by The Happy WAHM
I’m a mom. And I’m proud and happy to be one.
Motherhood is the air I breathe. It is my reason for being. It is what I was born to be. Although this realization came belatedly.
I became a mother before I was a wife. A fact that to this day is causing me a great deal of pain. That I got pregnant out of wedlock was a disappointment to my family. And when I finally married the father of my daughter, the only member of the family who was present was my sister. My brother was not invited, and my mother just couldn’t come.
I went through that first pregnancy with all the hellish drama and heartache that was to be expected when a career woman, single, and who is well on her way up the rungs of the corporate ladder, files for maternity benefits, with no apparent name change, and the only attachment to the form was the medical certificate from the OB-Gyne. And believe you me, there is nothing worse than office gossip to wreak havoc on a person’s emotions. And it may be worth mentioning that my immediate superior, the vice president of the division, was single, and a woman. So, go figure!
But, what people didn’t know, and what I really didn’t care for them to know, was that it was partly my choice not to be married in the first place. I knew I wanted to be a mother, but was not so sure about being a wife. Although seven months into my pregnancy, the father just up and married me coz he would not have his child have any other name than his.
The “proposal” went like this:
“What are those?”
“These are the nappies and the blankets our daughter will use. These were my sister’s, then my brother’s, before they were mine. And soon they will be our daughter’s.”
“But those have your surname embroidered on them.”
“Yeah, fitting. Since our daughter will have my name.”
“Of course not. She’ll have my name.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, Sir. But this baby will bear her mother’s name. We’re not married.”
“Ok. Let’s get married.”
And so in two weeks, we were married.
And just like my becoming a wife, motherhood came without any fanfare. Just me going through the horrors of morning sickness, gossip, threatened abortion, more gossip, labor pains in the middle of a strategic planning, and me almost not making it home. My last recollection in the operating room was me humming along to “An Evening in December”, though it was still October. Christmas comes early in the Philippines.
Since I never really learned how to whistle, humming was the next best thing. The baby was in breech presentation, so I had to go through an emergency C-Section. For a person who has never been hospitalized, going under the knife required bravery as taught by that English teacher, Miss Anna. Although I didn’t whistle. I hummed.
Life was happier after the delivery. Not easier, no. Just happier. My baby became the center of my universe, and all the mudslinging at the office slowly died. I was with a baby for the first time in my life, and I was living with my best friend.
2 months after giving birth to our first child.
My husband and I started out as buddies. We just sort of hit it off right from the get-go. In a place where we were both strangers, we found ourselves sharing some fondness on topics that were nowhere near the telenovelas people around us were living, sharing music that you wouldn’t find in a karaoke songbook, and spending weekends together just quietly reading side by side, each lost in the world created for us by those who have imaginations richer than ours. Ours was never what romance stories are made of. We’re more on the friendship genre. I’ve lost my faith in romance a long time before I met him. Our friendship was made more precious by the chemistry that was effortlessly there. And I’ve lost count of the number of times we were approached by strangers and were asked if we were siblings.
I’ve always known I’m a quick study. I learn fast, and I learn well. And so the first two-and-a-half months of motherhood was a crash course in childcare, with buckets of tears at every turn. Each time the baby cried, I would cry, too. I felt helpless and clueless on what to do. For the first time in my life, I was responsible for another life, a baby’s at that, and I had no idea if what I was doing was right. It didn’t help that we didn’t have a television, no radio, and no computer/internet either. It was just me and the baby, day in and day out.
Isabel at 2 months
Much as I loved my new role as a mom, my career was still my priority. I now cringe at the thought of those times that my baby was running a fever and I would still leave to attend a business meeting. Or those times when I didn’t notice that my baby had a bruise from falling because I was dead tired from a business trip. My husband was the parent who was always there. I’d wake up in the middle of the night to check on our baby, and he’d be there, already up and changing nappies.
