My 3-Month Maternity Leave Recap and Insights

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Becoming A Mom As An Entrepreneur

I feel like I’ve been in and out of the business for the past three months now. I am so excited to be reconnecting with all of you, and in this episode I’m going to be sharing my three-month maternity leave recap and insights to some personal reflections, business takeaways, and how my mindset has changed over the past three months.

As you guys may know, I am now a mother, so if you haven’t tuned into my birth story, I had my beautiful baby boy Leven Muen Thompson on February 25th of this year, 2025, and the whole experience was so surreal. It went perfectly according to plan.

And you may know that I had an entire process leading up to the pregnancy of how I would approach maternity leave and maternity leave as an entrepreneur is just so different than traditional maternity leave.

If I wanted to, I could still take months and months off, but a part of me really wants to get back into the business only because. My business was my first baby, my first business baby, and I’m at a point where Levin is doing so well, loves learning new things, and we’re starting to travel as a family, and there’s just so many exciting things going on.

Returning From Maternity Leave

So as of today, I am officially going to end my ‘maternity’, but it’s going to be still very balanced between motherhood and business. Honestly, the transition into motherhood was half what I expected and half completely unexpected and unpredictable.

I left a lot of projects just there in case I wanted to work on them. And honestly, going into maternity leave, I gave myself all the time in the world. Thinking that I was going to get bored at some point and I would want to do some work. However, the more I stepped into my mother role, the less work I wanted to do, just because raising a child – if you compare the importance – there is just no comparison.

There’s so many things that you thought were important, that are no longer important, especially when you are so new to being a mother. But as with anything, over a few months, you really find your new normal and you learn so many things. So now it is just a lot easier to manage.

Additionally, the emotional, physical, and mental adjustments during this period, I gave myself weeks and weeks. Months and months to adjust and it worked. Like I had all of the support and the time and the space to really process this new chapter, and I still have no idea what it looks like quite yet. It’s so hard for me to define, but I know I am defining it with every single passing day.

It felt so incredibly empowering to step away from work knowing that I had my business baby to come back to right there where I left it (thank you passive income and system automations!), so smoothly and supporting the lifestyle, supporting my family, and giving me the space to be able to be completely present with my baby. I am just so blessed and so thankful for the freedom. I don’t think I would’ve wanted maternity any other way.

Living and Traveling With A Newborn

So the first two months we were in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and during this past third month, we moved to Florianopolis, Brazil. (I have a whole episode on which city is better for you, here.) This week we are flying to New York, and then next month we are flying to England and the plan is to come back to Brazil afterwards.

But these past three months in Brazil, we were able to explore, go to the beach. We had time outside and we were so present for all of Levin’s developments. Like I truly feel like I have a new baby every single week. They just grow and learn so fast.

While all of this was happening, my business ran on its own. I also have an entire podcast episode. About how I set my business up to be able to run on its own. I prepared for maternity leave intentionally with automations, team support, and passive income streams. I cannot stress the importance of setting up passive income streams to be able to support you, and you can completely just tune out and focus on your family or focus on whatever you want. And not have to worry about actively making income or actively making a salary.

Of course, this takes time upfront to secure, like I’ve worked on this for years and years, knowing that one day I wanted a family and I wanted to be completely present with them. What worked really well were the systems, the automations. And knowing how much income I was going to bring in, so being able to accurately predict my return on ad spend, my recurring revenue, all of these systems that I have built, it paid off because I still get time to travel and basically focus 24/7 on my baby without feeling any guilt or stress.

Challenging Hustle Culture

I gave myself passion projects to work on in case I ever got bored. I started writing a few blog posts. I started tapping back and looking at analytics and tracking metrics in the business, but then very quickly, the motivation faded and I was like, you know what? I’m just going to be focused on Leven and this can wait. Like it’s not pressing. I don’t have to do it.

I would say my entire view on hustle culture and wanting to do something and feel productive, that went away for a while and I embrace that. As a type A perfectionist, I was always really tuned into how much I was achieving and accomplishing, and how my actions affected my future results.

But for the first time, I had something even bigger that I was focused on. Raising a child brings you a sense of duty and fulfillment that I have never experienced before, and I just think it’s so beautiful.

You Have The Power To Create Your Reality

Looking back to how these past three months just flew by in the blink of an eye, I cannot stress enough how you can’t underestimate how much you can achieve in a short period of time. Your life can completely change in a matter of weeks and your past does not define your future.

So if there is something in your business or in your life that you want to change, you want to invite a new reality for yourself, you have the power to start taking different actions to get those different results immediately. It does not have to take years. It does not have to take years of planning to achieve. You have the power to start creating a new reality immediately.

Learning New Priorities

Personally going forward in the business, I am totally going to prioritize my time and my energy. I simply just have no patience for things that waste my time, including my own actions. So inefficiencies or consuming content, or just doing things that are not worth my time and energy. I set stricter boundaries. I’ve also really learned how to delegate and trust others with different tasks from looking after my son to running my business for me. There is so much liberty in trusting that others are there to help you and you can find the perfect fit for the role you are looking for.

When we hired our first night nurse, we actually had to fire her because there were just things that. I think older me would’ve let just slide by because I wanted to avoid confrontation. But I’ve learned as a parent that there are things you need hard boundaries on. You need to speak up for yourself. You need to say things that make you uncomfortable and have those difficult conversations in order to invite in what is best. So by firing what wasn’t a fit, we were able to find the perfect fit.

Same thing in your business. If something isn’t working, if a person you hire isn’t working well, you need to make those difficult decisions and it’s going to bring you to the next level. All of this really just stems from what truly matters in your life and in your business understanding. What matters. What matters to focus your time, energy, and money on.

Juggling Business, Motherhood & Travel

I am going to continue living and parenting and running my business with just so much intention. I really envision continuing to grow the passive income at the Wanderlover and also helping all of you who may want to have this much time on your hands. Maybe you are expecting a child in the near future.

I want to share everything I’ve learned about just how I’m able to build up these systems to step back, it has brought so much joy and so much peace. Otherwise, I have friends who after three months they have to go back to work. I honestly would not know how to function, like how do you leave your child? How do you breastfeed, like even breastfeeding. That was such a personal journey, and it’s such an empowering one. I can’t imagine myself continuing to breastfeed if I had a full-time job. It just adds so many more complexities. So the fact that you have the choice, you have the freedom to choose what to do with your time, your location, and your money, it helps you be the best version mother that you can be.

I am so excited to be recording these episodes again, to be sharing content and behind the scenes of our family life, balancing business, motherhood, and travel. I really have learned just how resilient mothers are and how much you are capable of doing.

Before, I thought I had a lot of responsibility. Throw in a child, and I also look at people with multiple children, and I’m just like, how are people so freaking resilient, right? So if you are considering a break, if you are an entrepreneur, navigating a big life change, know that you can make it through. Know that you are more powerful than you think, and you need to give yourself more credit than you probably give yourself at this moment.

Thank you so much for your patience, for your support. If you have any questions or just want to chat as an entrepreneur or as a traveling family, my DMs are always open on Instagram @thewanderlover. I will see you guys in the next episode.

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