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| © Jami Saunders A high-risk pregnancy meant Katia Beauchamp, founder and CEO of Birchbox, had to close deals from her hospital room. Here, she tells her story. |
Late in my second trimester, I found out my
pregnancy was high-risk. My doctor said that my placenta (the organ that
connects the mother to the fetus during pregnancy) was implanted in the
wrong place. It's just bad luck if that happens, it has nothing to do
with genetics and can typically resolve itself, so I really didn’t think
anything of it. But my doctor told me early on he didn’t think my case
was going to resolve itself. It turns out, he was right.
On July 7, 2018, I was in Long Island with my
husband and three children, Niko, a 12-month infant, and my twins Guy
and Alec (who were 4-years-old at the time). We had just taken family
portraits and had I had my hair and makeup
all done. I was nursing Niko and I experienced bleeding when
breastfeeding. I wasn't really worried about it because it was just a
little bit of blood, but I called my doctor to make sure. Nobody was
really flustered about the bleeding, but my doctor said to go to the
hospital just in case. There I found out that my placenta was at risk of
exiting the uterus, which is very dangerous. My doctor told me that I
would have to be admitted to the hospital on bed rest for the remainder
of my pregnancy—at the time, I was about 24 weeks along and my doctor
said my condition was extremely dangerous and very high-risk; all of the
sudden I could start hemorrhaging, so I couldn't even be 10 minutes
from the hospital.
At first, bed rest felt like prison. I was in a
very dark place those first few weeks. It was hard to just be myself in
general, and though I was so grateful for visitors, every time somebody
left, I’d feel so alone. My family would visit at night and it was so
dramatically painful when it came time for them to leave because I was
so attached to Niko and he was so attached to me. My two other kids
understood why I wasn't at home, but it was still difficult to adjust.
Eventually, after being in the hospital for about 4 weeks, life there
began to feel somewhat normal. That felt scary too—because how did this
get normal?
Work, of course, hadn't stopped. At the time, Birchbox had just
developed a new board, so my first call after being put on bedrest was
to the chair of my board. I told them I was going to be working as
normal, but I couldn’t come in to any meetings. I needed to communicate
that because I wanted to establish trust. Luckily, they were incredibly
supportive. I could video conference into meetings, and I was able to
actually host live meetings at the hospital with my staff, usually with
an IV hook up in my arm. The nurses thought it was hysterical. There
were always doctors coming in and out. At first, I felt self-conscious
about that. I didn’t want people to think I was weak.
The weird
thing was that work became the best part of my day. It was such a mental
savior. My productivity and effectiveness were high—even my team was
impressed by the level of thinking and the thoughtfulness. We were
working on a major deal with Walgreens [a partnership deal that would
introduce Birchbox shops within Walgreens stores], which took a lot of
time. Although I was accomplishing a lot, I couldn’t do many things that
I would typically do in-person, like walking the office to check the
vibe. It is significant to not be physically present in the office.
As
for my pregnancy, my due date kept moving around. My goal was to make
it to 35 weeks. If your baby is born before the 35-week mark, he's
automatically put in the NICU. My twins had been in NICU for four days
and I really didn't want to go through that experience again. It's also a
big milestone in terms of lung development, so I was determined to get
there, especially after all the time I'd already spent in the hospital.
But three days before the 35-week mark, I began to have contractions.
I
was video conferencing with my merchandising team, not noticing any
contractions at first. My nurse kept coming in asking "Do you feel
that?" I'd nod "no," and indicate I was in a meeting. The nurses finally
stopped me, told me to end my meeting, and pay attention to what was
happening in my body. Next thing I knew, my doctor (my wonderful doctor)
was there saying I needed to go into surgery now; the biggest risk of
my pregnancy was me going into labor. I was so devastated that I would
have to deliver just 3 days ahead of the 35-week mark.
As I am
about to go into surgery, my husband says he has a text from my board
asking me to approve releasing my signature to sign the Walgreens
partnership. I was so relieved by that because it distracted me from my
real fear.
During surgery, I hemorrhaged a lot from the
complications. It was very dangerous for the baby and very dangerous for
me. It wasn't until 12 hours after the surgery that I was allowed to go
down to the NICU in a wheelchair. I could see my baby, but she was
still on a breathing machine. It was very scary.
When I was
discharged, I had been in the hospital a total of 100 days. For the
first week after giving birth, I couldn’t work because I was in a lot of
pain from surgery, but we were announcing the partnership with
Walgreens, so I started working as soon as I could, heading back and
forth to the hospital to see the baby (who was still in NICU) and taking
press calls to talk about the partnership. When the baby was ready to
come home three weeks later, I took 10 days of maternity leave to be
with my family. That first night that the baby was home, I remember
feeling reverberations of gratitude and love that everybody was okay.
Before this happened, I had never really ruminated on what women go
through to become mothers. I’m a feminist, and I think about how lucky I
am to be running a company, but I had never really appreciated the
trauma that some women go through to have children. When I shared what I
was going through on social media, so many people responded with their
stories on becoming a mom. I'm flabbergasted that we’re still debating
the ability of women. Women are infinitely stronger, women are
infinitely better, women are infinitely more capable, because of this
additional perspective of trying to or becoming a mother. The strength
and the ability to understand what really matters has such an impact on
the ability to do your job. Perspective had such an impact on my ability
to be fearless and take risks.