We had our second baby after four years. A conscious decision. We wanted to be better prepared. But we were not. The baby was born prematurely. And just like the first delivery, I went into labor while in a business meeting. That part, I had down pat. I was on the phone all the way from Laguna to Batangas, calling my staff back at the office (Hey, I may not be in tomorrow. Just send any documents for signature to the hospital), the OB-Gyne (I’m having contractions, now 5 minutes apart), the anesthesiologist (We’re aiming for normal delivery, but I’ll want you to be there), the emergency room (I’m on my way there, can you please follow up with my OB?), the admitting section (I’m coming in, I’d like a room, please.), and finally, my sister (I’m on my way to the hospital, can you come?).
Beatrice at 2 months.
You’d think that having two babies would slow me down career-wise. But instead, having two kids made me more driven to succeed. My work was dynamic, challenging, male-dominated, and I was out to prove that motherhood and career could mix. I was so afraid of losing my footing in my climb up the ladder that I failed to notice that I was missing out on my girls’ development. I was there, but not quite. My firstborn was struggling in school, and the younger sibling was being bullied. I tried to be a hands-on mother, attending school meetings, going to field trips, helping with homework, but my focus was still on the career that I was working so hard to keep. On hindsight, I now realize that I was purely driven by fear. Fear of losing grip of my dream of being a successful career woman. Fear of losing the financial rewards that go with that career, and failing to provide sufficiently for our children.
Then came the unplanned third pregnancy. It was some miracle that I got pregnant at all. It was to be the turning point of my life. I started bleeding on my third month. My OB-Gyne told me not to get my hopes up as it looked like it was going to abort. But I felt differently. I was asked to take complete bed rest for a month, and I did, willingly. For the first time since I started working, I was happy to stay away from the office. I stayed in bed without much movement, but still, I continued to bleed. My companion was my notebook, where I recorded every drop of blood that flowed out. I was fed and bathed in bed. No reading, no TV watching, as I am a highly emotional person, easily affected by just about anything and everything. Any sort of emotion was causing me to bleed. I was in and out of the hospital. My OB eventually advised me to just wait out the term in the hospital. But of course, it was not financially possible for us. Plus, we didn’t have a helper to watch over the girls.
Six months into the pregnancy, I was advised that there may be a need to take the baby out. They would try to save the baby outside of the womb. To give the baby a fighting chance, they would have to put me on steroids. But the baby had other ideas. Two days short of seven months, and with only one dose of the planned four injections of steroids, he decided he’s had it inside my belly, so out he came.
Jude at 2 months.
We took him home after a month. Feeding him was a whole day affair. He was so tiny, no nipple would fit in his mouth. He could not be breastfed as he still had no sucking reflex. I fed him through a dropper, so it would take an hour for him to finish an ounce of milk. After a few days, we had to take him back to the hospital. He was refusing his milk and appeared to be cold. He was shaking.
At the hospital, we were told that the shakes were actually seizures. He needed to be admitted again. On the way to the room we have secured, some force led my feet to the emergency room. I was going to say hi to the staff whom I have become close to in my four months of going in and out of the ER. While there, my baby turned blue. He stopped breathing. He was immediately intubated. Had we been in our room, he would not have made it. All the equipments were at the ER. And we were right there.
He was brought to the ICU. While there, he stopped breathing four more times. On that fourth time, his heartbeat quickly dropped from 130 to 25. I closed my eyes at that number, and just prayed like I have never prayed before.
After that incident, our pediatrician and neonatologist lobbied with the hospital management to have my baby taken back to the NICU (Newborn ICU). It was against hospital policy to have a baby that has been discharged to be taken back to NICU. But our doctors reasoned that the adult ICU would not give him the proper care he needed. The equipments are different, and the nurses are not trained for newborn care.
Another month in the NICU and several tests were conducted to find out what caused the seizures, and to find out if he had oxygen deprivation in his brain in those times that he stopped breathing.
After being discharged for the second time, Jude was placed under the care of a pulmonologist, an ophthalmologist, a neurologist, and the neonatologist who would continue to monitor him for six more months.
The neurologist would monitor Jude for two years. And so would I.
Leaving Jude in the care of a nanny was not an option. There were signs to watch out for. A parent has to be present at all times. And being premature, our therapist advised that I have to keep him close whenever possible. He had to sleep on top of me with his head on my chest so he could hear my heart. I had to time my breathing with his so we would breathe together.
