't forget yourself.

So, what does your typical day look like?

Valerie: On a typical day, my kids come and wake me up before 7 (haha!), we then go to the kitchen and I prepare breakfast for them - milk and bread with cheese or chocolate spread, or something I baked if I had some time to. Then we get dressed and we drop them to pre-school/daycare while going to office. Yeah, in US I have to take care of one additional task - prepare lunch for the children as the daycare/pre-school don't provide meals (it was really good in France.) Then, its usual day's job - code, test and deploy. I get back usually around 7 and my husband has picked up the kids and prepared dinner (yay!) Then I bathe the children and we have dinner, after which we play until we take them to bed around 9. If I don't have any tasks that need to be done, we watch a movie before going to sleep around 11. I usually don't take work back to home. On weekends we usually go to park or meetup with friends.

What is your advice to other women like you?

Valerie: As I said - Please don't forget yourself. Nanny/daycare search can be a nightmare but there's always a solution out there. It really helps if you are organized and have support. There is a lot more to manage when you have kids. You can't just take a day off, but it has its advantages. Sometimes after a tiring day at work, seeing your children smile takes away all the tension. Also, things become more manageable once the children start to be more independent. First years are great but also usually mean more work. Just hang in there and don't beat yourself. You need to setup reasonable expectations for yourself.