A month before I was due to go back to work, I received a call from the division’s VP. I was being given a promotion. A new position to head office. Which meant that I would either drive to and from Manila daily, or get an apartment there and be home on weekends.
To say that I was devastated is an understatement. It was a dream position for me. The challenges that I knew would come with it were exactly what I was looking for. But with the baby needing close monitoring, there was no way I could be a weekend mother.
We knew I could not afford to lose my income. We were up to our eyeballs in debt. From the months of going in and out of the hospital while I was pregnant, to the delivery and consequent treatments of the baby, we just couldn’t give up my salary. So we worked on our numbers. Financial obligations, daily expenses, child care, emergency funds – all of these were put in an Excel file, along with our options.
I tried to explain our situation to my boss, and somehow she understood. Since the most workable set up would be for me to live in Manila, she pulled some strings to get a transfer for my husband, too. He was also to get a promotion to head office. So were we supposed to be thrilled with the salary adjustments we were due to receive? Well, not quite. Because we already own our house in the province. Whatever increases we were expecting to receive would just go to the rent, plus we would need to buy new set of appliances for the Manila base. These concerns were addressed by my boss again. She assured me that the apartment will be covered in my salary adjustment, on top of the nearly 200% increase on my monthly salary, plus a relocation allowance to cover at least some of the new appliances. Geez, she really must have liked me!
And she really made it hard for me to say no, but I did. Here is an excerpt from a page-long letter I sent her:
I must be crazy to even think of saying no. Yesterday, I was so hellbent on taking it, right there and then. The idea of having such tremendous responsibility, the opportunity of proving myself to you and to the company I have served for almost a third of my life, is so exhilarating that my head was spinning with ideas on how I will make my mark on this new arena.
Unfortunately, my own ambitions have to take a backseat for now. As you well know, I have a pre-mature baby who needs special care. By the time I get back to work in August, he would only be two months-and-a-half old, which by gestation would only translate to a half month of age. His first year is the most critical, according to his doctors. To leave him in the care of a nanny for the whole week is unimaginable.
This is one tough call. I have a headache from crying most part of the night. I can imagine being away from time to time. I’ve done a lot of travelling before. But the thought of permanence, making it the rule rather than the exemption, is frightening and emotionally crippling.
I really, really hope that you will understand. Another time, when there is no baby to breastfeed and watch out for, and when there are no hospital bills to take care of, I’d grab the chance with two hands. For now, I’ll let this ship pass me by, and watch the other taker with eyes green with envy.
Surprisingly, the decision to leave my employment did not drive me to depression, which my husband actually expected. He practically called me every 15 minutes, and that is no exaggeration, just to ask if I was okay. He knew of my career goals, and he was very supportive of them.
Motherhood, finally, caught up with me.
But motherhood, as I have realized, did not have to equate to being idle and giving up on my dreams. I just needed a push to set my priorities straight. My kids have to come first. Everything else need to be worked around them.
A career need not be housed in a skyscraper. A career need not be with a conglomerate. In the same manner that a successful career woman need not be wearing heels or a suit. Success can come in a housedress, or a pair of torn shorts and tees. I found a new career being a mommy, in the midst of all the tears and dirty diapers. I embarked on this thing they called WAHMing at the time that I had no idea what the acronym really meant. I was simply trying to contribute to the family income by using whatever skills I have. And I had no idea of the potential until I was deeply immersed into it. I researched, I studied, I learned. And being with my kids made the learning process much more enjoyable. There really is no exact formula. You tweak while you go. You build your tower one block at a time. And it’s not about ending up with a perfect tower. It’s how you enjoy putting one block after the other.
This is me now. A wife. A mother. I get to spend time with my children. And I have a career.
With my kids, near the spot where Jojo and I stopped for a quick pic almost 14 years ago.
This is who I am. A work-at-home mom. A very happy one.
by The Happy WAHM
I’m not Superwoman. I’m Batman.
Well, that’s how my close friends call me. Have you heard of “Bahala na si Batman“? In my younger years (and that is not to say that I am old now), each time a project is about to get started and group members ask each other what each of us would do or how tasks should be divided, someone would always pipe in and say “Bahala na si Batman.” The batman would be me. I take charge. I lead. But I’m not a superhero.
Nor am I a supermom. Na-ah.
People think I have some kind of superpower to be doing the things that I do. I homeschool two of my three kids, I accompany them to whatever activities they get themselves involved in, I run a home office full time, I sit on a school board, I’m on Facebook almost all the time, I take online courses to further hone my skills, I attend workshops, sometimes even conduct workshops, and we don’t have a helper. Some fellow WAHMs think I’m so good at time management. But I’m not!
Photo from timemanagementninja.com
There are days that I do miss deadlines, but not often, and I don’t make a habit of it, nor do I do it intentionally. There are days that I don’t do the laundry. I just say I’ll wait ’til there’s enough to fill a large load rather than medium. There are days that I skip mopping the floor. There are days that we just eat out rather than cook. We survive our lifestyle not because we manage our time well. In fact, there are days that I intentionally get up late, and days that I consciously make time to take a nap in the afternoon.
We do keep and follow a schedule, but it’s okay to veer a little when we feel like it. Because more than time, it is important that we manage our energy.
We have twenty-four hours in a day. That’s fixed. Yes, we chose the lifestyle we have now. So yes, it is up to us how we are going to put to use those 24 hours. And we choose to manage our energy.
Author Tony Schwartz says that humans have four types of energies that we need to manage everyday: the physical, the emotional, the mental and the spiritual.
The physical energy is about how healthy we are. Are we physically fit to religiously do the things we have committed to do? The emotional energy is about the happiness we feel doing what we do. That’s where I’m really big. If I can’t be happy with something, I won’t even consider doing it, much more commit to doing it. The mental energy is about how well we can focus on something, and again, if I’m not happy, I’m not likely to focus, am I? And the kicker, the spiritual energy, the purpose, the answer to the why we’re doing what we’re doing. Why we chose to live the lifestyle we are now in.
These energies, these are what we manage. Not time. Because we simply can’t manage time. But we can manage our goals, our expectations. We can manage ourselves.
by The Happy WAHM
It has been a bumpy ride, but I can’t complain. Customer service has been great, sans the technical mishaps. I received my card the day after I created my recipient profile in my client’s Ko-Kard account. Was really surprised when the LBC guy called out from the gate and told me I had a package from Ko-Kard. That fast! I must have made it to their cut-off for processing time, so my card was sent out the same day, and delivered by LBC the next. Hurray, too, for LBC!
So that was the other day. I even took photos of my card and posted it on my Facebook account. Just like my other BDO cards, it came attached on a letter, and the letter says the ATM PIN is also enclosed. There was nothing else attached so I read the letter again, hoping that somewhere in the jumble of words I would find that 6-digit PIN. Nothing.
Okay, cool! I was going to the city (we live in the boondocks) in two days anyway so I was just going to swing by the bank and maybe they can help. Meantime, I still needed to wait for the verification of my client’s bank account.
The next day, my other client sent me an email to inform me that he has registered with Ko-Kard, and he wanted to have my KID number. So I sent it on. That afternoon, my main client also sent me his bank verification information, so I was able to log in and attach my KID number to his account.
This morning, I finally made that trip to the city, and sadly, it all went to naught. The BDO staff told me that the default PIN for all their issued cards is 123456, so I should try those. After 15 minutes of waiting for my turn in a pretty long line, I did just that, but the system told me it was incorrect. I again went inside the bank and approached the BDO staff for help. They were really nice. Let me use their phone to call the hotline. The first to take my call was someone from their call center. She didn’t know how she could help me, so I was transferred to another lady. Again, the voice at the other end of the line had no idea why their default PIN would not work with my card. So I was again transferred to the Cash Card Department, coz they are in a better position to help me.
Now, this lady at the Cash Card Department is really something. After relating my problem for the fourth time, all she had to say to me was, “You should contact your card issuer.”
Well, hello! As far as I can understand, the letter came from BDO Remit, on a BDO letterhead, where my BDO Cash Card was attached, so I’m assuming that I can be somehow helped by the BDO staff. And the icing on the cake, she did not even bother to ask for my card number, if only to find out if I indeed have a card in my hands. Some kind of customer assistance you got there, BDO Cash Card!
Now, while I was on the phone with that Cash Card Department lady, the tellers at the bank were already trying to find out the status of my card. They looked for my account in their system, and told me that the status is issued and active. That, at least, was a relief.
So, to make a long, sad story short, I just thanked the lovely BDO ladies and told them that I’d just get in touch with the card issuer. Well, that was after I gave them an overview of what virtual assistance is about and how they, too, can earn from the comfort of their homes. 🙂
Fast forward to now.
I was just on the phone with Joy, a lady with a really sweet voice, who called me after I sent Ko-Kard Support an e-mail asking how I could get a hold of my mysterious PIN. Joy gave me my PIN, telling me that as a precaution, they really don’t send out the PIN with the card, and that the protocol is really to give the PIN over the phone, after the card holder confirms his/her identity by answering a few questions. Now, why didn’t I know that? Apparently, they sent me an e-mail with that information. That I should let them know the moment I received my card, so that they could inform me what the PIN was. And the e-mail was sent to one of my addresses that I don’t frequently use. My bad!
Still with that soft voice, Joy informed me that when using the Ko-Kard, from the main menu of the ATM, I should push on “Withdraw” and choose “Cash Card”. So there’s that special route you have to go to if you’re making withdrawals from your Ko-Kard. Something to keep in mind!
So I now have my PIN, and an email just came in a few seconds ago, informing me that a remittance is on its way.
Birth pains! But all’s well that ends well. And I hope that my VA readers have learned something from my experience.
by The Happy WAHM
I was just on the phone with Ken Sproule, owner of Ko-Kard, and no, that was not a job interview. 🙂
Let me share with you what actually happened…
Last Wednesday, November 14, I received notification from Xoom that one of my clients has sent me money. It usually takes a few minutes before I get another e-mail telling me that the money is ready for pick up. A few more minutes, the client sent me an e-mail to tell me that Xoom denied the transaction. When I clicked on the tracking link, it showed that the transaction has been cancelled. Came Thursday, November 15, and found another notification from Xoom in my folder. I was expecting it, since that one is from my main client and I actually manage his Xoom account and I also pay his other service providers through Xoom. Found out that the payment transaction has been cancelled. Came the invoice from the transcriptionists, so I logged in to Xoom to send out the payment. Instantly, the transaction was cancelled. And then it hit me. Xoom found me out! Xoom’s fine prints state that remittances should not be commercial in nature. So all payments to me are now being blocked.
Sent my clients an e-mail letting them know that we have to find another way they can send payments to me. Direct bank deposit is expensive, and so is Western Union. I shy away from Paypal coz it charges me an arm and a leg on withdrawals. And their conversion rate is almost a peso lower compared to Xoom.
Then my main client, bless him, sends me a link to payments.ph and says: “If that works for you, go ahead and set it up. Just tell me what you need.” So I went ahead and started the registration process. I have all his bank and credit card details so no problem there. After completing the required information on the first page, the system tells me that a confirmation link has been sent to the e-mail address I used in the registration. So I sent my client an e-mail letting him know that he has to click on some link or forward it to me.
Nada. He could not find anything even in his spam folder. Twenty-four hours passed and no link. So I finally sent Ko-Kard’s support staff an e-mail to follow up and requested for another link.
Must have received my e-mail and acted on it, on a Saturday, coz the client forwarded the confirmation e-mail to me. I went ahead and clicked on the link, and was told that the code was not in their system. Tried to log in, crossing my fingers that the client has clicked on the link and therefore it was no longer valid, but account must have been verified so I can log in.
No such luck! The account still needs to be verified.
I was already stressing. I need to pay the subcontractors, and I still don’t have the cash. So I e-mailed support again. And the one who replied was Ken Sproule.
“Please send a contact number so I may call you and get things sorted out.”
So I did.
And that was what the call was about.
The link turned out to be erroneous, so while still on the phone, I was sent another link to click, and it actually worked! So I continued on to page two of the registration, and at the end was told that another e-mail with a link has been dispatched to my client so he can verify his bank account.
It’s past midnight in his part of the world, so I guess I will have to wait ’til late tonight, or early tomorrow morning to find out what comes next with Ko-Kard.
by The Happy WAHM
Before starting your business, one question that you need to have an answer for is: Where will you work?
Your home office may be an unused room in your house, or a small corner of your dining room, or any space that can be used exclusively for your business. Pictured above is my office in a corner of our living room. I’m planning to make our garage my domain, but that will come later, when I have the budget for remodeling. For now, I have to make do with the space that I have. And this is where everything happens. Right next to my kids’ study area. I can put in some work while they do their seatwork. And it’s very handy when I need to show them pictures. (Like this morning, while Bea was working on combining two words to form a new word, the example given in the book was silkworm, and she has no idea what it looks like. So with just a few clicks, she was able to appreciate what’s written in her book.)
Having a work area that you can call your own will help you establish your business as a serious venture. It also puts boundaries. Like my family respects that space as my office, and they do not just get anything from it without asking for permission first.
Determine what basic equipment you need and invest on it. You can either purchase your equipment new, or if you’re on a tight budget, you can buy used equipment and upgrade later when you can better afford it.
Make sure that you have a business phone line separate from what your family uses, especially if you get or make a lot of social calls on that line. You will lose business if your customers cannot reach you at the time that they need you. With me, mobile phones work best. It allows my clients to reach me anytime, anywhere.
Working from home may take some self-discipline, especially in the beginning. You may find it hard to remain undistracted by household chores, or the children’s chatter, so setting up your own official office or work space will help you establish a mindset of “going to work”.
by The Happy WAHM
I promised to write about how I evolved from being a transcriptionist to a virtual assistant. So here it is…
Just like how I became a transcriptionist, I was pushed to the virtual assistance niche. After a year of doing transcription, and maybe not doing it properly, I started to have ringing in my ears. It might have been due to the bad quality of my headset, or it might have been due to the numerous bad audio files I picked up from the work queue.
Whatever it was that caused me to hurt my ears, it must have been God’s work. A door was closed. I could not abuse my ears, so there was no question that I had to stop transcribing. But a window opened. I found job postings at Craigslist and replied to a few ads that I felt I qualify for.
After going through some Skype interviews, I finally got hired by an internet marketing company in the UK. The task was to create one-way backlinks from high PR sites to their site. Uh-oh… What’s PR again? And what is a backlink?
Fortunately, the boss only needed someone who could communicate well, dedicated to her work, with stable internet connection, a fast learner and honest. So I qualified. He found me amusing, being so upfront about not knowing what he’s talking about and yet there I was, trying to convince him that I was the perfect VA for him.
It was quite an experience, learning SEO and internet marketing hands-on. Like I learned it as I went along. He would give me instructions over Skype, and if there’s something I don’t quite understand, I would just ask. No problem.
And then one day, the boss asks, “Do you know how to prepare a wireframe?”
My reply… “Is that the one used for eyeglasses?”
So the boss sends me a link to a site showing what a wireframe is and how to prepare one. Then he sends me a Word file that has information about a business that I’m supposed to prepare a wireframe for. And that was it.
As I accomplished more tasks, I gained confidence that I could learn more and do better. So I started to accept more projects, more clients. And in different time zones, too. Before our homeschooling days, my Google calendar was set up for schedules at PST, EST and AEST (UTC +10).
At work, when a client asks me to convert M4A files to MP3, I look for a free software that will do that. If I’m asked to take still photos from a video, I find out how I could do that. And so it was an interesting journey with every client, and I enjoyed, and still enjoying, every minute of each trip!
One thing that I can never stress enough is the importance of honesty. While it’s true that I accepted projects involving tasks that I had no prior experience with, I’ve always admitted that fact to the client. My strongest point has always been the ability to learn, and learn fast. And staying true to my work ethic.
